Exploring America's Love for Pizza

From the Mecca of Mormonism, this is HOTM, where we are learning together. I’m your host . . . Show 42A Religious Pizza, recorded September 29th, 2020, and aired October 5th, 2020.

I begin with a kind of frivolous topic tonight that might engage you a bit. It has to do with one of America’s favorite foods of all time. Pizza.

Pizza by the Numbers

Let’s cover a few statistics about pizza to sort of set the stage.

• Three billion pizzas are sold every year in the United States totaling over 40 billion dollars in annual sales.
• That averages out to 350 slices sold per second.
• More than 41 percent of us eat pizza every week, with one in eight of all Americans eating pizza on any given day.
• Roughly 17 percent of all restaurants in the U.S. are pizzerias, with more than 10 percent of the country’s pizzerias located in NYC. There are 70,000 pizzerias in the Nation with 25% of those owned by Domino’s, Pizza Hut, or Papa John’s.

Various Ways to Enjoy Pizza

What’s interesting to me is the number of platforms out there where pizza can be obtained. Because of its popularity, there is obviously going to be a wide range of ways people can experience pizza eating. A place called Industries Kitchen in New York City offers the most expensive pizza in the world with a crust infused with black squid ink and topped with white Stilton cheese, foie gras, caviar, truffles, and actual gold leaf toppings. There are places in Chicago that charge over $170.00 a pie.

On average, the typical mom and pop specialty pizza runs in the high 20.00 to mid 30.00 range. Some people like pizza from nationally recognized sit-down chains – like Olive Garden or Macaroni Grill or California Pizza Kitchen. When I was a kid, we called places that sold pizza, “Pizza Parlors” – which are still around, like Shakey's, Me and Ed’s, and even Roundtable. And some places thrive by selling pizza by the slice – from Sbarro's to mom and pops in many cities. And then of course there are the delivery chains, large and small, that will give you a hot pizza right to your door.

Then once we are in the home there are people who enjoy buying a premade crust like Boboli and making their own. Still, there are those unique souls who actually make pizzas from scratch, cooking them on barbecues and such, making them truly unique. Finally, we get to the frozen pizzas found in most grocery stores where you can locate a dozen different brands. You might not be aware of this, but one of the worst processed foods relative to cholesterol and high blood pressure is frozen pizzas – it's down to the dough preservatives.

Back to when I was a kid, they sold these boxed pizza kits – called Appian Way which made home pizza easier – but not so tasty.

The Joy of Pizza and a Belief

Consuming pizza is not only a delicious experience for most people, the varieties of products are seemingly endless, the environments vast, the price points wide, and the communal experience of pulling from the same dish can be a truly bonding experience. Pizza, in and of itself, is amazing. I was interviewed years ago by someone and expressed my belief that foods (and the vast arrangements and combinations of them across the world) are to me a sign of a living God. The atheist community really had a laugh at that one, but I maintain this position ardently and consider the variety of food one of the purest, simplest, but most amazing evidences of a loving God.

A Personal Pizza Journey

And our analysis of pizza consumption is just talking about one product, among hundreds of thousands, that human beings create, adorn, and consume in a variety of satisfying ways. I used to be a staunch defender of a pizza place called Lamp Post in Huntington Beach. To me, it was the best pizza on the face of the Earth as we would go there in high school and then into our raising our own daughters. To me, Lamp Post was the best.

As I grew older and traveled outside my hometown, I would compare every pizza I ate with Lamp Post Pizza, and initially, nothing could compete. Then I started seeing that there are some pretty damn good pizza places out in the world – and that there were topping combinations that work surprisingly well – like the Canadian bacon and pineapple slice I first had in college, or the pesto my younger sister got me into.

So again, in my youth the best pizza was Lamp Post and the only topping was Pepperoni.

Religion and Pizza

But exposure to the different styles and tastes of other pizza’s around the United States in later years helped me see that what I assumed was the greatest pizza in the world was really only a good Pizza in my own home town of Huntington Beach. Of course looking to our purposes I want to apply pizza eating to the religions we embrace, support and attend as the comparisons between religion and pizza consumption include the fact that people often have their favorite type, their favorite way, and their favorite producers of both products.

Of course, when I was young, the best and only true church on the face of the earth was Mormonism. No debate. I knew it. I testified of it. It was what I knew and that was what I was taught – over and over again – Mormonism is best. I even went out to another state in the Nation promoting it as the only true church on the face of the earth – which was akin of my going door to door and telling them that Lampost Pizza was better than theirs too.

Spiritual Nutrition

Once I came home and started to learn about spiritual nutrition, and historical truths, and the variety of different religious flavors in the world, I ultimately saw that my favorite “pizza-religion” was not all that it was cracked up to be, that there were approaches to God that were better tasting, more nutritious and in the end, far more satisfying than that frozen stuff. The point being is it is our NATURE, our flesh and blood and brains that, as a means to survive and make our lives the least complicated as possible, to latch on to favorites, label them the best, and then look out at everyone else and their ways, and to consider them inferior.

The Age of Fulfillment

We are living, folks, in the age of fulfillment. What that means is that God through Yeshua, His Son, overcame sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace. and deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God. for the world, and reconciled the world – in that day – to Himself. This amounts to there being one way – call it pizza – and that way is known, and experienced, and enjoyed in then thousand different expressions. He is “pizza” writ large. He is every topping, every price range, every sit down and every delivery. He satisfies the craving for God, the appetite for truth, and satisfaction through love. He has parlors, and stands, and home delivery all over the world, and all of them – every one of them that uses His name and teaches His ways – are of Him. Just like every place that creates pizza calls it “pizza.”

He is not a calzone. He is not lasagna. He is not spaghetti. He is pizza. We often make the mistake of demanding that all forms of pizza conform to our favored styles. We pick on people who prepare and eat pizza differently. And we promote our special ingredients as the only true pizza on the face of the earth. I think we have made a great mistake in this approach, and I think we only evidence our ignorance of Him in continuing in it.

Different Ingredients

Did you know that there are Muslims who have never had access to the United States or other parts of the world who try and make pizzas in their homes? They often use ingredients we are unaccustomed to, like roasted goat or sprigs of local seasoning, but in the end, the product is a pizza. Do you realize that when God placed all things – all things – in the hands of His victorious Son, who once and for all took care of the price of sin, that God is now all in all – and to argue over whose views of Him are superior are as juvenile as my saying Lamp Post Pizza (and Mormonism) are the best in the entire world?

Do you realize that the Lord God Almighty is calling to all to receive His Son by the Spirit, and that another way to say this is to say that He is calling all to receive the Spirit of His Son? And that the Spirit of His Son is one of love – patience, meekness, kindness, forgiveness, longsuffering and the generosity of life toward others – especially those who do not deserve it?

We are so bent and blinded on being “right and the best,” in both our pizzas and our religions, that we overlook the realities of the Christian

Faith and Love

Faith – love for all people, all the time, always – as it is described in scripture.

Agape Love

Whatever you like in your religion – have at it. But I guarantee you this – if the end result, the verb, the action of that expression is not agape unconditional love for all, your pizza is old, frozen and one of the worst things you can consume relative to your heart for God.

Share Your Thoughts

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Write your comments below! And we will read them tomorrow night, here on Heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology..