posted
I spent last week as a guide/chaperone for a group of 15 year olds in Yellowstone. Someone had put stickers containing inspirational Christian thoughts and scriptures on all the interpretive signs around the park. They’d also left coins with a Christian message inscribed on them all over the place. When I picked up the first coin, I thought someone had simply dropped it but after I’d found several more it became clear that they had been planted.
Now I consider myself a Christian and agree with the message on most of these things, but I was still offended that someone was defacing park signs with these stickers and leaving litter all over Yellowstone National Park.
I suspect that who ever left all these coins and stickers around felt that their were witnessing or performing somesort of missionary service. I suspect that they were hoping that some lost sole might come along, read the sticker and accept Christ as their savior. I also know (based on the responses I over heard), that a lot of people were offended that some Christian was vandalizing the National Park.
It doesn’t matter whether what your message is, defacing signs in a national park is vandalism. Leaving stuff lying around the park is littering. It doesn’t matter whether your leaving nice Christian notes or painting gang signs, you just don’t do that to the interpretive signs in National Park. I was doubly irritated because it seemed that this would be “Missionary for Christ” was instead vandalizing Yellowstone in the name of Christ. This is the kind of idiot that gives Christians a bad name.
I wish I knew how to teach people to think a bit harder before they do some idiotic thing like that.
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posted
For some reason this makes me think there should be a short internet movie depicting a showdown between the little eco-terrorists of the movie Hoot and the RL Christian Vandals of Yellowstone.
Wow, it's really past time for me to go home.
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posted
Maybe all the cars with religious bumper stickers that cut me off at intersections and run me off the road when I'm cycling are actually athiests.
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posted
That's really tacky. Unfortunately, I find about 75% of all Christian "witnessing" to be equally disrespectful and misguided. That other 25%, while I don't agree with, I can at least respect for tact and manners.
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quote:I find about 75% of all Christian "witnessing" to be equally disrespectful and misguided. That other 25%, while I don't agree with, I can at least respect for tact and manners.
I might have a different definition of "witnessing" than you are using in your post. Living a good life, for example. I'm not sure if a full life counts as one instance of "witnessing" or an infinite number, so I guess I'd have a hard time advising how to factor it into percentages.
posted
Also, if I saw someone dropping that stuff in Yellowstone, I would ask them once politely to stop and if they didn't, I would call the rangers and try to have them arrested.
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quote:Now I consider myself a Christian and agree with the message on most of these things, but I was still offended that someone was defacing park signs with these stickers and leaving litter all over Yellowstone National Park.
I completely agree, Rabbit. It would upset me too.
I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes is by Brennan Manning:
quote:How I treat my brothers and sisters from day to day, whether they be Caucausian, African, Asian or Hispanic; how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street; how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike; how I deal with ordinary people in their ordinary disbelief on an ordinary deal will speak the truth of who I am more poignantly than the pro-life sticker on the bumper of my car.
And that's why there are no bumper stickers on my car - because I'm called to live my life as a witness, and I don't think slapping something on my car counts.
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posted
I do hate that sort of thing. Halfway witnessing. I feel it's far more easy to rail against immorality of others, or stick up a sticker, or protest a movie than to actually do something. Why is it almost all of the churches I've been to down here cry out immorality in the world and preach about the DaVinci Code? I feel like a pastor's taking the easy way out. Why don't enough of them use the same histrionics to yell about how people treat the poor and impoverished, or look down their noses at "sinners"--and not just people in general, but their own congregation.
Can you imagine if a dirty old bum came to a church service at one of your local churches? How would people treat him? How many people can you see approaching him and talking to him like he's just a normal person? Would he feel welcome enough to come back?
This is a bit of a rant. The soup kitchen I work at had to move to a smaller location that's not very convenient for its patrons recently. This is because, you see, the church that had gladly welcomed us before just remodeled, and now they've kicked us out for fear it won't be clean enough in time for the church potluck the next day. Even though we always cleaned it scrupulously. Thanks, guys. Real Christian.
And I should be fair and note the exceptions. My current church is very good. The community exhorts its members to help. The Habitat for Humanity project is fantastic--they ask for people willing to show up and work in a crew for a whole week. These are people actually using their vaction time for Habitat. And there's a lot of them.
