Saturday, June 27, 1998

Signs to simplistic to contain simple faith

By MICHAEL O'CONNOR
Abilene Reporter-News

While driving to work I have the opportunity to pass several churches that have sign boards or marquees. Although some of them simply carry information about the church -- times of services, name of the pastor, stuff like that -- many of them put short, pithy sayings on the signs for passersby to read.

Both the churches I live closest to have signs. One of the churches hasn't changed its message in several weeks; the other rotates puts up a new message almost every week, rotating the old message to the other side of the sign, catching the traffic coming and going.

The messages -- the fancy word for them is aphorisms -- are of necessity short and memorable. After all, a driver has only a few seconds to read the message and absorb its contents. Sometimes a church will choose a passage of scripture, or part of a passage, to put on its sign. If left up for several weeks, I suppose many drivers would wind up memorizing scripture pretty much without realizing it.

I can't say I object to the signs; in fact some of them are quite clever. At the one church I pastored that had a sign capable of presenting messages to the driving public, I only posted information about the church and its services. The couple who had provided funding for the sign often encouraged me to buy a book with aphorisms for use by churches and post them, but I lacked both enthusiasm and letters for the project.

What bothers me is aphoristic Christianity -- the tendency of Christians, usually conservatives, to make pronouncements about serious issues with trite aphorisms. The most famous of these may well be the hackneyed response to the homosexual issue: "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."

My mother's refrigerator was covered in message-bearing magnets, little aphorisms that I used to pick apart. "Smile, God loves you." True, but I can't imagine someone living a Job-like existence deriving much comfort it from hearing the affirmation. "God said it, I believe it, and that settles it for me." Oh yeah? What about that part about how we're supposed to be perfect the way God is? How many times have we encountered a difficult scripture passage and weaseled our way out of it by saying, "Well, what that really means is ... " We won't even discuss "Heaven or Hell, Turn or Burn."

I have heard earnest theological discussions invaded by these little aphorisms as though the uttering of them somehow resolved the issue. Confronted with the inadequacy of the slogan, the speaker may respond with a huff or smile enigmatically, as though mere sinners could never understand, and retreat feeling victorious.

The problem is not that the slogans we spout are simple, but that they are simplistic. True religion can be described in quite simple ways: Love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Visit widows and orphans in their distress. Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God. But the living out of these simple propositions is far more difficult than obeying the injunction of a sign in front of a church.

Aphorisms have their place, and church signs are as good a place for them as anywhere, as long as we don't make the mistake of believeing their simplistic messages have much real use in living as disciples.

Michael O'Connor is Online Editor for the Abilene Reporter-News and is an ordained United Methodist minister. Reach him at oconnorm@abinews.com or Box 30, Abilene, TX, 79604