Tate & Lyle are dropping their longstanding Christian imagery from their logo. At least, that is what we are being told by Christians. It is disgusting, outrageous, terrible, the beginning of the apocalypse or something something.

Except, if you look at what they’re doing, they’re not dropping the logo across the board. They’re keeping the old dead lion surrounded by a swarm of bees on their classic tins. And if you look at the redesign that will grace their plastic bottles, you will still find a lion’s head with a bee. Inasmuch as anybody ever asked why there was a dead lion and swarm of bees on the old tins – that will remain on their current tins – one might be minded to ask (such as they were ever bothered) why there is a lion’s head and a bee on the bottles and just what the link is between those two things. The original logo – which I imagine most people never really asked about – is still on the tins.

So, when you actually read about what they’re doing (which you can do here), the original lion and bees logo remains and is not being replaced on their tins. Their more modern plastic bottles are being replaced by a more modern logo still sporting a lion and a bee. It is difficult to understand, on that basis, just what is exercising so many Christians.

A question of priorities

Christians getting up in arms about a logo redesign, I think, need to have a serious look at their priorities. No doubt someone will pop up to tell me how vital the Tate and Lyle logo was in their conversion, but how significant do we actually think the logo of some syrup manufacturers is so far as the kingdom of God is concerned? I don’t have hard figures, but I rather suspect you will struggle to find the person moved to trust in Christ because they saw a dead lion on a tin of golden syrup. Maybe somebody googled it, read the story of Samson, found Christ in those pages and it was all part of the Spirit moving mysteriously to save a soul from death. But even if such a person can be found, I imagine that story is going to remain in the single digits.

Nor, let’s be honest, is the kingdom of God quaking in fear because of a commercial logo change. I suspect Jesus is not overly troubled. The kingdom will survive because – and it feels sad to have to point this out without irony – it was never based on the foundation of a golden syrup manufacturer’s logo. A logo, it should once again be noted, that still remains on their golden syrup tins. The church will not crumble, the kingdom will not cease to advance, nothing will materially change because, when you look at what is happening, the logo isn’t being revoked altogether anyway and the logo is not really relevant to the advance of the kingdom. If Jesus isn’t worried, I’m not sure why anybody else is.

We’re in Babylon, not Israel

Even if the logo was being entirely rescinded – and I cannot say enough times, it isn’t being – that would presumably be a commercial and/or branding decision. Companies update their branding and logos all the time. Usually when their existing branding starts to look past it, with no nostalgic effect to play on, or when their logo no longer appeals to modern tastes. It isn’t hard to conceive how a commercial decision to update that particular logo might begin by acknowledging almost nobody, apart from a handful of Christians, really has any clue about the logos point of reference. For most people, it is just a dead lion with a load of bees around it, which is minimally weird and the biblical caption underneath it ultimately meaningless to them.

The Christians getting upset that this is a rejection of Christian heritage seem to labour under the misapprehension that we are somehow a Christian country and that Christian things will be, or even should be, privileged. But the fact is, this is a commercial manufacturer who will inevitably respond commercially. Their job is to make, and then sell, golden syrup. Their marketing and branding is inevitably going to respond to modern sensibilities and, no matter how much Christians may decry it, the majority of the British public are not biblically literate nor even – as might once have been the case – in any way cognisant with the vestiges of Christendom. The assumptions and understanding of our culture are predominantly secular humanistic with the majority of people under 50 never having been to church nor had anything meaningfully Christian peddled to them in school. Which means commercial companies flogging their wares and adjusting their branding and marketing accordingly will necessarily pander to the commercially viable majority, which ain’t Christian.

Silliness in the making

The Christian outrage makes us look silly more than anything. For one – and do forgive me for labouring this point but it is relevant here – the original logo still exists and adorns their tins! We look silly for getting upset over something that hasn’t even really happened.

Then we look silly for getting upset for suggesting this is part of the anti-Christian way of the world these days. Except, it isn’t anti-Christian. It is a market-driven response to consumer tastes; namely, most people aren’t Christians, don’t get the reference and the company want to project a modern image. It seems painfully unlikely that anybody has set out to shed themselves of any Christian imagery whatsoever otherwise the lion and bee being incorporated in the new design would be a strange move indeed.

