Subscribe to our Mailing List
| Along the Way 5-14-10 |
 The message is posted on an I-75 billboard between Macon and Atlanta is displayed in roughly the same spot where other wacky, misguided messages have popped up over the years decrying the perils of reading anything other than the King James Bible or demanding people prepare to do battle with the Beast. When will somebody invent spam blocker for billboards?The tilted font on this billboard announced: God is not a Socialist
How relieved God must be to learn that He/She is not defined by a political or economic theory. But why stop with only one billboard? Did the sponsor run out of cash? Why not publish an entire series of messages on billboard-polluted I-75? Surely the sign company would have cut a deal for multiple negative messages. In addition to socialism the purchaser could add these thought provoking nuggets: God is not a Capitalist
God is not a Marxist God is not an Immigrant God is not a Conservative God is not a Liberal God is not an Environmentalist God does not Drill Oil Wells, etc. Occasionally one still sees those bumper stickers from yesteryear’s political battles when some feared that one national political party was garnering the religious vote. The messages announced negatively: God is not a Republican
or a Democrat I guess there was not enough room on the sticker to add that neither is God Libertarian, Green or Independent. Today one might add that God doesn’t drink tea. Negative messages are weak. Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, a timeless 85-page guide for all who would communicate clearly, gets to the heart of the matter in this excerpt from the 1979 Revised 3rd Edition: Rule 15
“Put Statements in Positive Form. Consciously or unconsciously, the reader is dissatisfied with being told only what is not; he wishes to be told what is.” To describe food as “not tasty”, the weather as “not pleasant”, and a person as “not attractive” is lazy writing and lazy thinking, fodder for billboard and bumper sticker chaff. It would be better to describe the nature and character of God strongly and positively as written in the New Testament. Here, for instance, is a billboard message from 1 John 4: 8 and 1 John 4:16: God is Love
But every rule has its exception, even the one about casting statements in a positive form. If our billboard evangelist insists on a negative God message, he/she could stand secure by sticking with the Bible, quoting this appropriate warning from Galatians 6:7 (KJV) for all (including this writer) who too quickly speak for God: God is not mocked.
P.S. I’ll see you Sunday. Bring your homemade cookies to church with you. We need 200 dozen cookies to share with the children on Massie Square this Tuesday. Please bring them 2 per baggie. |
