I recently noticed an abundance of “<><" popping up in my inbox. At first I thought nothing of them. They seemed small and harmless, cute little Christian emoticons thrown onto the end of emails. It's only a couple of symbols that are supposed to look like an Ichthus, or what people call a "Jesus fish." No big deal, right? But then a writer friend of mine named Lisa said that she had been seeing them a lot in Pennsylvania. And I started to find more and more of them in emails. And then I realized, that "xoxoxo," long used to symbolize "hugs and kisses" was starting to disappear, replaced by "<><" instead. "<><" was eating "xoxoxo."
What was next? I envisioned entire emails without words, Christian emoticons just filling subject lines and text messages and twitters and facebook pages. I dreamt of a day where instead of saying, “I am a Christian,” I would have to say, “I am a back arrow, forward arrow, back arrow” or worse yet, I would be forced to make those symbols with my fingers like some religious gang symbol, yelling “Fish Side” instead of Dr. Dre’s “West Side” as I drove by rival churches. My world started to crumble.
I faced a crossroads my friends, embrace “<><" or form a resistance group. Since I am already tied up heavily in my activities with PAMIC, People Against Massages In Church, I decided to join the evangelical emoticonerati. I decided to create a set of emoticons based on some of the posts from Stuff Christians Like.
Here they are:
~~~
This means, “I stayed in bed this morning and accidentally missed church. Please don’t judge me if we see each other at a restaurant on Sunday afternoon and I am clearly wearing clothes that indicate I did not go.” (Also known as “bedside Baptist.”)
^^^^
This means, “Our church had to install speed bumps in the parking lot because despite what the sermon said, I will run you over if you get in my way when I am trying to leave church.
0:)
This means, “I am a Christian with a halo and a unibrow. I wear both proudly.”
!!!
This means, “I drink coffee during church! Lots of coffee!”
.oO
This means, “Our small church is becoming a megachurch.”
Y Y Y
This means, “You will see lots of people singing with their hands raised at our church.”
&
This means, “I am a bald worship leader.”
_ _ _
This means, “Our new church building has movie-theater style seats.”
~~~~~>
This means, “We handle snakes at our church during service.”
o o o o o o o
This means, “I am not afraid to throw Skittles in order to wake up a crowd of people.”
0$
This means, “I tip with tracts instead of money at restaurants.” (Shame on you.)
[ –> <-- }
This means, “I can’t clap on rhythm during worship songs. When I try to bring my hands together, it’s like one hand is thinking one thing and the other is thinking something completely different.”
Those are my top 12. I couldn’t think of a good one for side hugs or metrosexual worship leaders. I trust you’ll have better luck and hope that today, on an otherwise ordinary Monday, we can all create an extraordinary emoticon conversation in the comments.
So what would your Christian emoticon say?
