After an acrimonious standoff between Hostess executives and the bakery labor union, our worst apocalyptic fears might be realized: Twinkies might disappear forever. Eighty-three years of children’s lunchboxes and Texas Fair fryers might not be enough to rescue the golden little fella from spongecake oblivion. 

But just because Twinkies have always been around isn’t reason enough to keep them there. Nostalgia shouldn’t hijack common sense. 

The church has had its own share of bad products which, like the the Twinkie, have been unhealthy, strangely enjoyable, and made on the cheap. I say it’s time to retire all those evangelical products that made us so happy at the time. Here’s a start:

• Children’s flannel boards with all those Caucasian Bible characters
• Pyramid-shaped photo arrangements of church staff (pastor on top, with his wing men in dark suits in descending order according to seminary degrees and paychecks)
• Padded, mauve sky-box chairs
• The badly-proofed collection of typed praise songs with the plastic curlicue binding
• Round, plasticized communion wafers
• The dual-handled pouch-bag-offering-thingie (passed down the aisle with choreographed wonder)
• My Texas pastor’s clear plexiglass pulpit with the laser-cut cross cutout
• The 3-D silver dove for my bumper
• Big screens that disappear into the big slit in the ceiling
• Hand-made banners with silk tassels
• Powerpoint slideshows (golden wheat stalks blowing? Multi-racial families smiling? Clouds billowing?)
• Black electric keyboards from Wal-Mart with pre-set beats “for the young people”
• Four Words: Bob. Tomato. Larry. Cucumber

I loved all of these sweet objets d’ art but I’m not so sentimental that I would object to their passing. In fact, with consumers making a crazy run on Twinkies this month, perhaps a public retirement of church memorabilia would raise money for lots of other stuff like, say, missions or outreach? 

Who knows? Like Hostess, it just might be marketing genius.