A Real 'Whopper' from Burger King

A report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.  This week’s item is from The New York Post, October 7, 2001, with the headline:  “Lame Brain Execs get Flame Broiled Feet,” dateline Miami.  About a dozen Burger King marketing department employees suffered first and second degree burns on their feet when they walked barefoot over a strip of glowing white hot coals as part of a corporate bonding experience.  More than 100 employees participated in the fire walking at the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo on Wednesday.  “We certainly didn’t intend for that to happen,” Burger King spokesman Rob Doughty said.  “The exercise was supposed to help them reach beyond their limits and achieve things they never thought possible,” employees said.  One woman was taken to the emergency room Wednesday night at BaptistHospital and Burger King brought in a doctor to treat the others whose feet were blistering.  Some employees used wheelchairs the next day when they went to the airport to leave for another team retreat.  Despite the injuries, Burger King executives termed the event a success.  “It was a great experience for everyone,” said Dana Freidman, Vice President of Product Marketing for Burger King and one of the event’s organizers who said she has no regrets.

Tom:

Dave, I know they are trying to put their best face on this but this is absurd and I’m surprised.  This was sort of a fad that went on, maybe, five or six years ago and the whole idea was that if you could go through an experience like this, the idea is to find your human potential and if you could do something that just seemed to transcend your normal life, then you would be so pumped up, so convinced—look, I can walk on fire, I can do anything, I can do everything—but these guys got blisters and it’s ironic that it’s, you know, the home of the flame-broiled Burger King.

Dave:

Well Tom, as you said, it has been popular and it still is.  Well, Robbins, the success guru, has been teaching this for years. And as I understand it, generally they have this bed of hot coals in the evening and the grass around about is wet.Some scientists have done studies on it.  You’re familiar with this, but maybe some of our listeners are not.  It’s called the “latent frost principle” like water bouncing off of a hot skillet and if you only take four steps, two with each foot, from damp grass across these coals, you are going to be okay.  But maybe they tried to do it more than that, maybe they didn’t have the guru there helping them, maybe they didn’t know just the way this has to be done.  Well, there obviously are limits to human potential.  But this is the lie of the serpent in the Garden who told Eve she could become one of the gods and in order to prove that he wasn’t lying, he has to give us some powers beyond what we would think would be normal powers, or delude us into thinking that we have them.  Now, on the other hand Tom, there is such a thing as demonic power.  I remember—where was I? In Australia, talking with a man who lived next door—this would be on the island of Tahiti—next door to the Hindu temple and he told me that he has with his own eyes, seen—now this is a pit of fire about 30 feet across and these men meditate for a day before they come to this experience.  They throw a fresh flower out into the middle of this thing and it does not burn.  And they dance, they don’t take a couple of steps, they dance on this for some period of time and they do not suffer burns.

Tom:

Not something the Amazing Randy could pull off.

Dave:

I don’t think he could do that.  So, Satan does have some powers.  He could put boils on Job; he could take the boils off of Job.  He had a certain power over fleshly events, but these people are trying to talk themselves into developing great confidence in what the self can do and human potential and bonding together, you know, as they share this experience and as you say, they are trying to put the best face on this.

Tom:

They got burned! I mean we could just say it simply.

Dave:

I don’t know that the rest of the people—this lady who was one of the events organizers that says she has no regrets.  Apparently, either she didn’t walk across it or she didn’t burn her feet, I don’t know.  But Tom, it’s a tragedy because we’re trying to exalt self, we are trying to find God within, the deity within instead of turning from self to the God who created us and acknowledging, I’m nothing, I’m totally dependent upon God for every breath I draw. I’m not going to try to become a little god myself and think that I can do anything and all things are possible with me.  No, all things are possible with God.  What I need to do is humble myself, humble yourself I mean.  We talk about humility when we are in the presence of the infinite God and we are nothing, we are not even worms.  Oh, don’t say that!  Well, it’s true.  Look, you can feel very powerful until it’s the last thirty seconds and you are dying in the wreckage of a car and you have no power over anything.  We need to turn to God and trust him and especially for the salvation that comes only through Jesus Christ.

Tom:

Amen.