This week, we’re breaking down Cracker Barrel’s rebrand disaster, what it says about cultural and brand identity in America, and how we, as Christians, should apply the lessons learned to our own faith and lives. We’ll also look at the nation’s growing divisions and ask what unity really means from a Christian perspective.
Then, big news in sports and pop culture: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement, the kickoff of college football season, National Championship predictions, and Coach Bill Belichick stepping onto the college field for the first time.
All that and more in culture, sports, and faith—get caught up with a fresh Christian perspective!
Topics
- (00:53): Cracker Barrel’s rebrand controversy
- (08:13): Chili’s revival and success
- (13:40): The Christian brand
- (16:01): The divided states of America
- (26:27): Revival and community renewal
- (29:42): Pop culture news: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce
- (34:27): Global affairs: Russia and Ukraine
- (35:15): College football season kickoff
Resources
- Send us your thoughts, questions, and topic ideas: [email protected]
- Culture Brief Instagram
- Sign-up for Denison Forum’s daily newsletter: DenisonForum.org/subscribe
Links mentioned in this episode:
Other articles on this week’s top headlines:
- How a Cracker Barrel Logo Change Spawned a Political Firestorm – WSJ
- Chili’s was once a relic of the ’90s. Then it blew past its competitors—and conquered casual American dining. In its Texas test kitchen, I saw how.
- CrackerBarrel on X
- Texas Senate passes redistricting bill, California counters – Denison Forum
- Party Affiliation | Gallup Historical Trends
- Democrats and Republicans live in partisan bubbles, study finds
About Conner Jones
Conner Jones is the Director of Performance Marketing at Denison Ministries and Co-Hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. He graduated from Dallas Baptist University in 2019 with a degree in Business Management. Conner passionately follows politics, sports, pop-culture, entertainment, and current events. He enjoys fishing, movie-going, and traveling the world with his wife and son.
About Micah Tomasella
Micah Tomasella is the Senior Advancement Officer at Denison Ministries and co-hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. A graduate of Dallas Baptist University, Micah is married to Emily, and together they are the proud parents of two daughters. With an extensive background in nonprofit work, finance, and real estate, Micah also brings experience from his years in pastoral church ministry.
About Denison Forum
Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, The Faith & Clarity Podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited.
Conner Jones: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Conner Jones.
Micah Tomasella: I’m Micah Tomasella ,
Conner Jones: And this is Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast where we are navigating the constant stream of top stories and news, politics, sports, pop culture, technology, and man, that was all at the forefront of the culture this week. So we are gonna be hitting on a lot.
Micah, what are we talking about today?
Micah Tomasella: Yeah. Conner, we have a lot going on. Thank you for the very astute question that you ask every single week. So we’re gonna talk about Cracker Barrels, rebrand, disaster, and other big brands making headlines. Ooh, the United States is very divided. Conner and we all know that.
Is there anything that we can do about it? We’re gonna dive into that. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, if you haven’t heard or if you’ve been living under a rock, announced their engagement. We’re gonna give you our thoughts on that and college football predictions and the biggest games this weekend coming up, and so much more.
So let’s jump into the brief, the brief.
Conner Jones: Micah. As you know, we live in a society that revolves around big brands, just branding in general. On the [00:01:00] show, we have discussed brands. Even just a few weeks ago, we talked about American Eagle and their whole branding thing, right? Around jeans, right? It makes you question what do re what do brands reveal about identity and then audience connection, what does it reveal about us as individuals and as Americans, as Christians, all of that.
I think there’s a handful of brands that really right now are at the center of the cultural conversation. They can help us answer those questions. And so we’re gonna hit on real fast what I’m calling this week, the big four current cultural cs, and then I’m gonna add a fifth C that I don’t think is at the center of culture conversations right now, but it should be.
So I’ll hit on that at the end. But with inspiration from Dr. Jim Denison’s Tuesday edition of the Daily article. Here are the big four current cultural C’s, cracker Barrel chilies, cowboys. College football. Those are the praise guy. Four big things, leading conversations across culture this week. There’s some more, and we’ll hit on that later on, but [00:02:00] the four big Cs, those are some of the biggest brands in America right now.
And we’re gonna talk about why. The one that’s obviously garnered a lot of attention this week is Cracker Barrel. If you have not heard, they have just. Maybe had the biggest dud of a brand, le brand relaunch of all time. They tried to basically change everything. They changed the logo, they were gonna change the interiors of their restaurants.
They’re trying to change kind of their whole concept even changing some of the menu items. And that did not land well with many, many consumers. Not at all, including at all. Many people who made it political, they turned it into a big political. Woke restaurant debate even Trump’s gotten involved.
The whole thing’s just been very interesting. We’ve, we’ve talked about our own casual dining restaurant favorites here on the show, but Micah, I, I think we mentioned Cracker Barrel a few weeks ago. We didn’t really give ’em any opinions on it, but do you have just thoughts in general about Cracker Barrel and then about this whole.
Brand relaunched the new logo that they announced and everything.
Micah Tomasella: I think Cracker Barrel is [00:03:00] what it is. I think it’s a, a fun, special occasion place. I think about maybe growing up we would meet out of town family there, maybe meeting in the middle or like on a road trip or something like that.
You can count on it. You know, I, I think that that’s kind of why I understand why rebranding something like this. Hit people a little bit differently because it’s just seemingly been the same. So with the world continuously evolving and changing, you can always count on crock cracker Barrel, just being kind of tacky.
Yep. Having a lot of calories. You know what I mean? And, and you, you can just always count on it being the same thing over and over again. All the, all the knickknacks in the shop and, you know, the good southern hospitality and customer service, you can always count on it, right? I mean, I, I think Cracker Barrel is great for what it is.
