Church Signs, pt. 1 (Sign from God)

I’ve never really been a big fan of church signs.  I don’t like what they’re trying to do, most of the time taking vast, incondensable truths and then condensing them into meaningless popcorn clichés to pass by and sip Dr. Pepper to on the road.  And sometimes they’re just incredibly cheesy.  I remember one that read “If you’re looking for a sign from God, this is it.”  Haha!

“Alright, ye weary!  Come out!  If you’re looking for a sign from God, this is it!!” 

Okay, let’s break this down.  The traditional notion of “sign from God,” i.e. divine intervention for the provision of guidance in a person’s life decisions, here becomes a marquee joke; surely the writing team (ahem) had a real, legitimate sense of humor about this.  If they did not, if this was somehow actually contrived as a legitimate recruiting advertisement, then what the establishers have created is a colossal reduction of a quite common tenet of faith – the possibility of divine intervention – into a wholly physical, non-spiritual, very basic, man-made neon arrow sign. 

The exchange is criminal.  This is a ridiculous cheapening of doctrine that I can’t believe is still so regularly perpetuated by churches that preach this same doctrine.  It’s almost as terrible as the T-shirts they have at convenience stores like Kum & Go; ones that have smiling pictures of Jesus with a crown of thorns on his head that say “You have a friend request from: Jesus (Son of God).”  Blatant extortions of religious ideas, plastering contrived, man-made images of Christ onto T-shirts makes Christianity out to be this stupid little condensable joke even when it seems like T-shirt companies and sign-writers behind this garbage may be creating these products in an attempt to bring some sort of friendly, innovative new flourishing in the religion. 

Well, your crap will get no friendliness from me, clowns!!  If we’re going to be a part of this religion, let’s stop acting like it’s the sort of thing that can be sufficiently captured in marquee one-liners and gas station T-shirts!!