God was my co-pilot . . . until I crashed into the Andes and I had to eat him. That’s probably one of the most brash anti-Christian bumper stickers I’ve seen in a while. Actually, I guess it’s not only anti-Christian, its anti-deist, period. What it intimates is shear humanism; a belief summarized in William Ernest Henley’s poem Invictus: “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”
But like many bold pronouncements made against God and His followers, there is irony to the bumper sticker jab. The same thing occurred when the religious leaders in Jesus’ day asked Pilate to set guards over the tomb of Jesus to make sure His body would not be stolen by His disciples. That very act proved to be more condemning on the authorities and provide more verifiable evidence to Christ’s resurrection (Matthew 27:62-28:4). So too, the bumper sticker actually bolsters the Christian message rather than squelches it. How?
Look at the statement again: God was my co-pilot . . . until I crashed into the Andes and I had to eat him. In the end, who saves whom? Isn’t it in the face of unthinkable cannibalism that the ‘co-pilot God’ provides life to the ‘pilot’? Who is the desperate hungry one in the scenario? Wasn’t the ‘death of God’ the impetus of life for the man?
And so it is for the Christian message. Jesus Christ gave His life for the many. Christ was falsely accused and His life taken. But the real victory was His. It’s what we celebrate in the eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper; His life taken, so that those who recognize that they are utterly helpless in their death of sin can find life in Him.