As far as the rebrand backlash. I didn’t understand necessarily why it became so political. People are like, go, whoa, go broke. I don’t know if they necessarily. Did it with that intention of going woke, [00:04:00] but they did modernize something that people really valued the way that it already was. And it’s just I think it just shows people naturally just don’t really like change.
And I think people can kind of come in and hijack a story, but ultimately. The faithful clientele of Cracker Barrel did not like this. Mm-hmm. And they were smart to reverse course because the people who actually go and eat there hated it. Whether if it’s political or not. They did not like the fact that their Cracker Barrel was changing.
Conner Jones: You are right that I think a lot of that stems beyond the logo. The logo did not look, this new logo did not look good. It did look more modern, but it took away the old timer as they call him, uncle Herschel, the man who was leaning against the barrel. It took him away and it just was like. LAN letters of Cracker Barrel and black font.
No longer the brown font. There was no barrel. There’s no old man on the. The logo anymore on the’s, kind
Micah Tomasella: of a flat basic logo. Just
Conner Jones: flat and boring. Yeah. It, it almost looks like a tech company logo these days. Like just flat and boring. That’s not cool. That’s not a Cracker Barrel. They are nostalgic, they are [00:05:00] Americana.
I think that’s why people were so upset is they just felt like this was ripping up. It’d be like going into a baseball as America’s pastime and just ripping everything up and, and starting fresh with a new rebrand and new design and concept and everything. Taking something that is historic and American centric.
I think that’s just made people mad. And then you’re right. Yeah. The clientele was not very happy with that. And they definitely didn’t like the store remodels. There’s been a few stores that have been remodeled this year already, and if you’d been in Cracker Barrel, you know, there’s as Tim Hawkins used to say, Tim Hawkins, the old, the Christian comedian, he would say, first off about the biscuits.
They, they were so good. They’d make you wanna slap your mama. That’s what he always said. But then also, it’s like you walk in and there’s like a pickax above your head. Like you’re always worried about just getting something dropped on you that’s gonna hurt you. ’cause the walls are, am I gonna make it?
Yeah, the walls are just filled with like farming equipment and all of that. Anyways, they are reducing a lot of that that’s on the walls, trying to reduce clutter to make it look more bright and modern. That’s not, that’s just not going over well. No the whole thing really did backfire. They, they lost $143 million in market [00:06:00] value last week.
I don’t even know how much just brand damage they suffered, but it was probably really significant. I mean, people were calling for a boycott. I don’t think it was ever gonna get to anything like that. 2023, like Bud Light Boycott was that really damaged that company for the long term. This was probably just gonna be a blip on the radar for Cracker Barrel, but it was, it was costly, that’s for sure.
On Tuesday. Of this week, president Trump called on Cracker Barrel on true Social to go back to the old logo and admit a mistake based on customer response. And by Tuesday night they did just that. And they reverted back to the old logo and they said, on X, we X formerly Twitter. They said, we think our guests for sharing your voices and love for Cracker Barrel.
We said we would listen and we have our new logo is going away and our old timer will remain. So I, I think it begs the question like, why did they even do this in the first place? For one, they had, they’d been receiving over previous years, middling, middling marks on food value, experience, and convenience.
And they’ve attracted [00:07:00] 16% less traffic in the last year than in 2019. So they’ve had a massive decline in foot traffic into their restaurants. So that is something, yeah, you gotta find some way to fix that. And they’re obviously concerned about their primary customer base being older. A lot of their customers are 65 plus and they’re doing this marketing concept where you have to modernize to prepare for the next generation as an older base.
We’ll not be able to sustain the company for the long term. They’re thinking 20, 30 years down the road, right? You gotta, you gotta modernize. But a, a creative marketing expert, his name’s Jeff Rifkin. He came out and he was like doing a whole deep dive into this and he said the way that this rebrand came across showed that Cracker Barrel really said they don’t care about their core audience.
They’re too busy trying to appeal to everyone and satisfying no one by erasing the quirks in history that made people love their brand with fond memories. Cracker Barrel lost touch with what it did best and now comes across as generic, confusing, and hollow. So all of this as a branding statement just shows you that when brands lose sight of their customer base, they fail, [00:08:00] such as Target in 2023, such as Bud Light in 2023.
When they, they try to do something that’s completely detached from who their actual. Faithful customer bases it. It tanks the company. It doesn’t go well for them. By contrast, another big C here is chilies. And now Micah, I know you don’t have tons of opinions about Cracker Barrel. I appreciate you sharing some chilies, but chilies is like your thing, dude, I feel God in this chili chilies tonight.
Yeah. You’ve dragged me to Chili’s multiple times. You’re like, we’re going to Chili’s for
Micah Tomasella: years. I mean, I feel like for 10 years we, you’ve been going to Chili’s because of me. Listen, you’re about to talk about how Chili’s, by contrast is having a revival, a renaissance, right? Yeah. I can already, I already know what you’re about to talk about, and I know that you’re begrudgingly gonna talk about it.
But see, here’s the thing. I’ve been loving chilies before. Everybody loves chilies again. You understand what I’m saying? I’m not an original, it’s been around for a long time, but I’ve been loving chilies, even when most people hated chilies. And anyway, go ahead. I just wanna clarify that.
Conner Jones: No, I, it’s true.
I mean, you’re, you’re a Chili’s faithful. I will [00:09:00] not deny that. That being said, I personally still don’t like Chili’s, but they are having a revival, like you said slate. The just kind of culture talking magazine has called the revival a SA re, I can’t say the word, a renaissance. There it is.
