Christian Humility Bumper Stickers

by philg

This Christmas season has prompted some reflection on the phenomenon of cars simultaneously bearing Christian fish symbols and bumper stickers proclaiming that a child has been elevated to honor student status at a particular school. Is such a bumper sticker truly consistent with Jesus’s teachings on humility? I couldn’t find good statistics on what percentage of public school students are on the honor roll, but this article reports 15 percent in one school district. Let’s say the average honor student is roughly at the 93rd percentile. As the Chinese population is 1.34 billion, if we assume that the distribution of intelligence and diligence is the same in the U.S. and in China, perhaps a more humble bumper sticker would read “My child is almost as smart and hard-working as 94 million people in China”.

Anyone else have a good idea for a humble bumper sticker?

17 thoughts on “Christian Humility Bumper Stickers”

  3. A friend and fellow pilots runs Bumper Art. Some gems from that page:

    “My child is an honor student at the state correctional facility ”

    “My Kid is an Honor Student Because They Have Better Drugs Than Your Kid ”

    “Jesus died for my sins and all I got was this lousy sticker! “

  5. My sister’s car has a bumper sticker that reads, “My Boss is a Jewish Doctor” which was true, until she left the HHS.

  6. You may need to re-examine your assumptions in view of the numerous Chinese studies linking reduced child IQ to widespread chemical pollution. The results trend towards reduced variance, rather than a straight leftward shift in the mean: fewer high scorers.

    2008 lit review: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18695947

  9. The humblest (and IMHO the best) I have seen is: “God please protect me from your followers”

  10. Have you been in a public school lately? The honor roll IS a humble achievement. The only reason you find it offensive is because of this same unwarranted religious/cultural veneration of education.

  11. With a “honor roll” bumper sticker, you’re taking pride in what your child has accomplished. How many of us haven’t said “I’m so proud of you” to our children at one time or another? Is that un-Christian? Hardly so. And neither should a bumper sticker be, that conveys the same motivational sentiment.

  12. Jagadeesh: Your comment implies that if a behavior is common and popular it must be in accordance with Jesus’s philosophy. For example, trying to earn as much money as possible and then spending it all on oneself and one’s family is extremely popular. It is also laudable behavior here in the U.S. as it leads to the payment of a lot of taxes. However, I don’t think that any serious scholar of Jesus’s thought would agree that this behavior is “Christian”.

    Specifically your idea that pride is a virtue has been examined by Christian scholars. Those working for the Catholic Church concluded that pride was among the seven worst vices (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins ).

  14. Hmm. I was around 93rd percentile at the Catholic School I went to and I wasn’t on the Honor Roll because there was no Honor Roll. There were honors classes, and I had many of those. However, no honor roll was kept. There was no benefit to having honors classes except for a very slight advantage on your GPA record and the possibility of doing better on your ACT due to the more advanced coursework. Anyway, that was a Catholic school. Maybe Protestants aren’t as humble as us Catholics. Just my humble theory.

  15. Speaking of ‘humility’ and bumperstickers, one I am always amused by is “Proud to be an American”. For one thing, pride is a sin. For another, conventional usage suggests pride as a normal emotional response to an *accomplishment*. So for an immigrant who had to persist for many years and may have overcome some adversity in order to *earn* their status as ‘American’ pride might be a meaningful response. But simply being born American? I’d have thought a better thing to say would be “Blessed to be an American” or “Lucky to be an American” or even “Glad to be an American”.

    But one suspects the real intent is to claim American-ness as a (fake) accomplishment. You BET I deserve to live better than billions of other people!

  16. Not necessarily Christian, but the most interesting one I’ve come across is:

    “Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes…”

    Roughly translated:
    “If you can read this, you’re overeducated…”

    As a Christian, I’m not personally a fan of the fish symbols.

    Disclaimer: IANABS – “I am not a bible scholar” 😀
    Also, these opinions are solely my own, not necessarily shared by, or part of any Christian teaching, and not intended to incite a religious flame war… 🙂

    I believe the fish symbol as it is being used today is a risk of hypocrisy and self-righteous pride. Even though the fish symbols are voluntary, I can’t help but think about the use of religious symbols being used for “Jew Identification” during the holocaust (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_badge), or to a lesser extent, a non-hybrid, monster SUV with a giant “Go Green” bumper sticker.

  17. The fish symbol was a short of symbolic shibboleth used by early Christians, and is meant to be more subtle than a big cross or a more overt Christian sentiment on a bumper sticker. This original meaning has faded as the sign has become more widely recognized, and with the advent of competing Darwin fish and other mocking subversions. While the driver perhaps unwisely takes on the mantle of allowing his driving habits, good or bad, to represent his creed, one could argue the same for drivers with peace symbols or political bumper stickers. The motive is likely the same, wanting to be identified by fellow followers, and wanting to show numbers to outsiders.

    The motive for the honor roll bumper sticker is a little more suspect, as membership in the group it identifies is an achievement rather than merely a choice. It is equally obnoxious regardless of the other affiliations affixed to the car.

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