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posted
There is no justification for the stickers, that really is just plain vandalism, but I wonder about the coins. Was it clear that they were strategically placed to be found, or is it possible they were handing them out to people, and the people later threw them away. Though logically, people would likely have thrown them in the trash.
posted
Doing the right thing (like witnessing) but employing the wrong methods is worse than doing the right thing for the wrong reason. And neither are not good situations.
I was always taught that being a good Christian also meant being a good neighbor and a good citizen. What you describe is obnoxious and rude behavior. And, I might add, counterproductive.
This reminds me of a guy I used to work with. He kept writing Christian slogans and scriptures and stuff on the bathroom walls. (It just seems like an inappropriate place for sacred things.) Besides which, about every other week the janitors had to go in and sand off the profane along with the pious and repaint the walls. Ink is ink no matter what the words, and graffiti is vandalism, and it was all just extra drudge work for folks who were underpaid to begin with. Not to mention the extra cost in man-hours and supplies for the company.
Just like the cost of cleaning up the Park.
That’s just not very neighborly.
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posted
People try to come up with all these half baked ways to reach out to the unsaved, most of whom don't want to be reached out to, and then they wonder why they Christians catch grief.
If you want to reach people do something nice for them, something they can't do for themselves, and don't turn it into a time share thing were you get a free TV if you'll listen our sales pitch for two hours. Just do the nice thing and leave them alone, If they have questions they will ask.
I could go on, but I'll stop before I really get going.
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Some churches really do get involved in the community, and when they do, it is AWESOME. I ultimately left one denomination entirely because I couldn't find a congregation in my new town that was anything but the typical insular cyst -- never doing anything in the community, but wanting money for buildings.
I think when you find a place that really is DOING THINGS you can feel it. The congregation is energized, the youth are engaged, the ideas of what to do next just keep coming. It's so amazing to see.
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posted
I think the coin idea is pretty cool. I'm not sure anybody would ever convert religions just because they found and inspiration coin on the ground, but I like it as an expression of belief. And it shouldn't be considered littering anymore than throwing a penny into a lake for good luck would be - because they are not intended to be trash and they were not left around out of laziness. Assuming there weren't so many everywhere that they were causing problems, there is no harm involved.
The stickers are more problematic, because somebody will have to go around and take them off the signs. Still, I'm not sure if that's something worth getting offended over. The people putting them out seem to have had good intentions; they just didn't think through the implications of what they were doing very well.
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Not long ago in Gettysburg, the park service had a problem with someone vandalizing various monuments and statues with an unknown oily substance. It was especially damaging because the oil was being absorbed by the stone and it was difficult and expensive to remove the stains without also damaging the monuments themselves.
This went on for quite some time before it was discovered that the vandalism was being done by a Christian group that was "consecrating" the monuments. If I remember correctly, the clean-up was expected to cost in the tens of thousands of dollars or more.
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posted
I'd say its an improvement. Considering all religions have a small minority of nut cases that preach their doctrine in an unpleasant fashion, it beats killing non-believers.
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quote:And it shouldn't be considered littering anymore than throwing a penny into a lake for good luck would be - because they are not intended to be trash and they were not left around out of laziness.
The coins could be harmul for the animals, I think.
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posted
I also consider damaging public property as an act of vandalism, whatever the “message to be shared” is. If you want to wear a hat with some banner attached to it, do it. But don’t stick your banner on everybody’s hat, if they don’t asks you to.
Sharing is good, “aggressive sharing” is problematic, especially because it is so hard to draw the line between “warning in good faith” (i.e. with the best of intentions) and “insulting the intelligence of others”.
posted
I have an issue with many, many witnessing practices. Yet another sore point in my relationship with my old Southern Baptist church: I simply was not comfortable approaching random people and telling them they were going to hell. There used to be a church trip in which all that was done was worship and walk around on the beach trying to convert random people and get them to learn about Jesus by scaring them.
If people want to learn about a faith, that's awesome. But I don't think that fear should be the motivating factor. And I don't think that billboards, bumper stickers, or any of that other crap are really going to help people find God.
Standing in the middle of 7th Ave. Ybor City shouting, "Sex is not love, people!" and shoving pamphlets in people's faces doesn't help much, either. In fact, it kind of makes me want to start arguments with them over the fact that they are clearly judging me simply because I am in Ybor City on a Friday night. Do they know why I'm there? No. Maybe I'm going to the movies. Maybe I'm going to a concert. They don't know.
