I drive to Northern California regularly to visit my Mom, a long, tedious 450-mile drive. Last week while making this trip, I discovered Jesus in the Toilets.
The first rest stop along the way, I noticed a little religious pamphlet sitting in the toilet stall floor, with a drawing of Jesus on the cover. I figured someone had dropped it. The next stop, there was a different one, this time on the sink. When I saw yet a third pamphlet in the restroom of a gas station, I thought, "Wait a second, this isn't a coincidence!" So I collected the pamphlets from the last two stops that I made, to document this new phenomenon.
This first one is pretty horrifying. It is the worst sort of Christian mythology and fear-mongering, a cartoon that explains, in language and images aimed at semi-literate readers, how Satan aready owns our souls, and the only way to escape (next to an image of how God lets Satan inflict horrifying torture by burning us alive for eternity) is to believe in the Christian Gods, Yahweh and Jesus.
The second one is in Spanish, and although I can barely read the simplest Spanish, it's pretty clear that it's a traditional "The Kingdom of God is coming" tract. It's more upbeat than the first one, that's for sure.
Is this some new fad, leaving Jesus literature in restrooms all across California and the USA? The weird thing is that these were all different. If it had been a single tract ... ok, maybe some guy is on a campaign. But four different ones, in two languages? Is there some new secret Christian plot that's using restrooms to start a Christian revival?
Sunday, November 2, 2008
2 comments:
Dear readers -- I am no longer blogging and after leaving these blogs open for two years have finally stopped accepting comments due to spammers. Thanks for your interest. If you'd like to write to me, click on the "Contact" link at the top. Thanks! -- CJ.
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Religious pamphlets in bathrooms eh?
ReplyDeleteJust wondering, did the leaflets just cause spreading or were they more absorbent?
(British toilet humour eh?)
Ahh, the good 'ol bathroom chic tracts. Why use the toilet paper when those are right there? If only they came in two-ply..
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in the Air Force, we had some nut dropping those off in the stalls of the bathroom in my old squadron. It pissed me off to no end and I always seemed to be the one to find them too. I had a collection of them at my desk for evidence, when I brought it up to my leadership that someone was prosthletizing in a government facility, they just brushed me off for the last two months I had in the military.