For several years I was a season ticketholder for the San Jose Sharks hockey team when I lived in San Jose. I lived about a 10-minute walk from the arena and when you attend games a few nights a week, you tend to notice things along the walk. There’s the man under one of the overpasses who has been there for years playing his trumpet with a few large pet bunnies by his side. He always had grumpy signs directed at those of us who walked by listening to his concert for free. Or the people at every arena trying to sell and buy tickets.

But whenever I went to the games, the person I was most intrigued by and also, frankly, most disturbed by, was a man standing on a stepladder with a small PA system shouting warnings about the afterlife. About eternity. Like the question asked by highway billboards you may have seen along interstates, this man wanted to know if I knew where I was going when I die.

He was there at nearly all of the games, on a street corner diagonal to the arena, shouting through the distorted sound system above the sounds of the swelling crowd. Sometimes people would engage him, but most of the time, frankly, his sound would disappear into the air as the masses passed by.

I never talked to the man, but boy was I curious. I was curious as to why he felt such urgency for the lives of the people passing by. I was curious as to why he was so confident that all of us were in such peril. One time he looked me in the eyes and pointed directly at me and told me that I should get used to eternal damnation. I was curious about him just as I’m curious about who pays for those billboards that say things like “Where are you going, heaven or hell?”

Since I can’t track down the stepladder preacher, I googled the billboards and I was intrigued to learn about an organization that seemed to sponsor the vast majority of these signs. They pride themselves on having about 1,500 billboards throughout the United States at a given time.

I understand their passion – they want people to join them, to follow God, and they have a passion for what they consider to be a path or a requirement for salvation – salvation from something – from some permanent displeasure, from some painful eternity. Confidently, they use fear as a tool to eliminate any sense of doubt so that people will listen, and, because of their actions or words or billboards, be rescued from damnation.

And according to the one organization, it works – or it at least works to get the attention of the interstate drivers. In their most recent annual report they state that in 2021 their call centers heard from more than 108,000 people who dialed in to the toll-free number after seeing signs, like “After you die, you will meet God.” I listened to some clips from phone calls and I listened to some of the marketing videos and even read a few annual reports.

I’ll tell you, though, after doing all of this gathering, and reflecting further on that street corner preacher, I came to a realization that the extreme focus on what happens after death – the focus even on the fears of what will happen – comes out of a place of fear itself, it comes out of a place, and even a sincere space, of anxious fear and it taps into a motivation for immediacy – for a quick fix to something eternal. “Tell me how to ensure eternity” – one of the callers says.

Historically, this is nothing new to Christianity. Throughout the last 2000 years, there have always been voices of our faith that have used fear as a motivation. And the thing is, on many levels this isn’t surprising. It isn’t surprising, because a quick read of scripture often leads us down this path. A quick read of the words of Jesus may have us fearing eternity, and turning to Christ out of fear for what will be if we don’t.

At some point, though, something got lost in translation – literally – when the church started to focus on the afterlife as the source of drawing people into the church. So much of the language of the Gospels is in present tense – the language is a here and now encouragement to be a part of Christ’s eternal realm in the world today. 

What joy it is to know that God wants to partner with you and me in bringing God’s love into the world! Present tense. Right now. No billboard fear or stepladder street preacher needed.

*I have intentionally not provided details about the organization that spends millions of dollars a year on these billboards because I do not think it is helpful to give them more airtime.