Do you realise that if you do the average Aussie kilometres driving your car, city or country, that you spend the equivalent of approximately 11 normal working weeks per annum behind the wheel? More if you regularly get caught in traffic jams!

Well that’s a lot of ‘discipleship’ time according to Creator And Redeemer – Salvation And Love Every Soul, Ministries Inc., California, USA (email: ).

They adapt the words of Jesus about his disciples “By their fruits you shall know them’ and say ‘By the way they behave behind the wheel you shall know them’, and have devised a quick and easy questionnaire to test how you are travelling as a Christian. It’s simple, answers are just YES or NO. Here it is (with obscure American expressions changed to Australian terms):

1 Do you compete to be first off, in front, when traffic lights turn green?

2 If you spot a police car or speed camera do you regularly have to slow down because you are over the limit?

3 On the open road, if another guy is trying to pass you do you sometimes/often increase your speed?

4 If someone lane-chops in front of you do you sometimes honk at them?

5 If the guy in front is going too slowly do you sometimes flash your lights/honk/or tailgate them?

6 If someone honks at you when you make a driving error do you sometimes/often honk back or yell at them or make an obscene sign?

7 In a car park, you see a space become vacant, and a guy who’s been patiently waiting to get it, but you know you can zip into it first, do you?

8 Do you fairly regularly fantasise that others are admiring the car you are driving or how great a driver you are?

9 If you are moving slowly, under the speed limit, and the guy behind honks or flashes lights at you, do you slow up more?

10 In a traffic snarl, do you usually keep right up behind the guy in front so no one from a side street or a parking space can cut in?

Self Score

If you answered YES to 5 or more questions then you are a hypocrite to say you follow Jesus in your life, you are clearly ego-centred and aggressive. If you answered YES to 1-4 questions then you are trying to follow Jesus, but are a bit hypocritical and should spend more time in prayer about your driving sins. If you answered NO to all ten questions then clearly you are a liar and the most hypocritical of all.

Ok, yes of course all the above is a load of nonsense. There is no such Creator And Redeemer – Salvation And Love Every Soul ministries in California, USA

(CARSALES for short), even though it’s not too hard to imagine there might be.

But isn’t there a glimmer of truth in this spoof? Isn’t our civility or otherwise behind the wheel of a car a spiritual matter? Yet have you ever heard a sermon on the topic? Ever confessed your driving sins to God? And yet we know that there is more suffering and death caused on our roads than there is in our wars. It seems that spirituality and driving is just not a sexy topic among Christians!

Clergy are notoriously car conscious, probably because living in church-supplied houses their cars are their most valuable possession. And it is all too common to hear clergy boasting, usually to each other or to members of Parish Council, about their driving feats. Rural clergy especially will need no encouragement to tell you how fast they got from town A to town B. The Issues even knows of a bishop whose whole diocese knew his formula one hour equals 120 kilometres (and he wasn’t in the Northern Territory with its unrestricted speed zones).

What is it that gets into so many of us when we get behind the wheel? The Devil? Maybe! But seeing the road ahead through the anonymity specs we put on in the driver’s seat sure helps the Devil.

Ever noticed how it’s not that ’30 year old mum in sunglasses with a bub in a car seat’ that cuts in front of us, no, ‘it’s that b… blue Ford’. Or it’s not that ‘elderly, grey haired man in the tweed jacket hunched over the steering wheel’ that’s holding us up, no, ‘its that old navy Mercedes coupe’.

Anonymity seems to permit even the most devout Christians to behave like pagans behind the wheel of their cars. How many times, for example, have you seen drivers sporting ‘I love Jesus’, ‘Jesus is the answer’ (or the more discreet Christian ‘fish’ symbol) on their bumpers or rear windows behaving like demons not disciples on public roads.

To get an idea of how easily we are seduced by the anonymity of our metal and glass cages on wheels, try putting the spoof questions of CARSALES, California in more personal settings. For example:

*At the dinner table do you always give yourself the green light to get in first before everyone else?

*Do you only refrain from shoplifting when you spot a surveillance camera or the store detective hovering nearby?

*When you walk into a bank to join the queue and someone is walking a bit faster and is overtaking you, do you break into a trot to get there first?

*If someone chops in front of you as you’re walking along the main street do you scream at them?

*If the elderly soul in front of you in the supermarket aisle is slow at pushing the trolley do you angrily say ‘move it old girl’ or make huff and puff noises?

Hey! Isn’t there something fair dinkum about testing how far the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, is driving you in your life by examining how you are driving?

from Market Place – A Newspaper for Australian Anglicans

September 2006