Not to quibble with the brethren about the Bible, but doesn't Deuteronomy say:
"You must therefore be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left."33
"You must therefore be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left."33
If you don't turn to the right or to the left, you'll crash into the sign.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that there's a metaphor about life in that someplace.
What if you want to "get straight?" I don't mean that in the straight vs. gay method, and I get what the sign is doing, in that do you either want to go to heaven, or get "left behind."
ReplyDeleteWhat I dislike about signs like this is that it cheapens the entire experience of encountering God, however one is seeing the term God. When I read the Bible, salvation is not presented as a check A for yes or check B for no. It's supposed to be about growth, about a journey, about slowly shedding the sin and recovering the original product. Signs like these just cheapen Christianity.
Signs like these are part of the landscape in Tennessee. It is part of folk religion I guess might be the phrase.
ReplyDeleteYou might find this interesting at the Museum of Appalachia
I love living in Appalachia. It has a personality and a culture that I find complex and refreshing.
Someone is a rapture believer...oh those old slogans - I think they make bumper-stickers for those slogans also.
ReplyDeleteJohn's right--it's just part of the Southern experience. My favorite spoof was (naturally) on "The Simpsons", when the sign outside the First Church of Springfield read "NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SALVATION."
ReplyDeleteSo The Governator of California was only obeying scripture when he explained how he had his motorcycle accident?
ReplyDeleteHe said he couldn't go left because that would make his Republican constituents mad, and he couldn't go right because that would make his wife mad (she's a Kennedy), so he went straight in - and hit the car backing up out of a driveway.
lol!
ReplyDeleteJust think of them as Southern Haiku.
ReplyDeleteA variation on this I saw once was more overt:
DIRECTIONS TO HEAVEN:
TURN RIGHT AND GO STRAIGHT