We similarly look silly for making this a point of priority. It is a company logo for syrup! They aren’t peddling anything we find unpalatable. They aren’t affirming anything we find egregiously immoral. They aren’t doing anything wrong. We may see it all as part of a piece; but even if we’re right about those wider trends (and I’m not always convinced those who think so are right about them) this is demonstrably not an example of it.

Taking our eye off the ball

I wouldn’t have bothered saying anything about this at all, but I do think it speaks to a trend I see time and again amongst believers. We seem to have this ability to focus our attention on almost anything other than the actual task that the Lord Jesus gave us. The church has been given one job – to make disciples – and yet we routinely find ways and means of focusing our attention on almost anything else.

Despite not being on social media anymore, I still ocassionally have my attention drawn to things there. I was recently pointed to the fact that Christian Nationalism was trending on twitter for some reason. But that is another case in point. Rather than focusing on the task of making disciples through evangelism and discipleship that Jesus asks of us, we instead have a bunch of people insisting Jesus wants us to grab hold of the levers of power and instil Christian values and morals throughout society by political means. Never mind there is not one single example of any New Covenant believer doing that, nor any command to do that in the New Testament, nor the repeated talk of submission to authorities and Jesus’ incredibly pointed refusal to be a political leader, it comes up time and again.

The Tate & Lyle thing feels like an extension of this same issue. Rather than focusing on what Jesus has commanded us to do, and worrying about whether we are actually doing it, we seem to get worked up about how our culture isn’t Christian enough – symbolically (so we think) embodied by companies with Christian roots changing their logos – and get all mad about that. We push against what we consider the downgrade of Christian virtues and values in society without cottoning onto the fact that Jesus doesn’t ask us to do that. Nor, seemingly, doing the one thing that might actually lead to an uptick in Christian values: making disciples. If Satan can get us all up in arms about branding changes and unbelievers *shock horror* living like unbelievers, then focusing all our attention on legal challenges and pushing for the outward appearance of Christian morals and behaviour, we won’t be very effective in accomplishing anything for the kingdom because Jesus is pretty clear this is not how it is built.

How change will come

The tenor of the New Testament – as I argued recently here – is to our being able to live a peaceful and quiet life in all godliness and dignity (1 Tim 2:1-3). Getting outraged that the world isn’t Christian enough and doesn’t reflect our morals and values or reverence the Christian worldview, and then agitating politically and civically so that it might, doesn’t seem consistent to me with the call to lead peaceful and quiet lives. The biblical vision for Christian engagement seems broadly to be – contrary to the confected rage popular in Christian circles – live and let live. Not demands for our worldview to be recognised or privileged more. Not demands that others share our moral outlook and kowtow to our beliefs. We are to pray that we would simply be given the right to live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness. It is a call only that we would be free to be Christians and that we will be happy to let others live as they will too. Our task is not to change society, but to see men and women saved and discipled through the gospel. Societal change may well be a happy by-product of that, but our goal is to make disciples.

But it seems to me we frequently get side-tracked. We think political means are the way. We think agitating against social change is the way. We think we must fight our corner and defend the cause of the gospel here and now. But the way of Christ is the way of the cross and the way of humility. The way of the gospel is not to seek social change, but heart change. The way of the gospel is not to force our views on others, but to simply seek the freedom to share Christ with a lost world. We shouldn’t be surprised that people in our culture do not live like Christians because our culture is not Christian. We should not seek to make them live like Christians before they even are Christians. Our rage at the world not living like us nor respecting our values is neither godly, gospel-centred nor going to do anything for the kingdom. The only biblical call we have is to make disciples and to seek the freedom to make disciples. Change will only meaningfully come if and when disciples are made. Anything else is just window-dressing.

So please let’s not get suckered in to foolish public outrage. Particular outrage over stuff that hasn’t even really happened. And even if it had happened, isn’t really going to impact the kingdom. Let’s not take our eye of the ball. We so frequently seem to think Jesus needs us to fight his battles for him. But we know the end of the script, all his enemies will one day be put under his feet, he’s got all that in hand and he doesn’t need us to do it for him. Instead, he calls us to seek a peaceful and quiet life in all godliness so that we can be about the work he has given us to do. It seems to me, getting mad that a syrup manufacturer is changing its arcane logo on some of its bottles is not in any way helping with that. It isn’t achieving anything Jesus asks of us and, potentially, runs counter to some of the things he does, almost certainly taking us away and getting in the way of the main thing he wants us to do – the only thing that might lead to any meaningful change; making disciples.