too many grape Christians...

Anyone ever had a Purple Herman?? What's a Purple Herman you ask??

It's a delicious, purple, grape-flavored candy in the Tangy Taffy world. This was something that was introduced to me during my seminary days, by one of my best friends. We seemed to always have to snag a Purple Herman on our way to Tonkawa, Peacock Lane or to any one of our many sacred spots.

Well, one day, as I was munching on a Purple Herman, I also happened to have some real grapes on hand, so I was snacking on them as well. I have no idea why I was snacking on a giant stick of taffy while munching on some grapes, but this is what was happening. It was in this moment that I realized something...something that seemed extremely profound to me. Get ready to have your mind blown...

Grape flavoring tastes nothing like real grapes...

Holy cow!! How about them apples? or grapes?

So I began thinking about it, and everything "grape" that I had ever experienced tasted nothing like real grapes. Whether it was Big League Chew, grape sno-cones, grape soda or a good ol' Purple Herman, none of them tasted anything like the real thing.

I continued to think about it and guess what? This same thing applied to most flavors.

Watermelon Jolly Ranchers taste nothing like real watermelon...and they have ZERO to do with ranching, ranches, rustling cattle, or anything like that...but that's a different blog.

Strawberry Laffy Taffy tastes nothing like real strawberries.

Orange Sunkist tastes nothing like real oranges.

And I could go on and on...

The truth is, I don't know of any "fruit flavors" that actually taste like the fruit they are supposed to be representing. But at some point in time, somebody decided to call this flavor grape and this other flavor watermelon and this other flavor strawberry and it just became accepted as reality...even though they have ZERO resemblance to the real thing. And what's nuts is, when someone wants to make a new product, say a new type of candy, and they want it to be grape flavored, what do they try and make it resemble? Real grape flavor?? No sir...They just follow what everyone else has done, they copy the grape flavor that has been accepted as "grape flavor" and they replicate that. It's like they've totally forgotten that there's even another grape flavor out there...the real one.

Sadly enough, this is what happens to the Christian faith much of the time. Folks out there who claim to be "christian" start living life a certain way, start believing certain things, start claiming certain "truths" and at some point, it just becomes accepted as reality...even though a lot of the time they have ZERO resemblance to the real thing. And then what happens when new folks get interested in Christianity or become Christians? They just end up copying the manufactured, artificial "christianity" that has been accepted as reality. People lose sight of the real thing and they don't realize that the true Christ is still right there, waiting to be followed, waiting to be copied, waiting to be replicated.

There are way too many grape Christians out there...let's get real.