Not every “Christian T-shirt” is worn as a witnessing tool or a tribal symbol or a culture warrior’s warning shot.
Many of the sorts of things sometimes regarded as “witnessing tools” mainly serve a different function. They’re devotional.
The popular “WWJD?” bracelets, for example, are not meant primarily to be a “witness” to others, but to be a reminder to the wearer of commitments she has made and of who it is that she wants to be. The same is true for many of the T-shirts, tattoos and trinkets adorned by many Christians.That cross pendant worn around many a neck is mainly there as a reminder to the heart it hangs above.
Viewed as this kind of devotional reminder, the matching “Jesus” tattoos that tween-idol Justin Bieber and his father just got may be a good idea. They don’t seem to be flashy symbols for other people as much as symbols for the two of them. Judging by the track record of many other young pop-music sensations, it might be good that Justin’s dad is encouraging his son to bear on his skin a reminder of the kind of person he wants to be. That reminder might help to make his Behind the Music episode 10 years from now a bit less melodramatic.
The “Jesus would use his turn signal” bumper sticker mentioned in comments might serve a similar devotional function. You stick that on your car and you’re going to have to behave yourself behind the wheel. I suppose a car-fish can serve that purpose too for some folks — a reminder to themselves to keep their temper and their focus while driving.
I don’t know or understand much about the famous “Mormon underwear,” but I think I prefer the idea of holy underwear to the idea of a T-shirt proclaiming some slogan to others. The inward symbol seems more valuable than the outward symbol. Instead of a constant confrontation of others, it could serve as a constant reminder to oneself. Let that reminder guide your actions and let your actions, rather than your outfit, be what others see.
In general, I don’t think much of “witnessing tools.” I think they become a cheap substitute for authentic living witness. And as I discussed in the previous post on this topic, I think they’re prone to becoming the kind of tribal symbols that can feed a corrosive Us-vs.-Them outlook.
Plus a lot of them are just tacky and ridiculous. The gap between the wearers’ expectation of how they will be perceived by others and those others’ actual perception of them can be vast. Rather than facilitating conversation and communication, they tend to be an obstacle to them.
For an example of how this tackiness creates an obstacle to communication, check out Tom Waits’ bewildered amusement over his discovery of “Testamints“:
He’s not making this up. Testamints are a real product, sold in Christian “bookstores” as a witnessing tool. And they’ve got several competitors.
At best, such witnessing tools come across as clumsily misguided, which is why, again, I’d advise against them. But perhaps even something as tacky as Testamints could serve a better, more useful function as an inward, devotional reminder.
Instead of the evangelistic scriptures printed on the wrapper, maybe we could inscribe the candies with the words of James 3:5-6: “The tongue is a fire … a world of iniquity.” Or maybe Matthew 15:11: “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”
Having a little reminder of that rolling around on one’s tongue might serve as a good devotional aid — a reminder that what we actually say with our mouths is more important than what we say with our T-shirts or tattoos or candy wrappers.
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