I agree that these witnessing tactics are a huge reason many Christians get a bad rap. It's also really tough to try to talk to acquaintences about your faith in a calm, respectful way because a lot of people will recoil the minute you mention Christianity, assuming that you are going to demean them as sinners or hound them or threaten them.
posted
Hmmm... I am reminded of the stories people have given on this forum about leaving copies of Ender's Game lying around with a note to read it inside, in hopes that someone will find it and enjoy it. Would you consider that littering? I wouldn't...
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posted
Note to all so-called christians: if the way you try to convert others makes other christians think, "I wonder if that person is really an atheist pretending to be a christian just so he can make christians look bad" then YOU'RE DOING WAY MORE HARM THAN GOOD!
quote:Can you imagine if a dirty old bum came to a church service at one of your local churches?
We get people off the street fairly regularly. The people that have lived on the street for a long time are usually not interested in much else except money (and are usually not really with it, mentally). The people that are living on the street because they are sick or lost their job or just got out of prison are more likely to be interested in changing their lives. We've helped several people like that who became members of the congregation. So we always treat the "dirty old bums" like they might be that type, until they make clear they are the other kind, the just-want-money type. (Some people don't even want food, and will only accept money, which we don't give them.)
But it does seem that most people professing christianity do not spend much time with the poor, in contrast to what Christ and the early church did.
But you can't judge an idea by the people who say they believe in it.
quote:Hmmm... I am reminded of the stories people have given on this forum about leaving copies of Ender's Game lying around with a note to read it inside, in hopes that someone will find it and enjoy it. Would you consider that littering? I wouldn't...
I agree that this is vandalism and littering. I think the coins are a neat idea maybe in a parking lot where someone might normally find and pick up coins but not in a park. This would annoy me if I were a non-Christian, not make me more curious about Christianity. This behavior is exactly what makes real efforts to witness and inform so difficult and it makes me mad! I agree that walking in the light of the Lord is a much better way of converting the masses than slapping some stickers on some signs. I have a hard time thinking Christ would condone this.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: I think the coin idea is pretty cool. I'm not sure anybody would ever convert religions just because they found and inspiration coin on the ground, but I like it as an expression of belief. And it shouldn't be considered littering anymore than throwing a penny into a lake for good luck would be - because they are not intended to be trash and they were not left around out of laziness. Assuming there weren't so many everywhere that they were causing problems, there is no harm involved.
I don't have a problem with people throwing coins into the fountain at the mall; I do have a problem with them throwing them into the hot springs and geysers at Yellowstone. The same is going to be true of coins (or yes, even books) left lying around said places. Governments are finally beginning to realize that the right approach to national parks like Yellowstone N.P., Yosemite N.P., Red Rock S.P., and that is to treat what you're trying to protect with respect. Minimal impact, minimal disruption, minimal residual effect. Leaving little metal coins in this context seems like a step back for an organization that teaches respect: to the park, to the people who maintain the park, and the people who came to the park to see as much of unspoiled land and wilderness as they can in most parts of the country.
If anything at Yellowstone (or most other national parks) converted me to Christianity, the absolute last thing it would be is a small piece of metal litter (or the person dropping said coins for that matter).
Posts: 1368 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: I think the coin idea is pretty cool. I'm not sure anybody would ever convert religions just because they found and inspiration coin on the ground, but I like it as an expression of belief. And it shouldn't be considered littering anymore than throwing a penny into a lake for good luck would be - because they are not intended to be trash and they were not left around out of laziness.
Throwing a penny into public fountain is entirely different from throwing coins into a natural lake or springs. There are all kinds of problems that are caused by coins being thrown into places they don't belong in national parks. There are hot springs in Yellowstone that have dried up because they were plugged by a tourists penny. There are springs that have been poisoned by the metals from coins. I've been to overlooks at the Grand Canyon where the ledge below was literally carpeted with tourist coins. If you like to throw away money for good luck, throw it in a public fountain but leaving coins in a National Park is littering at best and in many cases vandalism.
If you want to leave inspirational coins around for people, leave them in the Grocery store parking lot but not in Yellowstone.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: Hmmm... I am reminded of the stories people have given on this forum about leaving copies of Ender's Game lying around with a note to read it inside, in hopes that someone will find it and enjoy it. Would you consider that littering? I wouldn't...
It depends on where you left it. If you left it in a national park, I would consider it littering.
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posted
A national park does seem like a strange place to be doing this, especially when there would be just as many people in far more convenient places...
