Knight Ridder Newspapers

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
HACKENSACK, N.J. - The billboard towering over a scruffy Hudson County, N.J., commercial strip carries a stern message of morality amid ads for alcohol and automobiles.
"If you must curse, use your own name!" proclaims the 48-foot-wide sign beside Routes 1 and 9 in North Bergen, N.J.
In plain white letters on a stark black background, the message is signed: "God."
There's no mention of a church. No toll-free phone number. No Web address.
Just "God."
"My first thought is, 'Who posted this, and why?'" Manny Lopes asked while eating lunch at a restaurant near the sign. "It's not like they're getting anything out of this."
God speaks
Welcome to GodSpeaks, a national campaign of plainspoken and provocative highway advertisements aimed at getting people to think about the almighty, and offering a little pointed commentary on the nation's culture war.
One sign, for example, offers its 2 cents' worth on the court case over the Pledge of Allegiance, proclaiming: "One nation under me. -- God."
Most of the signs are quirky, sometimes humorous statements of biblical faith that avoid endorsing a specific religion.
"It's a small world. I know ... I made it. -- God," read one displayed in Hackensack in March.
Anonymous
However, the person who started the campaign is an evangelical Christian from Florida who believes faith in Jesus Christ is the sole path to salvation. He has kept his identity anonymous. But he has set up a Web site to provide anyone curious about the signs with an in-depth explanation of his faith.
"The truth is we're all God's creation, but we're not all God's children," the site says. "We only become his children when we accept his Son."
Spreading from its base in Florida, the campaign may be coming to a billboard or bus shelter near you. The nation's billboard owners are displaying the signs for free as a public service.
The North Bergen space normally rents for $7,800 per month.
"We want to inspire people to think about the role spirituality plays in their lives," said Meredith Moller, communications manger for the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, a Washington D.C.-based trade group representing the billboard owners. "We think that's what these messages help do."
Web site
Moller said she was unaware of the Web site's content but stressed that the public service campaign is limited to the billboards.
"We see the billboards as nondenominational," she said. "And we have no connection to the Web site."
The Web site also includes a church-finding service that provides names and addresses of congregations by ZIP code. The recommended churches for five Bergen County towns were mostly conservative, evangelical congregations -- some independent and others belonging to larger denominations.
No Roman Catholic parishes or liberal mainline Protestant churches were included.
Godly focus
Mark DeMoss, an Atlanta-based public relations executive who represents the campaign, said the billboard messages are gentle reminders to think about God. They're also aimed at stimulating discussion and debate. He said the Web site was set up to complement the signs and provide a more thorough explanation of the sponsor's faith.
"I don't have any doubt there will be those who don't agree with the material posted on the Web site," DeMoss said. "But at least it's not on the billboard, and nobody is forced to read it or see it. It's really a soft sell. There's no effort to sell anything or build a mailing list."
The billboards date back to the late 1990s, when the Florida resident paid an advertising agency $150,000 to come up with a campaign to remind people of God. The agency responded by creating the plain black-and-white signs and pithy one-liners.
The signs generated enough buzz to attract the attention of the outdoor advertising association, which adopted them as a public service campaign. By 2000, the signs were displayed free on about 10,000 billboards -- space that would have cost about $15 million.
Recent additions
In March, after several years of silence, the anonymous sponsor, working with DeMoss, released nine new signs. They recently began appearing in North Jersey.
"A lot has happened in this country in the last several years," DeMoss said. "And that has put God and spiritual matters back on center stage."
Some play off popular culture: "As my apprentice, you're never fired."
Others darkly ponder sin and its consequences: "Life is short. Eternity isn't."
DeMoss said the person who started the campaign wishes to stay anonymous because he wants to keep the focus on God.
"His total interest is putting attention to God," DeMoss said. "He felt that any name, church or denomination risked detracting from the main purpose."