They’re calling it a Renaissance because they are three years into a corporate revival campaign. Same store sales are up 31% in the first quarter of this year. So while other restaurants are struggling in this kind of economic condition and they’re losing foot traffic, Chili’s is actually on the up and up.
So what is their secret? Micah? They have said that it is because they’re streamlining operations, simplifying the menu. Emphasizing food quality in customer service and focusing on what the restaurant is most known for, which is burgers, fajitas, appetizers, margaritas, and ribs. And they’re not really trying to compete with quick trends, which is what some of these other restaurants and other companies are trying to do.
They’re, you know, they’re, they’re cracker barrel’s trying to do a quick trend thing. Make things looks more, less cluttered, both in their logo and in their [00:10:00] restaurants, and instead it, it, it just backfired. Yeah. If they would focus more on streamlining their operations, maybe in the kitchen reducing their storefront sale or the theft problem, that, that would actually probably help their restaurants more than a full rebrand.
Micah Tomasella: You know what, I’m gonna go ahead and do this. We’re going to post a poll question and it’s going to be timeframes on when the last time is you’ve been to Chili’s. Last month, last year, last five years, something like that. When’s the last time you’ve been to Chili’s? Just to see with our faithful Christ following audience, how often they’re going to Chili’s for me.
I’ll go ahead and tell you we were at Chili’s this last Sunday, so three days ago we went after church. Me, my wife, the girls enjoyed a fantastic meal, fantastic customer service. Enjoyed it through and through con. When’s the last time you’ve been to Chili’s?
Conner Jones: It’s probably once in the last year and I’m sure it was with you because we met a group of guys there probably and just hung out at Chili’s.
’cause you convinced everybody that [00:11:00] that was the spot to go to. Or maybe you, you go so often you get like rewards. Man, you get like free chips and salsa, so you’re like chips and sauces. I mean, I don’t know if it’s
Micah Tomasella: that often, but Yeah. You know, I mean basically they have a, a great model where anytime you show up you either get a free soda or free chips and salsa.
You just have to put in your number. So I mean, there you go. You know?
Conner Jones: There you go. This is free marketing for chilies right now, but they’re on, they’re on the up and up, that’s for sure. They’re not just the nineties, they’re not stuck in the nineties. They are. They are up and up. Another company. Not really a company, but a definitely an organization, you know, and keep seeing in the news is the Cowboys, right?
They are the world’s most valuable sports franchise, valued at $12.8 billion. But obviously that money has not translated to success as Mike and I have very beg begrudgingly noted because yeah, you know, our whole lifetime as Cowboys fans has been a disaster anyways, 30 years. Of an NFC championship drought.
Even with all that money, they have continued to go up in franchise value [00:12:00] and they’re literally still known as America’s team. And Jerry Jones is still the face of the NFL somehow, some way because he has a way of driving the attention economy. I mean, this week there’s this big Netflix documentary. At the same time, Jerry Jones is on TV every 30 minutes on sports and.
Just basic media news and all. He was on Fox
Micah Tomasella: News too. Yeah. Yeah.
Conner Jones: He’s always on the, he, there’s only one other person I can think of that knows how to drive attention economy better than him, and that’s literally Donald Trump. So that’s it. Other than that, they’re very, it’s, they’re, they’re very similar in that way.
And Donald, one of the two is always on tv. Yep. You know, people like to hate on the Cowboys, and as Brad Sham, he’s like long longtime cowboys announcer has said. And there is no sports hate in America that comes closer to the Dallas. Cowboys hate. Those who hate the team will never stop talking about them.
If someone in Massachusetts or Nevada turns on a Cowboys game hoping they’ll lose, that doesn’t matter to the ratings. All that matters is that they are watching. That’s right. Cowboys, they know how to drive attention. They actually thrive on the hate. That’s part of it. Yep. And then this week, the other thing driving the cultural [00:13:00] conversation is obviously college football as we get prepared for that to begin, and we’ll be talking about that here in just a minute, but that is just a big brand in and of itself.
And you know what you’re getting when you talk about college football and you get, you know, what you’re getting next week when we talk about an even bigger football league. Yeah. That’s gonna start dominating conversations. So these are the big four. Current cultural seas dominating that social discourse this week, what’s the fifth one that I mentioned? That is gonna be the Christian brand. You can also call it maybe the church brand. Both are great c words to use here. Brand identities, Micah. They’re just, they’re so carefully crafted by individuals and companies to increase their public profile and culture, right?
So as Christians, we have to recognize that we, ourselves, we do have a brand, and, and that comes with so much of a greater mission than to raise our own profile and show our own just basically make ourselves a brand. It’s, it’s all on behalf of Christ, right? We know branding’s been around for thousands of years.
People have branded their cattle. For many, many generations that [00:14:00] showed ownership. When you brand your cow, you’re saying, I own that cow. That cow belongs to me. Yeah. If it goes onto your land, send it back to my land. And if you’re a follower of Christ, you have been branded by Christ. Our hearts are marked.
We’ve been branded by the cross, and the way we carry ourselves is representative of Christ. In Matthew 10 32, we are told to acknowledge Christ before men. In Romans 12, one, we are told to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. Luke 9 23 says to take up our cross and follow Christ Daily. The reason for that, it’s, it’s honestly pretty simple.
It’s just that Jesus can change only what he can touch. He can transform our lives to the, the degree that he is Lord of our lives.
Micah Tomasella: Yep.
