by Jennifer Brister

Created on: March 24, 2008   Last Updated: February 20, 2009

The small Baptist church down the road from my house has a bright red electric sign that displays all sorts of useful information such as the time, temperature and the ten commandments. The sign is quite large and has huge red digital letters that remind me of the red letter Jesus text in the KJV Bible. It amuses me on a daily basis.

Sometimes I drive to work and it tells me not to covet my neighbor's wife. Sometimes it just tells me that

we all are sinners who should repent and tithe regularly.

Once, when I drove by, it said, "Jesus was not a man". I thought, wow, they finally realize that God is a woman! I might be wrong about that, though. There is the whole, "women should not be leaders" thing that the Bible seems to go by. As well as the fact that we are in the South and there are still plenty of churches around here that think it's sinful for a woman to wear pants instead of dresses to church.

Lately, the sign has been screaming the following statement to me as I drive by:

"Flee from the wrath to come! Run to Jesus!" .... "82degrees"...."7:12 pm"

I decided to send a letter to the Highland Baptist Church detailing my confusion at this particular commandment in red and asking for advice about exactly what wrath I needed to watch out for. The letter is repeated for your reading pleasure as follows:

Dear Highland Baptist Church,

RE: your LED sign

Are you speaking of some particular wrath? Is there another hurricane coming that I need to know about or are we just talking about that same old end-of-the-world stuff? Perhaps there's an army of killer gnomes about to invade. How about another "natural disaster" such as a tsunami, flood or a slew of ravaging tornadoes? Or, maybe you're just warning me about the pertinent rise in gas prices. However, I'm not sure how running to Jesus would help me on that one..it seems it would take quite of few gallons of gas to get to him.

Maybe the wrath to watch out for is my own. Wrath created by your inane sign that distracts me from the road on my daily commute and challenges me to live by an impossible set of rules and dogma. Maybe the wrath will cause me to run my car into your sign, knocking it out of commission and making my drive to work much more pleasant. Anyway, please respond at your earliest convenience. A note to me on the red sign will do. You don't have to mention me by name. I'll know who you're talking about.

Sincerely yours,

a concerned sinner/pantheist

(I am still anxiously awaiting a response)

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