Signs

"They'll know us by the billboards that we make,

Just turning God's words to cheap cliches."

- Derek Webb

T-Shirts (What We Should Be Known For)

My job requires that I drive. A lot.

Doing a heavy amount of driving in America means you're bound to see a lot of church signs. Doing a heavy amount of driving in rural America increases this exponentially.

I've seen all the classics:

"Stop, drop and roll won't work in hell."

"God answers all knee-mail."

"Try our Sundays; they're better than Dairy Queen."

"You think it's hot here?"

"Get off Facebook and into the Good Book."

I could go on and on. In fact, the good folks over at The God Article have a whole section devoted to photos of cringe-worthy (or snicker-worthy) church signs. Some of them are harmless enough -- although, to borrow a thought from an article Chris Rice wrote in Relevant magazine several years ago, we should be very careful about reducing our messages about God to a simple sentence on a sign.

Some, however, are dangerous.

While driving up US 25 between Pineville and Barbourville last week, I passed a church with the following posted on its sign:

"The next life is more important than this one."

I suppose the intention, as with many church signs, was to frighten or intimidate people into "getting saved." I could use the rest of this space arguing that any decision made under such duress would almost certainly not last (think of Jesus' parable about the seeds that fell on shallow ground and didn't have deep roots).

But let's dig a little deeper.

First, intentionally or not, the statement is only half an affirmation of the afterlife. The other half is a nullification, or at least a minimization, of the value of this life.

It's not unusual to hear preachers refer to the Bible as a "roadmap" to heaven. (I wonder why it's always a roadmap, never just a map. I don't go to Roadmapquest.com or pull up Google Roadmaps when I need directions. But I digress.) The truth is, if we're judging by biblical content, this life is pretty doggone important; the Bible has surprisingly little to say about heaven or hell, but much to say about how God means for us to live here on earth:

Things like taking responsible care of the planet. Things like treating one another with kindness and patience. Things like loving our enemies.

These are things that will be irrelevant when we're in "the next life," the one that the church sign said was so much more important. And these are things that change the world we live in now.

Which leads to my second point. Ignoring or devaluing this life in favor of "the next" one is ... well ... selfish.

I'm reminded of my favorite episode of Seinfeld. In "The Burning," Elaine discovers that Puddy is a Christian. Eventually, they get into an argument, which leads to this classic dialogue: 

Elaine: "David, I'm going to hell! The worst place in the world! With devils and those caves and the ragged clothing ... and the heat -- my God, the heat! I mean, what do you think about all that?"

Puddy: "Gonna be rough."

Elaine: "Ugh, you should be trying to save me!"

Puddy: "Don't boss me! This is why you're going to hell."

Elaine: "I am not going to hell, and if you think I am going to hell, you should care that I'm going to hell, even though I am not."

Puddy: "You stole my Jesus fish, didn't you?"

Elaine: "Yeah, that's right!"

I guess I took the scenic route to my point, but here it is: A faith that encourages us to care primarily about what happens after we die will almost certainly be a faith that has little bearing on the world around us.

I would much prefer to focus on this life -- on being the man I was created to be in the here and now -- and let heaven take care of itself.

I'm reminded of one of my favorite Donald Miller quotes, one I frequently think about when I start to wonder whether my beliefs about the afterlife are correct. In Blue Like Jazz, Miller writes:

“At the end of the day, when I am lying in bed and I know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a million to one, I need to know that God has things figured out, that if my math is wrong we are still going to be okay. And wonder is that feeling we get when we let go of our silly answers, our mapped out rules that we want God to follow. I don't think there is any better worship than wonder.”

So let's commit ourselves to changing the world, in small ways and large. And let's enjoy the wonder.