Conner Jones: And transformed lives are the Christian brand promise and nothing less. When we are transformed, we are the brand of Christ. As Jim Denison wrote in the day article on Tuesday that I referenced earlier, he said, like many churches and denominations, today, we can change our theology to adapt to the popularity of L-G-B-T-Q and [00:15:00] abortion ideologies.
Like some in the evangelical world, we can jettison our culturally unpopular belief that Jesus is the only way to salvation. But if we abandon the core tenets of biblical Christianity, we can lose touch with what we do best. This is our brand promise, Micah, offering the gospel. By contrast, if we yield our lives daily to Christ as Lord and lead everyone we know to join us, we can never be the same and neither can they.
So as you go into your week, think about this. Is your brand this week being formed by the gospel or by the world?
Micah Tomasella: Oh, Conner. Yes. Good stuff. Thank you for taking us through that. And that is a solid spiritual application. A lot of that is pulled from the wonderful writings of our founder, Dr. Jim Denison.
Man, leave it up to that guy to take some rebranding to actually bring some conviction to our hearts of, you know what, man? It’s, it’s such a good quote because if we change, like the world changes, what is the differentiation anymore? How are we any different? Yeah, we [00:16:00] need to take that seriously. It’s a great point.
So let’s jump into my story this week and really what I wanna call it is the divided states of America. Because that’s really what it feels like. This is becoming, not really, you know, it’s just kind of more of an analogy. We’re still the US of a still strong in many ways, but struggling in many ways. And I wanna talk about what we can do about it, but let me kind of lay the groundwork for it.
So America feels like a nation falling up, up, just pulling apart. And I’ve really felt that recently. Even more so this month, I’m gonna use the example of. Redistricting. Okay. But this month, Texas passed a redistricting bill that creates five new Republican leaning Congressional districts, or at least they hope Governor Abbott is expected to sign it quickly.
Almost immediately, California answered back. Governor Newsom signed the Election Rigging Response Act, is what he called it, sending voters a constitutional amendment this fall to create five new Democrat leaning [00:17:00] districts to basically wipe those out. It is one state versus the other, and it captures something much bigger.
America is not just divided politically. We’re fractured culturally, socially, and spiritually, like what we used to hang our hat on. What would generally unite us as Americans. I think that it’s kind of harder to put our finger on that now because of how much division has been sewn into our culture, and I think we all feel it.
Honestly. It hurts to see, it’s hard to watch the media pit us against each other day after day and to see how easily we feed right into it. Remember, we make this point all the time, Conner. The media is just giving us what we want. Mm-hmm. So essentially we’re just getting what we deserve right now. We are acting in such a way that, of course, division is going to happen.
So sometimes it feels like the divide is getting wider and every time we scroll our feeds and turn on the news, honestly we get divided even further. Conner, what are your overall thoughts on that? [00:18:00]
Conner Jones: Oh, there’s definitely division in America. I think you’re right. You know, the, the US is still strong.
We are still the United States of America. Yeah. But division’s also part of the history. I mean, we had a whole civil war in the 18 hundreds. That was a big piece of US history because there’s so much division over what to do about slavery and states rights and all of that. And there’s been division ever since then.
There have also been these incredible moments of uniting typically surrounded around some sort of. Global conflict, world War II nine 11, brought the country together, all that type of stuff. So you see that. But I’m very interested to see where you’re headed with this, because you’re right, there is division and Media does want you to stay on their channel, on their podcast, on their social media feed because they’re gonna tell you what you want to hear.
That’s, we’ve talked about that before. That’s just a piece of how the, the attention economy works. It’s part of their brand, essentially.
Micah Tomasella: Yep, that’s right. So I’m gonna give some historical context and then just give you some numbers. Behind the divide that we’re seeing. So the word gerrymander, which is a lot of, you know, [00:19:00] everything having to do with redistricting, which we’ve talked about.
And then we see California responding and then we see all these other states trying to get involved in it too. But that word gerrymander goes back to 1812, but the effect today feels sharper than than ever really since the Civil War. So Dr. Jim Denison notes that only about three dozen of the 435 house districts in America will even be competitive in the next election cycle, and that’s on purpose.
It’s this concept of when a party gets in power, they reshape it to hold on to power. Harvard research shows that 98% of Americans now live in communities dominated by one party, so people are gravitating. Gravitating towards people that they have things in common with, which in theory isn’t necessarily wrong, but I think it’s adding to the problem.
In 2020, there were only 16 districts where voters split their vote between parties, and in 2008, that number was 83. So it’s just from 2008 [00:20:00] to 2020, that number changed drastically. Split split ticket voting used to be common. Now it’s almost gone. So it was more common to say, I’m gonna vote for a Democrat for president, but then I’m gonna re, you know, vote for this Republican rep.
For my county. And here is where we need to pause and say. That was then, and this is now. So many analysts believe the United States is more divided today along ideological and political lines. And at any time since the years leading up to the Civil War, the partisan divide now reflects deep cultural chasms.
And this is what Jim’s article this past Tuesday highlights. And here are a few examples that he gives. Of the 15 states with the most restrictive abortion laws, all 15 voted for Donald Trump. In 2020. Of the 21 states with the most permissive gun laws in 20 23 19 voted for Trump. Of the 23 states that registered transgender participation in school, sports or other L-G-B-T-Q issues, 22 [00:21:00] voted for Trump.
These are not just policy debates. They are dividing lines that shape people’s identities and shape people’s values, and I think that that’s kind of a point. That I wanna draw to and, and come to is that at a certain point, something shifted. Where, what I believe politically is now so attached to who I am, it’s called identity politics.