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posted
Christians who wish to give a good witness to others, and attract them to life with Christ, need to give careful thought to the effect of demonstrating poor judgment for everyone to see. Littering a park is not good judgment. Would you want to associate with someone who had such poor judgment as to do something like this?
This leads me to one of my favorite church rants--those who insist that the people on the platform up front should wear suitcoats and ties, even in the heat of summer in a church with no air conditioning. My church is very evangelism-oriented. But are people going to be impressed that they should respect the judgment of the people preaching to them if they are so foolish that they risk heat stroke, merely for the sake of false notions of traditional attire?
Back when I attended a church that did not have air conditioning, as an elder in my church who sometimes had reponsibility for giving the sermon when the pastor was away, I always insisted on going on the platform without a suitcoat, when it is hot. One or two of the other elders on the platform with me may have felt a little like proper decorum dictates they wear their suitcoat, but they also believe in uniformity, so they were glad that I set the example I did. Two or three elders wearing short sleeve shirts and ties makes a lot more sense than a bunch of sweating hotheads up front wearing suitcoats in August.
[ June 01, 2006, 01:38 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
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posted
That's why we wear casual wear at the church I go to. Jesus doesn't care what I wear as long as I am there.
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Yes! I HATE when people don't follow park rules. A lot of bears have had to be put down because people can't be bothered to read and follow rules that are in place for everyone's well being.
quote:And that's why there are no bumper stickers on my car - because I'm called to live my life as a witness, and I don't think slapping something on my car counts.
Well said.
I find it strange that Christians would use coins to spread their message - I immediately thought "render unto Ceasar" and "you cannot serve G-d and Mammon" when I read the words "Christian" and "coins" in the same sentence. But then, I was a Religion major, so I have a different perspective I guess.
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posted
From a purely advertising perspective, though, putting your message on a coin is actually not a bad idea. I mean, most people will walk right past printed material without even noticing, but few people will pass up a coin without bending down to pick it up, especially if it's silver and/or too large to be a penny. Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
A friend of mine recently found a method of witnessing that she likes (she's the type of person who lives and breathes Christianity already, in the good way--but I'm talking about "typical" witnessing to strangers). She stands on a street corner where pedestrians have to wait for the light and hands out books, not pamphlets. She likes it because people don't have to worry about her accosting them and trapping them in a long conversation, since they're only stopping for a moment to cross the street. If they don't want a book, they don't have to take it. And if they want more information, there's a card in the back of the book telling where they can go.
She's only going out once a week, and each week has plans to give out a different book.
Seems pretty non-intrusive to me. No littering involved. I would hope that anybody who didn't want a book and planned to throw it away wouldn't bother to take one.
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quote:There are all kinds of problems that are caused by coins being thrown into places they don't belong in national parks.
At the Baltimore Aquarium, they had a seal (or maybe sea lion) tank outside. People insisted on throwing coins in there, even though there were signs everywhere stating how dangerous it was to the animals. For some reason it annoyed me a lot more when parents told their kids to throw in the penny - making someone do something potentially harmful seems worse than doing it yourself.
I think the aquarium eventually closed down the tank.
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I think the aquarium eventually closed down the tank.
The last time I was there, it was still open. Well, more precisely it was re-open since they had closed it during a time they had to re-route the entrace due to construction. When it was last open, the signs warning about throwing coins were accompanied by a very graphic photo of an autopsied sea lion. Its gut was literally bursting from coins it had swallowed. Anyone who could see that and still toss a coin in should be left naked chained to a stake in their back yard for a week in winter to learn some empathy.
quote: But you can't judge an idea by the people who say they believe in it.
You're preaching to the choir, buddy.
Actually, alogn this vein, one of my most memorable religious experiences has been one of those tiny, random witnessing things:
I get broody sometimes, and I go off by myself, stare off into the distance with a bit of a frown on my face, and think a bit. Not usually dark or sad thoughts, just very heavy thinking. I've done it for as long as I can remember. Once, when I was very little, my family was staying at the beach--Hilton Head, I think. I went out on the shore one morning, pretty moody, and started a'thinking, this time on a few depressing veins. I was interrupted from this reverie by a middle-aged beachcomber, carrying a bucket of shells and walking barefoot in the sand. She asked if I'd like to look in her bucket and pick out a shell, and, being the polite kid I was, I did. Then she smiled, said "Jesus loves you", and walked off.
It's such a small moment. And yet it's stuck with me as one of the most powerful religious experiences of my life. I don't know why. Maybe being in a dark state of mind, I was open to a cheerful smile and a bit of kindness. It doesn't matter. I lost the shell, I think, which depresses me; now that I'm older, that would be one of few possessions I'd always keep with me. For a while I attributed semi-angelic traits not to the person herself, but to the experience. That memory has been one of the foundations of my faith. And I still can't understand why.
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posted
This matter of Christians using poor judgment can have grave consequences. The most notable example is the slaughter of the French Huguenots. The Huguenots were arguably the most moral, sincerely religious, conscientious, Bible-based Christian believers in France. But during a time of increasing tension between the growing community of Protestant Huguenots and the established Catholic Church which frequently persecuted them, someone, probably a servant on the King's staff, showed the poor judgment to put up a pro-Protestant placard on the King's bedroom door. This so infuriated the King (Charles IX) that he came down on the side of the established church, and consented to the slaughter of all the Huguenots in France. Tens of thousands of the best Christians and most moral people in France died as a result. As much as anything, this sowed the seeds for the French Revolution a few generations later, when it was the established church that suffered widespread slaughter of its clerics, along with the French nobility.
posted
pH, I saw Heaven's Gates when I was younger, and it took me years to get over the fear of going to hell. I pretty much dealt with it by denying the existence of such a place.
Bit of a backfire, I guess.
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I think the aquarium eventually closed down the tank.
The last time I was there, it was still open. Well, more precisely it was re-open since they had closed it during a time they had to re-route the entrace due to construction. When it was last open, the signs warning about throwing coins were accompanied by a very graphic photo of an autopsied sea lion. Its gut was literally bursting from coins it had swallowed. Anyone who could see that and still toss a coin in should be left naked chained to a stake in their back yard for a week in winter to learn some empathy.
That's good to know. The graphic sign was not there last time I went (years ago). Hopefully that will do the trick.
Shame that it's necessary, though.
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posted
When you go hiking in the Grand Canyon, you are given instructions about staying on the trails, leaving only footprints, taking only memories, that sort of thing. They go into great detail about how fragile the ecosystem is especially with respect to what happens when people go off the trails.
I had a brief conversation with a "gentleman" -- a doctor -- in which he corrected my grammar. Then he took his two kids on a "slide" down the side of the escarpment, because it was taking too long to use all the switchbacks.
Scuba divers in areas where coral lives are told how long it takes for the damage from merely touching the coral to be repaired.
I can't even count the number of clumsy divers who I've seen "steady" themselves by grabbing onto a coral head, let alone the ones that just go "stand on it" because they couldn't be bothered to find the patch of sand 10 feet away.
I'm drawn to inescapable negative conclusions about my fellow humans...
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quote:I can't even count the number of clumsy divers who I've seen "steady" themselves by grabbing onto a coral head, let alone the ones that just go "stand on it" because they couldn't be bothered to find the patch of sand 10 feet away.
It makes me so mad when people do it. That and sunscreen - no sunscreen when reef diving. Stay inside the canopy or keep your wet suit on the whole time, but do not where sunscreen when reef diving. If you have to wear sunscreen for some reason, don't dive.
As to the reaching and grabbing, it makes me wish there was a little more fire coral around.
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quote:Originally posted by Shigosei: pH, I saw Heaven's Gates when I was younger, and it took me years to get over the fear of going to hell. I pretty much dealt with it by denying the existence of such a place.
Bit of a backfire, I guess.
That is very close to what I had to do. And it helped to cause the beef I have with Southern Baptists.
posted
The point has been covered, but I would definitely agree that it was littering. I worked in Quttinirpaaq National Park in the Arctic one summer, and it was incredible how much change a footstep could make there. We practiced no-trace camping (and I mean *no* trace - no litter or foodcrumbs left in the field, no soap or toothpaste in the water, and no, er, "human waste products" left behind anywhere) and there was good reason for it. The survey they did at one site, which involved walking a defined trail once a year, left a marked path after about three years. It's maybe easier to see there, because of the lack of vegetation, but a footprint and a piece of litter can make the same difference in *any* protected park. Never mind the effect on wildlife! Argh. I wish I were a park ranger some days. There's so little wild land left as it is...
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posted
So do you think they were at it again in Yosemite? This thread was my first thought when I saw the headlines that it had closed.
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