In This House, We Believe…
I’m sure you’ve seen these yard signs. They’ve been around for a while now. They start with, “In this house, we believe…” and then proceed to list a number of favorite progressive slogans. The slogans included vary slightly, but here’s a master list of the ones I’ve seen:
Women’s Rights Are Human Rights
Feminism Is For Everyone
No Human (Being) Is Illegal
Science Is Real
Love Is Love
Kindness Is Everything / Be Kind To All
Water Is Life
Silence Is Violence
Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere
These signs, and the phenomenon of their popularity, are something worth thinking about. Here are four questions I suggest we ask: That’s pretty religious, isn’t it? Why would people post these signs? What do these phrases mean? and Are these beliefs true?
The Religious Impulse
It is interesting—isn’t it?—to see a secular movement adopt a practice that Christians have been doing for millennia: declaring their convictions in “we believe” statements. In Christendom these statements are called creeds, covenants, or statements of faith. Without a doubt, these yard signs are a statement of faith (to “believe” is to have faith)—and that’s one evidence that the adherents of this movement are much more religious than generally thought. Indeed, the religious impulse seems rather impossible for humans to avoid, doesn’t it?
That’s worth noting: even when people don’t have a religion, they often end up doing religious things. It goes back to that proverbial God-shaped hole we all have. Despite how secularists may try to explain this away, the best explanation is the biblical one: we were created to know God, and when we, because of our unrighteousness, suppress the truth of His existence and authority, we end up worshipping created things rather than the Creator (Romans 1:18-23). Naturally, that idolatrous worship involves false beliefs. And if those beliefs are consciously acknowledged, even if they’re not thought of as religious, they may be expressed as some kind of doctrine or dogma. Why not?
There is a possibility, of course, that in some minds the “we believe” construction of these yard signs is an intentional mockery of religious creeds, or a kind of parody of Joshua’s famous statement, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15). Rather than unwitting religiousity, then, this would be a self-aware declaration of one’s secularism.
But let’s be fair. Despite the secularism of the progressive movement as a whole, not everyone who posts these signs is expressly irreligious. In fact, I daresay there are many who hold to these tenants (or at least who post the signs) who fancy themselves very religious indeed. So, besides the religious impulse (or the anti-religious impulse) to make declarative “we believe” statements, why are people posting these signs?
Considering Motive
We can’t know any specific individual’s motive without additional information, but we can ask generic questions and come up with a number of possibilities. One such question: why would anyone want others to know what they believe?
In Christianity, we spread awareness of our beliefs as a part of evangelism, so others will also believe and have a relationship with God. So, that is one possible motive for those posting these signs: the post-er may be trying to proselytize others to agree with these ideas. However, the mere statement of these slogans is not an argument, just as a mere presentation of Christian beliefs may not be enough to persuade someone of them. Easily enough, someone can say, “Ok, that’s what you believe. I don’t believe that.”
That said, when it comes to yard signs, which are often apart of an effort to persuade (think: political campaigns), the point is not to persuade by argumentation but by social proof. If you see a bunch of people saying the same thing, it’s not uncommon to start to think it’s probably true. You may start to think you should also probably believe it. Or you may at least learn by implication that you ought to shut up if you have a different view, because you might be ostracized for thinking differently from all those other people. This idea of “social proof” is why marketing ads say things like, “Over 100,000 sold!” It’s to plant the idea that if a whopping 100,000+ people thought this product was good enough to buy, then they probably had a good reason, and it’s probably a safe bet for you to buy it too. It’s not an attempt to make a reasoned argument, just an attempt to exert social influence.
On the other hand, though, yard signs (and any other statement of belief sans argumentation) can have a different effect, and therefore may be posted with a different motive. This different motive is the same that motivates many churches to put a list of their beliefs on their website. There is little expectation that an unbeliever will read through the beliefs and get saved (though stranger things have happened); rather, the beliefs are there more for believers who are checking out the church to be able to confirm that the church aligns with what the perusing believer already believes. So, that is another possible motive for those who post their progressive credo on the front lawn: they want their fellow believers to know they are of one accord.
Of course, this signaling of concordance between like-minded people can take on a more vicious aspect, if the intention is not merely to find agreement but to receive accolades for how committed one is to the shared beliefs. This nowadays-common practice has popularly become known as “virtue signaling,” because it’s all about the person showing off how good (virtuous) he or she is. And this, indeed, seems to be the more likely option than the prior one when it comes to these yard signs, since this information is offered to passersby without solicitation (unlike beliefs on a church website, where one has to search for them to find them).
A final potential motive for putting up one of these signs is a motive that is completely innocent. I don’t expect it’s common, but I do believe it happens. Some people may put up the signs because they simply think these slogans are positive, life-affirming, goodness-promoting statements, without actually understanding their significance. It’s true: if you’re not a Leftist or don’t even know what “Leftism” is, and you’re also not aware of the political and social baggage behind each of these expressions, you might just think they are good things to say— kind of like “Live Laugh Love,” but with a bit more punch. I think there may be some sweet old ladies in this category, who think they’re supporting some good causes but don’t know better. The antidote to this ignorance, of course, is education. These people need to better understand the content of these signs.
Considering Content
The final two of the four questions I suggested we ask about these signs—regarding the meaning of the phrases and how true they are—will take longer to answer than the first two questions, because it will mean examining each slogan, exposing what they’re really claiming, and evaluating whether those assertions and implications accurately reflect reality. Lord willing, I will do just that in coming posts: take each of these beliefs one or two at a time, reflect on what they mean, and critically analyze them from a Christian worldview.
But for now I’ll just say there are a lot of problems with these sayings, not the least of which have been sassily pointed out by another yard sign made in response: “In this house we believe that simplistic platitudes, trite tautologies, and semantically overloaded aphorisms are poor substitutes for respectful and rational discussions about complex issues.” Indeed, these slogans ignore nuance, are rhetorically deceptive, and make emotional appeals rather than logical ones. Of course, that’s effective marketing. And the Left is good at marketing, good at making slogans.
But that’s about where the “good” ends.
UPDATE: As the articles dealing with each slogan are published, the ‘master list’ of slogans at the beginning of this article will be hyperlinked to those articles, accordingly. Just click on the slogan you want to read more about, and have at it.
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