And I think identity politics have not done a good service to America, just in general, because the concept that, oh, I’m a Christian, therefore I can only vote Republican. That’s not really doing service and that’s not really looking, you know, that’s, that’s not looking into all of the issues. Right?
Or the concept of I’m a an L-G-B-T-Q person. Then I’m only gonna vote. Democrat. That doesn’t really serve America and it doesn’t serve the person well because we’ve gotten so wrapped up in who I am is tied into who I vote for. So the Pew Research Center reports that 80% of Americans see polarization itself as a major threat to the nation.
So it’s not like we don’t acknowledge it’s a [00:22:00] problem, which I think is. It should offer some hope that there is actual research out there, that the polarization we see in our country is a huge problem. However, there isn’t huge strides being made to actually do something about it. It seems Gallup data shows fewer than 35% of Americans now call themselves politically moderate.
The middle ground continues to get smaller and smaller over the years. Conner.
Conner Jones: Yeah, this is interesting. All interesting data. I’m not surprised by it. I mean, yeah, we, we live in communities that we tend to agree with the people around us. Maybe it’s not just you specifically, but that’s the way Americans tend to.
Tribe up, if that makes sense. It’s a very tribal country, humanity. We’ve always been tribal. We tend to flock towards people who think like us maybe look like us, maybe feel like us believe in the same things we believe same values, and so yeah, you, you become tribal in that way. So it’s very interesting to see.
The data you just pointed out. It’s also interesting to just know that there’s [00:23:00] always just a few swing spots in America. We have 50 states, but this past election was like seven states were the ones that really mattered. Seven, seven states. It almost really came down to one state, Pennsylvania, and then from there it came down to a couple counties.
And it was like determined that basically there’s a subset of 300,000 people in Pennsylvania that would decide the election based off of how they voted. It’s, yeah, it’s true. It’s, it’s a country of 300 something million people and that 1%, I guess 0.01% was the, the subset that was gonna decide how much of a, a direction we were gonna go in the future.
So it, it’s kind of all, it’s all interesting data. Like elections do matter. And especially in smaller scale elections where you have your vote is one of a. A smaller chunk of people in local elections and all that, but it’s, it’s just kind of crazy. All those, all those stats you just listed off.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah. You know, and I think about what’s at stake and really all, all I wanna say for that is, you know, if you’re a, a parent, a grandparent, an aunt and [00:24:00] uncle, even if you’re just someone who’s younger and you plan on living in America for the rest of your life, there’s this concept of what does the future look like?
And so I see this polarization taking hold, and I see that every elected official, for the most part, isn’t really doing a very good job bringing about unity. Like no matter how you feel about Donald, Donald Trump, his aim is not unity. Right now, his aim is. To carry out his agenda, right? Mm-hmm. It’s not to bring the American people together, it’s to, it’s to say, I’m going to accomplish what I came to accomplish, and half the country’s gonna support it, and half the country isn’t supporting it.
And so I think about what country are my kids going to inherit? Conner, what country is your kid gonna. Inherit is, is this gonna continue to get worse? Is it gonna get better? What is the hope in this? So here’s the spiritual application and the challenge. So this is where faith speaks with a deeper hope.
I believe in John 1721, Jesus prays that they all may be one. Just as you Father are in me and I in [00:25:00] you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. Jesus is the common denominator. Jesus is the true peace and true hope. True light in all of this. Ephesians four, three calls us to be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.
Isaiah five 20, let’s go. Old Testament warns us woe to those who call evil, good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Proverbs 21, 3 says To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. Unity in Christ is not about political agreement.
It’s about a shared allegiance that rises above all parties. True biblical peace is not just the absence of conflict, and we talked about this actually last week. There will always be conflict. It’s a result of our sinful, fallen human nature. We have seen God bring unity in healing to this nation [00:26:00] before, and I believe that he can do it again, but it’s not going to be getting people to vote for your political party.
It’s gonna be rallying around the one true foundation, the one true eternal one. The one who has no beginning and no end. The alpha, the omega. That’s Jesus. That’s going to be the thing that brings unity. So we need to be spending more time on that. Fellow believer then trying to convince people to vote the way that we vote.
However, you might find yourself voting. So the great awakenings in American history came during times of division and moral drift of wars, of issues, of problems like we’re seeing today. Revival spread and communities were renewed, and the gospel unified people across racial barriers, political barriers, sexual orientation barriers.
It united people across those barriers. It’s the only hope that same kind of renewal is possible today. Get out of the house, get off of your phone, and go serve somebody today. Matthew 5 41 says [00:27:00] this, and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. The words of Jesus. Take it a step further, outdo one another and brotherly love.
Take it so far that people can’t help but question the light that’s inside you. Love with such radical generosity despite what the disagreements might be, and watch change take place in your home, in your neighborhood, and in your community. So right now, America feels like the divided states of America as I wrap this up and it hurts to see, it hurts to watch us fight.
Over all of these different things, but this does not have to be the end of the story. So maybe the best place to start is this. Let’s pray for our leaders intentionally on purpose, even the ones that we disagree with. Let’s pray for our neighbors, even the ones who frustrate us. Maybe it’s time we actually get out and get to know our neighbors.
Maybe we actually need to knock on a neighbor’s door and get to know them. Maybe we should do a little bit more than just waving at them when we see them. It’s convicting for all of us. Let’s actually [00:28:00] get to know our neighbors. Let’s choose to step outside of our echo chambers and what makes us comfortable and actually listen.
Let’s put down the doom scrolling on social media and turn off the endless cycles of Fox News and CNN. Instead, go talk to your neighbor. Go serve at your church, volunteer in your community, and above all, let us ask God to do what only he can do to bring healing. To bring revival, to bring unity that no redistricting map or political win could ever give unity in Christ is possible.
