"Sayings on a Sign"

“Christians are like pianos. They need tuning often.”

“Prayer takes your words on wings to heaven”

We have all seen sayings like these on signboards outside of churches. At best they offer a nominally questionable theology and at the worst they echo an angry and punishing God! People drive by in their cars, look at them, think “Isn’t that cute!” and forget about them. I hope!

Let’s consider what these quotes are really saying to people. The first one, “Christians are like pianos. They need tuning often.” only addresses those driving by who might call themselves Christians. If you’re not a Christian, you are let off the hook and don’t need that correction! That wouldn’t encourage me, if I fell into that category, to ever darken the doors of any church! BUT if you are a Christian, beware! God [or the church acting on God’s behalf] is going to make the needed corrections, and often!

The second quotation is a much gentler one. But again it posits a God who lives in heaven and for God to hear your words, you must pray. Those words must then fly away into the unknown in order to reach God.

Evolution, which is defined as 'the process by which different kinds of living organism are believed to have developed from earlier forms during the history of the earth' is accepted as fact by 98% of the scientific community. Humans have evolved over the past 3 million years from the 'Paranthropus boisei', a highly specialized vegetarian to what we are today. [BBC Science and Nature: Prehistoric Life] There is no ‘original perfection’ that we need to be corrected back to. Indeed we are evolving and changing with each generation.

The Hubble telescope and the images from the space flights have closed the doors forever on the concept of a God who lives in the heavens above the earth. Scientists now say there are at least 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe [Institute of Physics]. So just where is this God who corrects us, to whom our prayers have to be sent on wings?

Englert and Higgs were just recently awarded the 2013 Nobel Physics prize for proving the existence of the Higgs Boson particle that was christened sensationally in the press as the 'God particle'. Christian mystics have been saying for centuries, and many current theologians are echoing, that 'God', the 'Source of all Being' in the words of Paul Tillich, is actually found within every human being. Prayer can then be understood as entering into a relationship with the 'God' within through meditation or contemplation. This 'God' is also seen as being present within all of creation.

I started with the words fro a church sign, and I would like to end with another example. This time from an Australian church that is listening to the wisdom of the 21st century. [The spelling mistake just proves it is an actual church sign ...lol...]

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