Another day, another manufactured controversy. How many times have you looked at a can of Coca-cola or Diet Coke and said to yourself, “Gee golly, I wish I could put my name on that can to personalize it to myself, or if not mine, at least the name of the lord and savior, Jesus!” This has seriously impacted all of our lives, hasn’t it? But what if you couldn’t put “Jesus” on a soda can but you could put “Satan” on there or the names of other gods? Wouldn’t that just be something to get angry about and feel attacked by? Well allegedly that’s what’s happening according to a user on Twitter. But is it really?
On September 25th, 2024, the following video was posted on Twitter of someone trying to enter the name “Jesus” onto a Coca-Cola personalization machine.
The person in the video tries typing in names like Allah, Buddah (sic), and Satan, all for them to proceed like nothing’s wrong, but the machine immediately stops them when they try to type in “Jesus.” Some people were picking up on this on Twitter and calling for a boycott of Coca-Cola, and yes, they seemed to be serious about it and doing it with a straight face.
Now, aside from the fact that there are a lot more things in the world to get upset about rather than what can and can’t be printed on a can, is Coke actually showing preference to one religious figure over another? The answer is likely not. As has been pointed out by some individuals online, you can also personalize cans online and just because you can type something in, doesn’t mean it will be approved when you submit it.
It’s also likely that certain words were tried to be added to cans and got hit with the ban hammer sooner than others. People wanting to be edgy or thinking they’re funny were probably more apt to try certain words and phrases before others, leading the system to stop them outright. Or to put it another way, it’s fairly easy to anticipate someone trying to type the f-bomb into the machine and quickly ban that, it’s less likely someone’s going to try typing “Tarnation!” out of the book of Wild West swearwords.
Not to mention, if Jesus’ name is not supposed to be taken in vain, then why is someone trying to print it onto a soda can? That sounds like the definition of taking something in vain and perhaps even worse, the commercialization of Jesus to a terrible degree. If anything, we should be thanking Coke for keeping the lord’s name holy and not allowing it to be sullied through the commercial reprinting of it on carbonated beverages. This is the man whose cup was so plain, that someone chose “poorly” and didn’t consider it as the potential to be the Holy Grail. Didn’t work out too well for him.
Long story short, Coca-Cola is not playing favorites between gods, deities, and religious icons, you probably shouldn’t be sullying Christ’s name by printing it on soda cans anyway, and that the cup of a carpenter would not be adorned by jewels and gold.