It’s attainable. It’s something that only God can do, and I’m believing for it. I’m praying for it. We have seen it before and we can see it again, not because of who we are. Remember not because of our effort, but because of who he is.
Conner Jones: Yeah, that’s good. And it’s all true. There’s so much we can do to continue the division.
So doing exactly what you’re saying, calling us to Unity. And I just think about how Jesus came for the Jew and the Gentile. He did not come to create more division there. He came to [00:29:00] unify and to bring us all together because he came for all people of the earth. And that’s very clear in scripture.
He’s, he, he came for everybody. And so that’s just an incredible thing. I can’t believe we, neither one mentioned M-S-N-B-C because they kind of touch on both of ours. One is, it’s one of those channels that Yeah, they, they. Drive attention by giving you what you want. And two, they just had their own rebrand debacle.
They’re now gonna be called MS Now, which is just, you know, I don’t know. Yeah. But no
Micah Tomasella: one cared about MS. NBC then, and now they’re not caring about ms. Yeah. They
Conner Jones: may not it, it’s definitely losing viewership Ms. Now, but Ms Now is gonna be the new name of MS. NBC. Yeah. You know. There’s some rebrand notes that all these companies need to be taken anyways.
Sounds great. Micah. We might have some of the biggest pop culture news over the years so far. Yes, it makes me, you know, did you, did you hear the collective scream of all the swifties around the world yesterday when that Instagram post dropped of her, you know, announcing their engagement? [00:30:00] Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, I put my earplugs
Micah Tomasella: in.
I, I put my earplugs in so that I wouldn’t hear all the screams. Did you hear the screams?
Conner Jones: I, I felt like I could, I did hear my wife squeal down the hallway and that was after I told her, I said, Hey, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey got engaged. She went, is she a swifty? She’s not even a swifty. It’s just like a general excitement.
You know, we don’t have a royal family here in America. So there’s never been like that big royal wedding unless you count Meghan Markle. Somehow I think that this is gonna be the biggest. Wedding event far beyond Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez. That happened earlier this year. That was more of like a, a money wedding.
This is gonna be like, yeah. I don’t
Micah Tomasella: really think people cared that much about that one. They didn’t, other than just the fact that it costs so much money, there wasn’t a personal attachment to them. There’s so much personal attachment to Travis, Travis and
Conner Jones: Taylor. There’s also never been a couple that’s been like, you bring all, all these fans of Taylor, of the music side.
Yeah. And then all these fans of Travis Kel on the football side. Yeah, it’s just it’s like bridge the gap. This, this is the ultimate unifying thing in America, right? Like you brought these [00:31:00] two groups of people together. You know what? True.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah. And the, and I’m and the football fans. There you go.
There you go.
Conner Jones: You know what I’m saying? Anyways congrats to the happy couple. We’re happy for them. I hope that this is a good example of a healthy, strong marriage. This is what America actually needs, is less pushing off of marriage by having strong married couples. I do not know their faith stance.
We don’t know where that stands. I would pray that, you know, Jesus does reach both Travis and Taylor’s hearts and yeah, hopefully, hopefully they end up being a great example. But we’ll see. I’m sure there’s more we can talk about there. I did ask a couple of our team members here, Micah, that our, you know, certified swifties for their thoughts on this, and I thought that their, their thoughts were pretty interesting.
This was right after the announcement came out. One person, her name’s Claire. She’s on my team on the marketing team. She said I’m super happy for them. Also, they are PR geniuses for her being on the, his podcast last week announcing her album and getting engaged all around the same time. This is a ton of good publicity for both of them.
So yeah, that’s one way to see this, right? This is just [00:32:00] a big, big kind of organized pr stunt all time. That’s a good plan.
Micah Tomasella: I mean, that’s actually like a good point that Claire made because. Know, the concept of of, of all publicity is good publicity, but what if a lot of the publicity is bad publicity?
Then it just kind of depends on who you ask, right? But in this case, having her on the podcast, announcing her new album, announcing the engagement for the most part, positive reactions to all of it. That it, so that actually is, yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah. It
Conner Jones: brings them both back to the forefront of the conversation and culture.
And then Grace, she’s also a big time swifty on our team. She said right before football season starts, do we think this could be the year she finally does a Super Bowl halftime show? That’s a good point. Is that, is that part of the agenda here? I mean, the nfl Oh, that
Micah Tomasella: would be a.
Conner Jones: Dude, the NFL socials yesterday were posting this this was an NFL move.
This is, there’s more to this than just Travis Kel getting engaged like any other player gets engaged. The NF L’s not posting about it. Travis Kel gets engaged to Taylor Swift all of a sudden. I, I mean, [00:33:00] you know who broke the news of this to a lot of people yesterday? NFL Insider, Adam Schefter, which is crazy that so many people found out from Adam Schefter.
That guy knows that that’s who we go too far. N NFL trades, all the
Micah Tomasella: Swifties just got. Just got exposure to a tweet literally from Adam Schefter.
Conner Jones: That’s how I found out, bro. I found out from, I got ESPN alerts, everything. It’s just crazy. Anyways, wow. Congrats of them. Fantastic. Michael. Something else happened this weekend.
Micah Tomasella: Yeah, some other stuff happened too. So Tommy Fleetwood finally won his first PGA tournament and it was the se it, it was the season finale, tour Championship that gave him $10 million. Tommy Fleetwood, he’s a Brit. He seems like a really, really good guy. Multiple top 10 finishes across his career, but was just kind of known as fizzling out on the fourth day.
