The car in front of the house I'm taking care of displays one white bumper sticker which says in a large (and ugly) font to make it easier to read (or more forceful in tone), "Jesus is the Only Way to Heaven." Now that's odd, I thought. Jesus is the only way to...heaven? As if we all want to go to heaven? As if we all beLIEVE in heaven, and desire to get in?
It's a little bit confusing, this bumper sticker. It seems to assume that all "religions" aim to get into heaven, as if the point of practicing Buddhism or Daoism or New Age whatever is to get into the (Christian) heaven, and that those methods do not "work," as "Jesus" is the only "way." To set things straight--the point of the aforementioned religions or philosophies is not necessarily a heaven at all. There may not even be a point, or at least an "end goal" we we traditionally understand them in the West. This bumper sticker is just so silly.
One must first be a Christian (generally--you can be religiously hodge-podge-like if you want, or even if you just are) to even believe in heaven (and really, I don't believe in a floaty spirits one, but a redeemed earth), and yet, not all people want to "get into heaven." Not all people believe in heaven. Not all people are even afraid of "not getting into heaven." This bumper sticker assumes that heaven is the thing that exits, before all others, as opposed to something within the imagination and liturgy of Christian church. A Christian heaven does not exist without Christianity, contrary to the shouts of that bumper sticker.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment