Outreach

Reader Submitted Photo: Magnetic Scripture Signs

174 Comments

An alert reader in Michigan snapped a photo of this vehicle and sent it in.

As it turns out, magneticscripturesigns.com is not only a fundy outfit, they’re a fundy outfit “conceived by the Holy Ghost of God 27 years ago.” How’s that for a business plan?

Don’t miss the slideshow on their photos page with lots of great examples of how these their products are used.

174 thoughts on “Reader Submitted Photo: Magnetic Scripture Signs”

  3. “conceived by the Holy Ghost”

    My inner 5th grader is snickering. 😆

    So maybe that is how they have sinless perfection?

    1. All I can say is back in the Eighties we had a rule-of-thumb:

      The more Christian stickers on a car, the more you should avoid whoever is driving it.

    1. I doubt they’d do a version other than the KJV, and it kinda loses its effectiveness in that translation. :mrgreen:

  5. I wanted to get a picture of a similar vehicle not long ago, but none of the traffic lights cooperated. That one not only told me I was a sinner, but that I needed the KJV.

    I wonder how they would answer if you asked them how being a driving distraction was a good testimony.

    1. if you are this easily distracted then consider turning in your license.
      Or advocate eliminating every piece of media that can take your eyes off the road.

  7. I like the hover text. I’m sure piracy for God is covered somewhere in the 10 Commandments addenda.

    1. Well, I doubt Bill Waterson got royalties for all the Calvin-peeing-on-things bumper stickers of the 90’s either.

      1. Probably not, since he never licensed his characters.

        I’ve often wondered what cartoon characters pray about, and why folks feel the need to put fiction at the foot of the Cross. I try not to super spiritualize [real word?] things, but to me the Cross is serious, and that style of decal trivializes it.

      3. When I was a child, my dad read us Calvin and I saw those Calvin-peeing stickers and prayed fervently for Calvin’s salvation. I was most gratified the first time I saw a Calvin-kneeling sticker. I was amazed that God had answered my prayer even for a fictional character!

    2. Also strange that a good fundy would endorse anything that might even remotely be affiliated with any form of Calvinism

  8. According to the doctrinal statement, shouldn’t the sign read like this:
    “And they saide, Beleeue on the Lord Iesus Christ, and thou shalt be saued, and thy house. Acts 16:31”

  9. “I personally know of brothers in Christ who have them on locomotives, airplanes, lawn mowers, mail trucks, police cruisers, garbage trucks, school lockers, tool boxes and bicycles. One brother even nailed them to a tree in his front yard by the road! Glory to God!!!”

    Ugh. I guess he doesn’t sell any to the “sisters in Christ”, must have to leave selection of obnoxious bumper stickers to their husbands to make decisions on along with everything else.

    Also, what a great idea to make yourself look like a complete lunatic AND ruin the paintjob on your soul-winning wagon at the same time. Unless of course it’s on your lawn mower, because as we all know…lots of souls have been won for the Lord while you’re out cutting grass!

        1. A thought that crossed my mind as well. Also, I am sure that people (fundies) would automatically assume that to be commercial planes instead of crop dusters. Like any commercial airline company would allow tacky bumper stickers on their planes!

    2. How does a magnetic sign stick on an airplane? They are aluminum or fabric. (Or titanium)

        1. Doc, I mean…Brother Steve is a MOG…do you really think he would LIE like the Devil?! Brother Doc, you might need to get right with GAWD for that kinda talk!

          Hehe.

      2. Although garbage trucks are rarely government-owned these days. I still doubt any non-personal vehicle would allow any personalization.

      2. I used to think this was sacrilegious… now I see it only to be sacrilegious to the Religious Establishments that promote a cheap Gospel and a plastic Jesus.

        2. Why, is it making fun of Jesus our Savior? Or mocking the cheap grace, decisional regeneration plastic Jesus that Americanized Churchianity has been presenting to the world?

  11. There is truly nothing like a King James Bible flashing past me in rush hour traffic on the way to work. This would either highly amuse me or highly annoy me, but it would do nothing to make me come back to the bunker.

  13. From the website:

    “These Scripture Signs can be used to win the lost to Jesus Christ, encourage the saints of God, convict the sinner, and most of all, proclaim the pure Words of God found only in the King James 1611 Bible.”

    1. “These Scripture Signs can be used to win the lost to Jesus Christ, encourage the saints of God, convict the sinner, and most of all, proclaim the pure Words of God found only in the King James 1611 Bible.”

      Winning souls? Good.
      Encouraging saints? Meh, whatever.
      Convicting sinners? Okay, toss on some guilt.
      Propagating the 1611 KJB? Now you’re talking! :mrgreen:

      You had me at ” The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!”
      http://magneticscripturesigns.com/testimony.htm

  14. This negates any responsibility to build a personal relationship with the person with whom you’re witnessing. 🙁 And if you drive like a jerk, you just sent every lost person who reads it to hell. 😉

    1. I can’t say you didn’t warn me. The background music brought old repressed memories back to the front of the brain Rolodex. I expect Lester Roloff to preach next.

      1. Ear bleed alert! Ear bleed alert!! but really listening to the song do they really think magnetic tacky signs of scripture out of context really is how “we reach a world we never touch” ? yuck!

        1. Is it too Catholic for me to be offended that he’s suggesting we need some spiritual prophylactic when reaching out to the world?
          Also, I am reminded of the begloved villains in “Firefly.” squick factor +10

      2. Large doses of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic streamed off YouTube.

        It’s the only cure.

    7. OY. That’s rough. Is that even a real song? I have been out of Fundyland for a long time, and I don’t recognize that at all. I feel like I need to go put neosporin or something in my ears now…

      1. What do you get when you mix a Gregorian chant, a fundy guilt song, and the Jim Jones Tabernacle Choir together?

    12. Wow! That song was terrible! My cat heard it, came over, and hissed at the computer. That PETA sticker was just wrong on so many levels – and I’m not even vegan or vegetarian!

    15. I watched this without my headphones in so I could see the bumper stickers without the audio. What came to my mind when they were showing the reflective ones – car heading East close to sunset with a bunch of the reflective ones on the back of his SUV or van. A car is behind him. Sun reflects off of the reflective bumper stickers. Driver of car in behind is blinded. Bam – crash – boom! Huge pile-up caused by these bumper stickers.

  16. His devotion to the KJV makes for some unusual punctuation.

    For example, the bumper sticker “be sure your sin will find you out” is not capitalized because it’s not capitalized in the KJV because it comes in the middle of a verse. (English grammar allows for the changing of a lowercase letter to uppercase in this instance, but this company won’t change the KJV.)

    Or JESUS said . . . Repent; or else. The semicolon makes no sense grammatically in this context, but it’s there because that’s how it looks in the KJV.

    1. I am ashamed to admit that when I was KJVO, I made my students memorize their verses with the correct punctuation so that not a jot or tittle would be changed. 😳

    1. I betcha his KJV doesn’t have the Apocrypha like it should if it’s really a true 1611.

      1. There once was a man in the sticks
        Who liked to write limericks
        But he failed at the sport
        Because he wrote them too short

  19. “I Say Brothers and Sisters If you are not proclaiming the perfect, inerrent, inspired 1611 King James Word of God with a Magnet sign on your vehicle then the blood of all those you pass in traffic will be on YOUR hands!

    You don’t want to be in heaven and have some hell bound, worthless sinner call a halt to the playback of their life on the celestial Big Screen TV and point at you and Scream: “WHY DIDN’T YOU HAVE A MAGNETIZED KING JAMES SIGN ON YOUR CAR!? IF YOU WOULD HAVE HAD A SIGN THEN I WOULD NOT BE GOING TO HELL! I COULD HAVE MADE A DECISION IF YOU ONLY HAD A SIGN!!
    Don’t let this happen to you, don’t be humiliated like that in heaven infront of God and everyone like that. Get your magnetized sign and you will not face that humiliation and have your meal interrupted while attending the Judgment of the Great White Throne dinner theatre.”

    1. Now I wonder if they really use that kind of pitch talk for their signs, and if not, why not? 😕

  20. Get Right or Get Left!

    I think I know what he means by that. He means walk down to an ol’ fashioned altar etc etc etc or you won’t get Raptured™.
    I bet most people on the freeway won’t understand what the heck that sticker means. They would most likely think he is expressing apathy toward politics.

    2. I dunno, thanks to LeHaye and big publishing the Rapture and how it is portrayed as going down (whether it will and how is another discussion) is more familiar to the average Joe than, say…that Jesus created the universe.

      1. Also, Camping and others who manage to get on the news saying the rapture is going to happen this day and time. Yeah, the average person in the USA no matter their religious affiliation has at least a little bit of an inkling about what the rapture is. Most people would figure that’s what it refers to, esp. if there’s other Christian stickers on the vehicle.

  22. If the Word of God is proclaimed that is a blessing, whether you like the messenger or his mode of proclamation. Paul said he was glad to have the Word preached even though some preached of contention meaning to add misery to his bonds. I find some of these posts shamefully mocking. Be kind to the brothers and sisters in Christ who may not understand your viewpoint. We will each be called to account by the One Who died.

  23. “The Magnetic Scripture Sign Ministry was conceived by the Holy Ghost of God 27 years ago in 1984.”

    Uh, 27 years ago it was 2011. Someone needs to tell them. Inerrancy, and all that…

    1. From his personal testimony (which includes the teen rebellion, bad friends, alcohol, suicide attempt before God changed him and he quit cussing, smoking, pride, judging others…well, at least he quit cussing and smoking. He also gets in a nice dig at the Methodists, even though they were the ones who gave him the KJV. Oh yeah, the NIV and Living Bible are spoiled milk.)

      “To make a long long story short (uh, too late), I wanted to put The Word of God on my car like some of the brothers in my church had permanently stuck on their cars! Well, I didn’t want to “Stick” it on my nice clean shinny car like they did on their old junky cars.” Wow. What a friend we have in Steve.

      1. I love the part where he had trouble understanding the NIV or the Living Bible. Had to get back to the old KJV 1611 Authorized Version for easy reading….said NO ONE EVER!

    2. Hold the snarky comments, everyone. It’s ok. Steve has a recommendation from his pastor! If you have any questions, contact Mike Gray.

  24. I don’t want to know about your religion this way, really. The same reason that, during the silly season, I don’t like it when my neighbors post political yard signs. I don’t want to know this about you.

    When you plaster your car like this, I roll my eyes. When you tell me about what a Horrible Sinner ™ you were before you met Jesus, I hardly believe you. When you shout at me on the street, I stop listening. When you run to church every time they crack the door but treat everyone around you like pariahs, I maybe know more about you than you think.

    I want to know who you are by the way you behave in the backed up Walmart line. I want to know you by the way you treat wait staff and other service folks. I want to know you by the way your children are clearly loved and respected and are growing to be such great people that you like to be around them. I want to know who you are by the way we can count on you when something bad happens….you’ll be there. I want to know you by the way you treat the least of these.

    And I’m done with my soapbox, and thank y’all for indulging me.

  25. I wasn’t allowed to read Calvin and Hobbes when I was a child due to Calvin’s bad attitude towards his parents and his teacher.
    Is Calvin praying supposed to teach that Calvin is getting saved, has subsequently gotten saved after all of his antics or that he was saved all along?

    1. Interesting that Bill Watterson named his characters after John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes. If Calvin was saved, I’m assuming it’s because Watterson predestined him for salvation before the strip even began.

    2. IIRC Bill Watterson never authorized any car decals featuring Calvin (or Hobbes, not that I’ve seen any). All those bushy-headed kids praying, peeing, waving, etc., are juuuust enough off model that the manufacturer can’t be sued for copyright infringement.

      1. Going further – IFAIK, Watterson has never licensed “Calvin & Hobbes” imagery for merchandise. It’s one of the long-running battles he had with his syndicate. So EVERY Calvin-like item you see is copyright infringement. That makes me particularly unhappy with the little praying Calvins I see from time to time.

    1. Easy. Haven’t you heard the Chevy commercials “Like a rock?” I mean, those commercials are about the trucks, but I’m sure their SUV’s are as tough! 😉

  27. Hello Everyone, First Time poster here, long-time lurker.

    I remember the first time I saw stickers like this. It was at a local community park at a creek. It was a family (with all 8 children) wearing dresses while swimming because of the immodesty of children wearing bathing suits…

    A few Non-Fundies walked up with their dog not on a leash and the mother started going berserk on them for breaking that rule, even though the dogs were doing nothing wrong.

    In the end. The cops were called. And I had to apologize for the actions of ‘Christians.’

    Still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

    I look forward to doing more commenting in the future!

  28. if I were a heathen sharing the road with this car, I would be a bit frightened by the “if you died tonight” sticker, and give that person LOTS of extra space on the highway.
    I can tell the calvin on the left is getting saved, but what is the Calvin on the right doing? pointing up to heaven ’cause Jesus is “up there”?

  29. This from his “personal testimony”:
    at the age of 8 years old while lying in my bunk bed, I distinctly remember wondering what happens to a person when they die. The public school taught me about evolution and creation, trying to reconcile these led to much confusion in my little tinder mind.

    Aside from the agreement errors and the run-on sentences . . . I love the misspelling of “tinder.” I bet this is indicative of his Gomer-Pyle-esque accent. And I love how his “little tinder mind” went straight from wondering what happens to a person after he dies to trying to reconcile evolution and creation. I guess he was a fundy from the cradle.

    1. I’ve been a teacher my entire adult year and I cry foul. No one is teaching creation and evolution to second graders.

  30. OK, I get that the sign-maker is over the top, but what is the problem in having Scripture on one’s car? God could certainly use His word to do a work in a lost man’s heart.

    I don’t think anyone will come to Christ only because of a bumper sticker, but the Holy Spirit could use to plant a seed or to water a planted seed, couldn’t He?

    1. I’m not opposed to putting a verse of Scripture on my car. This many, though, becomes ridiculous, and the website itself, by pushing a rabid King James Onlyism, is more divisive than edifying.

      Also the verses chosen to represent Christianity are interesting. Lots of verses about repenting, burning, and dying, not so much of grace.

      1. I agree with you — but some of the comments here seem to be mocking the practice of putting Scripture on the car.

        1. I think our problem is that in our experience, the type of people who put scripture on their car rarely exhibit characteristics of a Christian otherwise. It’s the lazy man’s way of “witnessing.” Who needs to be kind and loving when they can put the phrase “Back to the Bible or back to the jungle” on their car? It’s just as good, I’m sure. 🙄

        2. It may be a “lazy man’s way of witnessing” but God can use Scripture. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be good and kind and everything else you said while looking for opportunities to share the gospel, but I have NO problem with people putting Scripture on their car.

          I’m not advocating the extreme levels that the people in the pictures took this too.

          Some of the Scripture are, actually, frightening: “…it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment”.

        4. GR, do you know of one single person who was ever prompted to seek Christ by staring at a scary Bible verse or Christian slogan for miles? This is a nearly effortless way of securing a captive audience. However, most people don’t like being buttonholed.

          Also, GR, if you proclaim your religion on your car, everybody behind you is going to judge (at the very least) your expression of that religion and (quite often) your religion in general by how you drive that car. The number of stories of Christian-themed jackass drivers just here is indicative of how that generally turns out.

  31. Here’s a question for everyone:

    If someone is “convicted” and gets saved from seeing these things…who gets the credit for the soul? Is it the good little Fundy who slapped it on their vehicle or is it the good little Fundy who makes these things?

    1. Who gets the credit? How about God, the Author of salvation? (or is that too obvious?)

    2. Why would it make a difference who gets the credit? My first foray into IFBx soul-winning was with a guy who literally made a mark in the back of his New Testament when one guy made a profession of faith. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was just keeping track. It made me absolutely sick.

      1. If he was honest (at that moment, anyway), he would have told you that he multiplies the tally marks by 100 when he tells people how many souls he has “won for Christ.”

        1. Yes…and I could totally see people soul-winning together squabbling over who gets to mark the person in the back of THEIR KJV!

        2. I’ve seen absolutely ugly “fall & spring programs” when bus captains “fought” over riders.

      2. I will admit to having done that. It was probably pride at the root, but part of it was so, when I got discouraged, I could at least look at it and remember I wasn’t a completely useless Christian.

        And there may be a million things wrong with that thought process, but…well…that’s the way it was back then.

      3. In about 3rd or 4th grade, during Sunday School, we had a lesson from the parable of the seed and the ground and we were shown on a chalkboard how if each of us would multiply into 10, 50, or 100-fold, then each of our converts would go out and do the same, and eventually we would be responsible for untold thousands of salvations. Well naturally, I didn’t want to settle for less than 100-fold, so I carefully kept count of my soul-winning successes. I was probably around 12th grade when I quit keeping track, having only amassed around 40…
        That was around the same time I stopped stressing about reading every verse in the Bible at least once a year. I think I started reading my KJV straight through annually when I was 8 or 9.

        1. Well, reading the KJV through annually while still in Elementary school / middle school probably did help you with your reading / vocabulary! (Not to mention you got to learn all sorts of fun, interesting archaic language.) :mrgreen:

      4. Bob, I have heard of the phrase “Notches on his Bible” — I became a notch on half a dozen back in the Seventies — but you are the first eyewitness account of it I’ve come across.

    3. Again, I was being facetious.

      I am well aware that there are people in IFB who chronicle every person they “lead to the Lord”, which is why I made that statement. Perhaps I should have punctuated that post with smileys or a disclaimer, since it was OBVIOUSLY misunderstood.

      Keeping track of how many people you witness too is disturbing to me as well, most of the fundamentalist movement is disturbing to me. Especially when I suffered through my childhood and formative years because of it.

      1. I actually understood that what you said was tongue-in-cheek — that was the nature of my answer as well.

        Yes, bragging rights about how many New Testaments have been filled with the names of sinners is standard fare for these people.

        1. Figured you got that, GR, from your previous posts and comment…was more directed at those who might have misunderstood me. Forums, email and text don’t convey thoughts sometimes like we mean them, and especially if you don’t know that person well. I get in trouble for the “tone” of my texts a lot. LOL! 🙂

    4. The more telling question is “Who will take the credit?” As we have seen discussed here it is not actually about saving grace but counting coup.

  33. I was going to suggest he does a sig that says “In case of Rapture, you can keep the magnetic signs”

  34. I was going to suggest he does a sign that says “In case of Rapture, you can keep the magnetic signs”

  35. If magnetic signs just aren’t enough, hubby and I saw, while driving through Kentucky or some such place years ago, a Suburban with an electronic sign posted in the back window. You know, one of those one-line scrolling marquee signs where the text can be red, green, or yellow? Yes. It was scrolling the Roman Road as we followed it for a while. I was a little offended by the mandatory evangelism, given that it was so. unbelievably. tacky.

  36. You know someday there will be a photo on the “Smoking Gun” web-site with on of these vehicles outside a gentleman’s club or in a deadly DUI accident.

    1. That’s why the signs are magnetic. Then you can quickly remove them from your vehicle when your parked outside the strip joint.

    2. Now I want to get some of those signs, put them on my car, and park it outside strip clubs, gambling joints, cockfights, etc.

  37. Why Scripture on the car, truck, etc.???

    Isaiah 55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
    Isaiah 55:10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
    Isaiah 55:11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

    God’s word is like seed that is psread and it IS effective, so much so that there’s at least one website (this one) just to make fun of doing this.

    For you lost people out there making fun of God’s word. You will not have the last laugh, God will.

    1. TKS, the suburban above is not portraying “God’s word.” It is a smattering of scriptures, mixed in with a heavy dose of fear manipulation and political finger-pointing that is more like a religious baseball bat than anything else. For the most part, Jesus sat down with people, made relationships with the ugly and evil and taught using stories that would be easily grasped by the common people. The person driving this vehicle comes across as judgmental, self-righteous and angry.

      1. I agree with this sentiment. The proof-texting kind of witnessing doesn’t make any difference to the world. People think that this string of texts is supposedly understood. How could it be? Is it some kind of magical formula? We are called to make disciples. That means learners. And people learn in different ways. The only way to know is to spend time with them. To me, this kind of “witnessing” is for weak people who are afraid to do what Jesus said and love our enemy and our neighbor.

        1. Jesus had a “Turn or Burn” tapestry hangin off the back of his ass’s foal, so…case closed.

        2. The Etheopian eunuch couldn’t even understand an entire scroll with Philip coming alongside to help him understand. Why would anyone assume that a few cherry-picked verses understandable only in a certain religious context be understood by your average commuter? Or is it magic?

  39. First off, direct your attention to the Campbell County, Tennessee tags on the cars. That should clue you in to what sort of ‘ministry’ this is.

    I don’t have a problem with public display of scriptures – those little Bible-shaped signs on the side of the northern highways are just fine. Short, inobtrusive, nothing about burning anybody.

    If anyone is converted by these signs (which I much doubt), it brings to mind the dumb ass speaking with a man’s voice from the old testament story. Bumper stickers are an insipid medium for hackneyed slogans and stupid truisms. If you think the Bible fits into that, have at it.

    The stickers that boil my blood are the Calvin-praying one – so much could be said about third-stage memetic mutation there – and…

    THERE IS NO REVIVAL WITHOUT KING JAMES BIBLE!
    THE PARTY IN HELL HAS BEEN CANCELED DUE TO THE FIRE!!

    If you want people to take you seriously, don’t write any of this on your car.

  41. I’m as embarrassed by this as the next guy but I have to play Devils advocate here just for an instant…
    These people have these stickers on their car because in their hearts they do deeply desire to serve God. It’s sad that they think this is the best way and it’s sadder still that they haven’t heard decent enough teaching to rebuff this sort of nonsensical, over the top display. But if it’s a measure of their fervency, misguided as it may be, they certainly have a ton. I love this site but sometimes…we go as far overboard in mocking the Fundies as they do in BEING fundies. The tragedy isn’t really the poor witness they are to the world…I think the world for the most part see through their shallowness. The tragedy is how trapped they are in this. That part…isn’t funny.

    1. I’m reminded of Romans 10:2-3 – “I know what enthusiasm they have for God, but it is misdirected zeal. For they don’t understand God’s way of making people right with himself. Refusing to accept God’s way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law.”

    3. Oh, they have zeal, alright. I have been in their church services, for a baby dedication. The pastor knew that the extended family would be there, and that the extended family was Catholic.

      You could fervently wish that the IFB, KJVO pastor could have had the grace and the common sense to focus on the baby dedication, and avoid bashing the Catholics for just that one Sunday.

      Your fervent wishes would be fruitless. He spent a good 90 minutes bashing all things Catholic.

      My friends will never be able to share God’s grace with their own family now, because their witness has been completely discredited by that pompous ass who goes around in his heavily bumper-stickered car.

      This is not a unique case.

      These people deserve every bit of scorn that they get. Many of them aren’t “trapped” at all. They are very happy to act this way. Sometimes the kids recognize if for the idiocy that it is, but too often, the adults grab onto the thought of the “foolishness of preaching” and decide that the bigger a fool they act, the godlier they must be.

  42. I wonder how many people are stopped behind someone like this at at stoplight and then after reading all the scriptures jump out of there car, fall on there knees, and accept Christ as Savior?

  44. Waterson made a point of not doing to Calvin what Jim Davis did to Garfield in marketing. That is why there is such a fuss over the decal of Calvin peeing. Those Calvin stickers of him praying are just as sinful and let’s be honest…ironic for a fundy car to have pictures of a naughty little kid who is never presented in a Christian context and who is named after..bum bum bummmmm…John Calvin.

    All that said, I freaking love that comic strip!

    1. The car magnets were conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Chinese magnet factory, … ascended to the Interstate, and are seated on the trunk lid of Ford the Bronco almighty. From thence they shall cling to the iron and the steel. …

  46. Ok, what gets me- and I don’t see anyone mentioning- is that these are *magnets*. Not stickers.

    What, don’t they want to make a commitment? 🙄

    The back of my Volvo wagon is plastered with stickers. (Hey, I live in Portland. It’s a rule or something.) And they are STICKERS. Not magnets. My political stickers, my church stickers, my Harry Potter stickers, my UO Ducks stickers- all stickers. No magnets. If I’m not willing to make a commitment, it doesn’t go on the car.

Comments are closed.