And, and he actually won it. And I think everybody’s just really happy for him. Now we have one month break. Yeah, we have a one month break before the Ryder Cup where the 12 best American players take on the [00:34:00] 12 best European players. Always a fantastic matchup because I mean, truly it’s often the 24 best golfers in the world going at it, and it happens every two years.
So it happened in 2023, then it’s gonna happen again in 2025. Go Team USA, we’re really excited. We’re, we’re recording today on Wednesday, August 27th. Episode will release Thursday morning, August 28th, but later today while we’re recording, they will announce the official Ryder Cup teams. So we’re looking forward to that.
Finally, Putin and Zelensky definitely will not be meeting before the end of the month. You know, yeah, that we wrote in here. Shake my head basically, because it’s that was a goal. That was a plan. Doesn’t mean the meeting won’t happen, but it does seem after the summit and after these talks, things have kind of fizzled out, really hoping something can happen and a resolution can take place for peace.
Conner Jones: Yeah, in fact, tensions have actually gone up a little bit. There’s been more intens fighting in Ukraine, and then the Russians have been flying aircraft over Alaskan airspace, and the US has had to scramble up jets multiple times to escort [00:35:00] these Russian aircraft in the last week, four times in the last week to escort them out of our airspace.
So I don’t know what’s going on. It feels like this is just. Not going the way everybody thought it was gonna be going. We’re far away from a meeting between the two. Okay. Here we go. Micah. College football is back, baby
Micah Tomasella: college football.
Conner Jones: Life is good. Football’s gonna be back on our screens from like Thursday to Monday, get a reprieve on Tuesday and Wednesday.
We’ll have fantasy football going college pick them, leagues are going, all these things. People are gonna be going to game days. The bands are gonna be playing, light jackets are gonna be worn as we just see the weather finally start to calm down in September. And man, we’re just gonna enjoy some good football.
And I know there’s a big game this weekend that Micah’s really looking forward to. We’ll hit on that in just a minute, but. Micah, what team do you think is gonna win the National championship this year? Just as your early, early prediction.
Micah Tomasella: I’m gonna go ahead and go with the University of Texas. I mean, I’m a big Longhorn fan and you know, I remember it’s a [00:36:00] very vivid memory when Texas beat USC in the Rose Bowl in 2005.
Defied all the critics and everybody who thought USC was gonna win and delivered the National Championship to the University of Texas Longhorns with Arch Manning, with a great defense with some awesome offensive weapons. I think that this very well might be our year in this first game against Ohio State in the horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio.
On the road is a great litmus test for what this team’s got, but I’m gonna go ahead and go with the University of Texas.
Conner Jones: Yeah. Oddly enough, I’m actually gonna go with Ohio State winning it again. They won last year, the whole thing. And I think that they’re still probably the best team in the, in the nation.
But I’m happy to be proven wrong here. And I think watching Arch Manning’s just gonna be fun because, you know, he’s, he’s gonna have that Manny talent. He’s like, he’s like Eli and Peyton, but with running legs. Like he’s just gonna be better than his uncle.
Micah Tomasella: He’s like his grandfather. Archie. Archie was a great runner.
Mm-hmm. Whenever he played in the NFL. You know, I, I think this first game could be very telling for our [00:37:00] picks. I think your pick. Mine and everybody else’s rides on the quarterback play. You know, Ohio State has a brand new quarterback, so we’ll just see how that works out. And Arch is new-ish, but he’s also played several games too, and has an incredible pedigree.
So we’ll just see how that works out. Conner, what’s your sleeper team this season? What’s the team that’s gonna surprise everybody in the college football world and actually do some damage this year?
Conner Jones: I kind of, I’m leaning towards. A couple schools, but I’m gonna pick Indiana, university of Indiana, the Hoosiers man, they they kind of snuck up on everybody last year.
I think they’ve doubled down. They brought in certain transfers and they’re gonna be that team that’s just not one of those typical power broker teams. Not a mm-hmm. Not they are a Power five school, but they’re not one of the big, big ones world. I love their coach. What’s his name
Micah Tomasella: again? Oh,
Conner Jones: Man, I can’t remember.
I cannot remember. I shouldn’t
Micah Tomasella: have put you on the spot. He has that Italian last name, man. He is, yeah. I’m, I’m gonna look it up. He’s awesome. He is awesome. Okay my sleeper pick is actually Texas Tech, the Red Raiders over in Lubbock. They have spent an [00:38:00] incredibly large amount of money in the transfer portal.
They have a, a highly touted recruiting class. They’ve got a lot of transfers coming in. They’ve got a good solidified program up in Lubbock. They love to throw tortillas on the field. It’s a great place to be. And you know what? Our buddy Cody, whenever he listens, he’s a big Texas Tech fan. I think he’s gonna be happy to hear me say that.
I do think Texas Tech wins the Big 12 this year and does some damage.
Conner Jones: Yeah, they, they’re gonna be good. They’re an interesting case study because tech used to have a hard time recruiting. Obviously they do have former great athletes. Patrick Mahomes and Baker Mayfield both played at Tech, but they used to have a hard time recruiting ’cause they’re in Lubbock, Texas, which is not the most beautiful part of the country.
But maybe, yeah. But if it’s not
Micah Tomasella: beautiful and you got a lot of money. How about say now
Conner Jones: the NI L’s A thing and they got that oil money out there. They are bringing in the recruit. So you’re on, you’re on point there. Okay. Kurt sti. Sti.
Micah Tomasella: Yes.
Conner Jones: That’s the coach man. That’s the Indiana coach. What guy? And he, he speaks it as how it is.
