CHURCH OF CHRIST BUMPER STICKERS

A motley group of Church of Christ existentialists up New York way, who insist on printing their names with small letters, publish an obstreperous sheet called An Uncertain Sound. They are a sophisticated and resourceful lot, quoting Pasternak and Milton and creating poetry. They are also a voice for reform, and with their placards and beards they are adding color to the New Look among us. They are the kind who defy the powers that be and ignore conventional approaches by doing such unseemly things as to go out into the streets and into the slums to witness for Christ. Yes, witness for Christ, of all things. And they talk about “the leading of the Spirit” and “the relevance of Christ” and Other impossible things.

Well, they recently came out with a page of suggested bumper stickers for us Church of Christers, and I soon found myself in stitches as well as stickers as I made my way down the page, and when it was all over I figured that the laughter at ourselves was good for me. It may be good for you too. Here are a few of them, and I am taking the liberty to make a few comments along the way. Imagine these gracing your car bumper as you drive away from the church edifice on Sunday morning—or maybe holy Wednesday:

ONLY ONE-THIRD OF GOD IS DEAD

The New York lads may be right in reminding us that while we assure the world that God is not dead, and even flamboyantly challenging its advocates, we witness by our superficial faith that the Holy Spirit must be dead or at least retired on a pension.

IT WAS NOT FERMENTED!

So eager have we been to get all the externals right that we have impressed our more responsible youth that these are the substance of our religion.

WE TRY HARDER—WE’RE ONLY NUMBER 9

Are the fellows sniping at us with the ugly truth that our real interest is in building up our party? Would we be interested in winning one for the Lord if we knew he’d end up down at the First Christian?

DON’T DANCE—PARK

Do we have shoddy values and weak ethics because we have taught that the kingdom is food and drink? When our youth will not dare dance but do park, it shows that we have failed and that “situation ethics” may be right after all.

FREEDOM NOW—FOR NASHVILLE CHRISTIAN INSTITUTE

These fellows know what is going on, and they have tongue in cheek when we talk about how free we are. They say the enemy is the church politician. If we discriminate against the Negro, and we do, we are neither apostolic nor catholic.

LIPSCOMB HAS 23% FEWER SPIRITUALISTS

These guys have been to our colleges, but obviously they were not brainwashed. They know that if a professor (or student) dares to be different, even to being a true Christ-man instead of a loyal party-man, that he is, in the lingo of dentistry, something like a cavity in a tooth that has to be changed or out it goes.

ATTEND THE CHURCH OF MY CHOICE

Ouida and I kept roaring over this one. Wow, does it hit hard! Isn’t this what we really believe. Of course we say the Lord’s church, but of course that’s we—and only we.

SUPPORT LAW ENFORCEMENT—PAY YOUR PREACHER WELL

This is brilliant satire. It says more than a sermon on grace would, which of course we’re not likely to hear anyway.

I. R. WILSON FOR POPE

It isn’t that they are after brother Wilson, for it could be a dozen or so other names. They are telling us that we have our politicians and hierarchy too, despite our denials to the contrary. Through what might be called “Editorocracy” we have powers among us that can make or destroy any man or any new idea. But this may be changing.

THE FAMILY THAT ATTENDS WORSHIP TOGETHER

ATTENDS WORSHIP TOGETHER

This is my favorite, for it humorously attacks the old bromides that have gone unchallenged for so long. The truth is that a lot of “church going” amounts almost to nothing in terms of real Christianity. It will be better when we recapture the spirit of “the church in thy house” of the early Christians. Really, there is no particular virtue in a family attending worship together. It should be the natural expression of a 7-day a week religion. Let’s face it: it is often the case with our very best families who are so loyal that they never miss a service—not even on Wednesday nights when the kids are tired and have homework—that they have accomplished only one thing. They attended worship together.

SEE WORLD’S LARGEST FOSSIL COLLECTION

—IN THE BIG TENT AT ACC LECTURESHIP

It isn’t that they are down on ACC. It is another way of telling us that we are still a hundred years behind the times. These fellows are calling for relevance and meaning. They are tired of our answering questions that they aren’t asking. They want us to get with it.

DON’T JOIN—

BE ADDED TO

We dilly-dally in making distinctions where there are none. Perhaps it helps to preserve our self-image of not being a denomination. The idea that other people become members of their churches by joining them, while we become members of the Church of Christ by being added to, is sheer nonsense.

FIGHT EGGHEADISM

—START YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD CHRISTIAN COLLEGE TODAY!

You’d think these fellows were dyed-in-the-wool Sommerites and downright anti-college. But they are products of the Church of Christ colleges!

Perhaps that is enough. You will notice that several of them gouge at our anti-intellectualism. Another reads: “Only You Can Prevent Higher Criticism.”

The more there are of us who can laugh along together at this kind of fun the better it is for us. And I do believe that the boys in New York barely made it with this fun-poking device, for in a few more years we will have made such changes that the ribbing would be inappropriate.

Yet we want to commend these brothers for their perceptive analysis and for their imaginative way of provoking us to think. It reminds me of Socrates. I passed a few of these along to one of my classes at Texas Woman’s University, where we have a lot of fundamentalists, Baptists as well as Church of Christ girls (you know, of course, that the Baptist Church is the state church of Texas.) They got a real bang out of “Don’t Dance—Park.” And no one had to knock them down to get them to see the point!

It is good for us when someone makes us laugh at ourselves. So let us thank God for these H. L. Menchens up New York way. Not only is there room at our warm side for beatniks, but a conviction that we badly need their brazen honesty. They help us to relax and see things as they really are, as painful as that may be. But what I like most of all is that they don’t make us take these new pills dry. They give water with them.