We've seen them everywhere--on signs at sporting events, etched into the eye-black of football players, silk-screened onto T-shirts cheap and pricy, inscribed on all sorts of toys, trinkets, and baubles. First, a couple of letters which good Christians recognize as code a particular book of the Bible, followed by a number, a colon, and another number. Most of the time the verses so referenced have little if anything to do with the particular product bearing the reference. But we're oh so convinced that this is a great form of evangelism.
Well, this harmless (?) Christian kitsch has been taken to a new level. It seems that the scopes of certain guns used by the U. S. military forces have also been used to display references. So the soldier catches a glimpse of a verse from the Bible while aiming, presumably to kill an enemy combatant. The irony grows when we learn that many of the verses point to Jesus as the light of the world. The weapon has one message about dealing with the world's problems; the text referred to has quite another.
My point is not to argue for a pacifist stance on all military conflict. That's a different issue for another day. The point for consideration here is that we have been brought to a place at which to consider the wisdom of using isolated verses from the Bible as a form of evangelism. As long as the "message" contained in the verses is out there, someone will see it and be saved. But is it so? Lacking context, devoid of explanation in terms of the larger story the Bible gives us, isolated from the community of faith which is being shaped by that story, one is left to wonder what has been accomplished. Particularly in a culture which has lost its ability to remember even the vague outline of the Bible's story of the world, and has been implicitly formed with the expectations and habits of a different one altogether, such short-cuts to evangelism are unwise at best.
What do you think?
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They make great scopes, I own several and I've never noticed it quite frankly. I still haven't gone to the trouble to look for them yet. I've been to a some Christian monuments in South Africa from the past, and they are a bit different then what we are accustomed to (the founder of this organization is from SA).
ReplyDeleteThe weapons of warfare are scarey things, and with good reason we look to an eschatological future where they will be beaten into farming implements. Meanwhile we live in an existential tension due to the Fall and what I did to my neighbor yesterday.
I bought a two row John Deere 30 year old corn planter in myerstown last week, and I felt better about buying that then the Glock 17 I bought last year.
How about at football games, the John 3:16 signs without the Bible text at all - just the reference. Like people who are believers are going to know verse references!!!
ReplyDeleteI think there is a place for single Bible verses being used, (rifle scopes is not it)but we have certainly abused it.
Ken, obviously I would argue that military participation and following Jesus are incompatible choices. But as you said, that's another topic :)
ReplyDeleteHowever in regard to the out of context verse quoting you said, "one is left to wonder what has been accomplished."
My take is that this is symptomatic of the misguided style of Christians imposing their beliefs on the world in unhelpful ways devoid of relationships. And unfortunately MUCH has been accomplished in terms of turning people off from the true meaning of Jesus.
Thanks for the thoughts expressed thus far. Marty, having never bought/owned a gun in my life (I did shoot a .22 rifle at summer camp, however!), I don't have the comparative experience of buying the farm equipment instead (don't own any of that, either, beyond the hand tools real men use).
ReplyDeleteDan, I'm left to wonder just what the place is for those single verses we see on just about anything. Maybe in a context we know to be frequented by lapsed or prodigal believers, with whom there would be an immediate chord of recognition and conviction? I don't know. But I still have a concern, as does Michael, that the faith is reduce to a message, and one which is not definitively stated by any single passage. Why not plaster the Creed on products instead? at least there's a whole something to consider.