Ironwolf

Number 9 in a series.

Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.
Translation: You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.
Since this week’s sign is a quote from the gospel hymn Leave it There, I thought I would provide a musical response in the form of labor activist Joe Hill’s The Preacher and […]

Number 8 in a series.

Those who seldom think of heaven are not likely to get there.
This is a masterful example of the “Veiled Threat.”
Translation: If you don’t accept our brainwashing, you are likely to be tortured for all eternity.
“I don’t believe in an afterlife, so I don’t have to spend my whole life fearing hell, […]

Number 7 in a series.

Real love puts actions to good intentions.
Translation: Real love puts actions to good intentions.
Now here’s an example of what I’ve mentioned before: on the odd occasions when these church signs do dispense real wisdom (or at least a truism) they also dispense with the religion. This statement is not dogmatic, not […]

Number 6 in a series.

God’s mercy is no excuse for careless living.
Translation: God’s mercy is no excuse to do things we disapprove of.
“God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another […]

Number 5 in a series.

You can’t walk with God and hold hands with Satan.
Translation: Having trouble snuffing out your last spark of self-determination? Let us help!
“The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the […]

Number 4 in a series.

Conscience is God’s natural warning system.
Translation: Guilt is God’s way of telling you you’re going to hell.
“But what will happen even if we do burn down the Jews’ synagogues and forbid them publicly to praise God, to pray, to teach, to utter God’s name? They will still keep doing it in […]

Number 3 in a series.

Faith is a journey, not a destination.
Translation: Please nod your head at our profundity.
According to Google, lots of things are “journeys, not destinations” including:

success
happiness
life
education
security
innovation
medicine
yoga
interoperability
usability testing
customer relations management (CRM)
real estate weblogging

So before we think something especially insightful is being offered here, let us meditate on this equally profound thought: Stupidity is a […]

Number 2 in a series.

Do you cling to your Bible as closely as your cell phone?
When I read that sign, I thought for a minute about carrying my bible around next to my face like a cell phone for a few days, but decided against it as I thought it might give me brain cancer.
But […]

I drive past Glendora Friends Church and their well-placed sign quite often. It never fails to astonish me that their few precious seconds of community outreach this sign represents are usually filled with the most vacuous and risible platitudes. And, as is so common with church signs: occasionally they dispense actual wisdom, but on those […]