Honk if you can read this

I was driving somewhere the other day and noticed the car in front of me had a ‘fish’ sticker on the rear bumper. Many of you will be familiar with these stickers (or the logo at least) that feature the name of Jesus in the familiar Christian fish outline.

It made me think about bumper stickers for a moment. They had their heyday in the 1960s and ’70s when you’d see the rears of cars (bumpers, boots, windows) plastered with stickers. Most often, there’d be at least one for your football team, one for the radio station you listened to and others for places you’d visited (‘Ettamogah Pub’).

Bumper stickers are generally not as popular these days. We tend to not hang on to a car for decades anymore and we replace our cars every 5–10 years, so we’re reluctant to put a sticker on that might leave a mark or be impossible to remove when it comes to selling the car.

Through the years, there has been some very funny, thought-provoking and quirky Christian bumper stickers. And some downright weird ones. Let’s consider a few.

‘Do you follow Jesus this closely?’ – An interesting passive-aggressive sort of sticker. It says, ‘I’m a Christian and I hope you are too, but back off, buddy!’

‘Honk if you love Jesus. Text if you want to see him’ – Sure, it’s a nice reminder not to text on your phone while you’re driving but it seems a little dark or sombre to offer advice on how to die!

‘My boss is a Jewish carpenter’ – For someone who doesn’t know about Jesus or isn’t familiar with the biblical account of his life, this sticker is like someone saying, ‘My boss is a Canadian accountant’. Big deal.

‘Powered by Jesus’ – This is nice … until your car is seen broken down by the road! There must be some tow-truck drivers who have laughed at this one as they’ve loaded a car. It also makes me wonder if the driver ever stops for petrol.

‘Let go and let God’ – Oh, I hope not. I really don’t want to be looking in my rear-vision mirror and see the driver behind letting go of his steering wheel.

‘Rooted in Christ’ – This is an American bumper sticker. Not Australian. Enough said.

‘Jesus would let me merge’ – Well, true. But Jesus would also let you express your servant heart and humility and wait. Besides, I’m guessing it’s not Jesus driving the car behind you.

And finally, one of my favourite stickers is a simple cross shape closely followed by the word ‘unashamed’. If you can picture it, it seems to suggest that a large fish has been shamed. As someone else said, pointedly, ‘The tuna knows what it did.’

Major Mal Davies is the Assistant Divisional Commander for the Victoria Division.