Offensive Church sign.

We have visited the city of Perth in Scotland. We tend to randomly wander around the places we visit.  I take an interest in the Churches, and what they look like to the passing public. Empty, unused or boarded up Churches send a message - “The Christian Faith is no longer relevant!” Churches would be better to pull the building down if they are left empty to rot. Many Churches have a very fortress like look, like they do not want you to come in. Sometimes the signs are so old looking that you wonder if in fact something still happens inside. Sometimes the sign is an A4 sheet of paper shoved in a noticeboard with times of worship and “All Welcome” underneath, in a very amateur looking way. I seem to think most basic computers and printers are capable of something more inviting than this. We who run Churches ought to look with dispassionate eyes at the street front of our buildings and ask ourselves about what sort of message it is sending? Someone has said, “Everything the Church does, or does not do, communicates!” What message are we sending by our street front look?
In Perth there were two Churches which had quite clear signage, but the message of the signs made me wonder how today’s secular people would reacte to them?
One said on a big draped banner,
                   “BY JESUS’ DEATH, WE ARE FORGIVEN!”
Now to a traditional Christian or a person who has attended Church, this might mean something. Somehow through what Christians call “the atonement” Jesus death enabled God to forgive us. There are various explanations of this, some are quite gross, others are just hard to comprehend. If we express doubt about it we are told to just have faith and “believe”. A traditional Christian could see the meaning of it, though I think few could explain it. I have studied theology and the New Testament all my adult life and I find the statement off putting. The best I could say is that Jesus life and death demonstrates the love at the heart of the universe, so I know full acceptance.... or something like that. But what does my brewery worker whose experience of Church is the odd funeral service they have to endure, make of it? What would my totally secular, anti religion fire fighter make of it? Or the mum with three kids in tow, struggling to keep them together as she rushes past the church wondering what and how she is going to cook dinner tonight? “By Jesus’ death I am forgiven? What for? Yelling at my kids? What the hell did I do to Jesus? Why do I need forgiven? I’m just doing the best I can, trying to raise my kids.” Most if they noticed it at all would just think “Religious gobbledygook.” and it would reinforce in their mind that religion is irrelevant.
Across the road another church had a professionally printed sign, though looking a bit tattered, quoting a biblical psalm.
“A FOOL SAYS IN HIS HEART THERE IS NO GOD!”
I know this is quoting scripture, but stuck on the outside of a church, out of context it is to me, offensive. The psalm was written thousands of years ago, in a different culture. It is a phrase taken out of a certain type of poetry. Confronting people in today’s world with that is offensive. It is often very hard for the best of us to believe in “God”. I recall a life long church attending grandfather, whose gifted teenage granddaughter was dying of cancer, shaking his head and saying to me almost in anger, “Is there a God?” Was he “a fool”? I have atheist friends, who are wise, thoughtful, compassionate people, and it seems cowardly and insulting for the church to blatantly post on its public notice board a sign essentially saying, “You’re a fool!” If you were having a conversation with them you would not dare say, “You’re a fool.” It would be considered aggressive, offensive and an insult. Why then paste it on the front of a church which is meant to promote a way of love? Again most thinking people, whether or not they were ‘believers’ would in my mind, be turned off a church with that sort of approach.
Everything the church does, or does not do, communicates. What does the front of your church say to the people passing by?