He’s awesome. He. He steps up to microphones and just says, what is on his mind? He doesn’t hold back. I love it. Love. It’s [00:39:00] refreshing. I think that’s a winning mentality. Mm-hmm. Okay, Micah, let’s give the people some big things to look forward to this weekend in the college football world. If you are a fan, you have watched college game day before.
This is this, this show on ESPN that comes on before game start on Saturday. It’s a staple of American culture. The Home Depot helmets are always on, the signs are out. Famously, coach Lee Corso always puts on headgear at the end of the episode to say who he thinks is gonna win the biggest game of the week.
And it is just something that people have looked forward to all the time, watching three straight hours of this show to be able to see for decades. Coach Corso put it on and this Saturday is going to be his final episode. He is retiring, he’s age 90. You could see that age really wearing on him. The past few seasons, they haven’t given him as much screen time.
So he’s coming on for one last headgear pick one last episode. And I, dude, I just know the tears are gonna be flowing. Like, all these guys love him. America loves him. Kirk Herb Street’s gonna just be probably broken up on [00:40:00] there. They’re like best friends. Corso is Herb Street’s mentor and everything.
So something to look forward to. What a legacy
Micah Tomasella: man. What a legacy.
Conner Jones: Just seeing all these people talk about how beloved he was and how much he cared about the people around him and the sport. It’s just so cool.
Micah Tomasella: And how he treated everyone equally. I mean, I’ve just seen so much about that for years and years and years.
Kind of a generally scandal free guy. Yeah. Very very impressive, successful college football coach. Transitions onto TV and is just, he just stays the course man, and there’s just no replacement for one foot in front of the other. Doing the right thing, day in and day out, doing right by people, day in and day out.
And then you get to exit with a tremendous legacy. I mean, it’s, it’s awesome to see.
Conner Jones: It really is on the other channel, Fox, they’re gonna be hosting the game, the big Ohio State UT game, which might be the biggest like regular season game of the year. Just right up front. Yeah. Week one, dave Port away famously the bar stool president.
He is gonna be on his first episode. There’s been controversy this week [00:41:00] around him potentially being barred from Ohio State maybe just in the stadium. Anyways, he’s gonna be an interesting person to just watch as they try to compete with ESPN in that sense. Speaking of games. Like we said, Texas, Ohio State, it’s 12:00 PM Eastern.
All these times are gonna be Eastern. That’s on Fox. And Texas technically is the number one ranked team in the country according to the AP poll. Micah, am I right? And then that’s right. Ohio State’s ranked number three, but for whatever reason, Ohio State is the favorite going into this game. The, the betting odds favorite.
Micah Tomasella: It’s difficult to play in Columbus. It’s, it’s difficult to play at Ohio State. So I mean, I think, I think them being at home plays a large role in that.
Conner Jones: That being said, Micah, who do you think is going to win?
Micah Tomasella: I do. I do think Texas wins just because I think the quarterback play on the Texas side will be better.
And if Texas loses, then basically the other quarterback sayin is his name. He’s just gonna have to outplay arch and I just don’t think he’s gonna do that. I don’t [00:42:00]
Conner Jones: either. I think it’ll come outta
Micah Tomasella: the quarterbacks.
Conner Jones: I’m just excited to watch. I really don’t know who’s gonna win. It’s just gonna be a fun game to watch.
Also this weekend we got number nine LSU versus number four Clemson on Saturday night as the primetime game. And then because the NFL has not started yet, there is a Sunday and a Monday night game. Sunday night is Notre Dame versus Miami. That’s gonna be great. But the big one that I’m really looking forward to is the Monday night game, man.
’cause it’s TCU versus North Carolina University, which normally is okay, fine, good game. But this year it’s a big deal because. Coach Bill Belichick. Yeah. Possibly the greatest NFL coach of all time. It’s his first, he’s college football game. Yeah. Yeah. You, I mean, yeah, he’s up there. How many Super Bowls?
Six Super Bowls He won? Yeah. With Tom Brady at the In the Patriots. So he’s taking some time off of coaching football. He’s back with the University of North Carolina First College game. Micah, what do you think’s gonna happen?
Micah Tomasella: I mean, T-C-U-U-N-C-I, I think. TCU is gonna win. And I think UNC will lose and I don’t think that they’re gonna have a very good year which will be kind of sad.
[00:43:00] But at the same time, I’ve been surprised before, but this is his first season in college football and there’s been so much controversy. Swirling everything. And you know, I, I don’t know, I just think TC u’s a more consistent established program, at least as of recent. But then again, I mean, UNC has good talent too, but I think TCU will probably win.
I’m just looking forward to a long Labor Day weekend, as I’m sure all of our audiences and we get to enjoy all the college football that we want. We just get to feast, oh,
Conner Jones: it’s gonna be awesome, just football and food and family, the whole thing. So enjoy your Labor Day weekend, everyone. I would love to hear y’all’s predictions or do you have thoughts on Rebrands and Cracker Barrel and Chilies and the Dallas Cowboys, all of that.
Do you have thoughts on these football games? Do you, do you, do you disagree with us? Will another team win the National Championship? Let us know and reach out to us at Culture [email protected]. Go follow us on Instagram at Culture Brief Podcast. Give us your thoughts, give us your comments, all of that.
And if you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe and rate or review the show and share it with a friend. [00:44:00] That’s how we get seen by more people. And so all articles, all videos, anything we mentioned, any tweets, they’re gonna be posted in our show notes. Go check that out. Thank you for joining us on this week’s episode of The Culture Brief at Dennison Forum Podcast and we’ll see you next Thursday.
Micah Tomasella: See ya.
Search