Several summers ago I spent a week with my youngest daughter in Southern California hiking in the Sierras and seeing the tourist spots in Los Angeles. I noticed that the closer we got to the Sierra Trailheads and also to the trendier sections of Los Angeles the more frequently we encountered Co-exist bumper stickers.
Although I agree that people of all races, nationalities, religions and genders should love, honour and respect one another, I don't believe that the capacity to do so exists within many of the pictured religions, nor within the secular humanist framework that lies behind the creation and production of the bumper sticker.
The sticker was submitted by Piotr Miodozeniec for an art contest sponsored by an organization in Jerusalem called the Museum on the Seam - A Socio-Political Contemporary Art Museum. The museum curator, Raphie Etgar, correctly states "What is happening today in various parts of the world is a cycle that cannot be broken without brave and inspired leaders who must solve the problems with generosity, mutual understanding and non-violent thinking. What we need today in many places is more consideration, kindness, modesty and love." (http://www.coexistence.art.museum/coex/pages/curator.asp)
However, the problem as I see it, is that the capacity for the needed generosity, kindness, modesty and love, is not found within humanity outside of the work of the Triune God who has revealed Himself as our Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. We have come to know this level of love only through Jesus Christ our Redeemer who is God come in the flesh. Through Christ, the law of sin and death which characterizes many of the pictured religions, is cancelled, and thus providing a basis for a true and lasting peace, first with God, and then also with one another.
Blessings,
Pastor David Dressler
