There is a billboard on the road in the central part of the city, on the road that runs along the edge. There are a lot of billboards there, actually, it's a heavily commercialised zone, but there is one in particular that draws my attention.

It is, unsurprisingly, for a car dealership -- there are a lot of car dealerships along there, whiting out the sky with their late-night lamps. It features the huge torso of a chubby man wearing an inexplicable horned helmet -- what bull's horns have to do with selling cars is well beyond my comprehension. That isn't what draws my attention to it (though it is what my husband notices about it): what I keep staring at is the ichthus.

It sits there on the billboard, under the dealership name, bright white on the dark background, next to the grinning guy in the horned helmet. The symbol that used to be used as part of the Christian underground, the indentifier, the passcode -- is on a billboard.

And the ichthus there asks me, "Are you safe?"

It asks me, "Are you one of us?"

I am not comfortable with being asked these questions.

I am not comfortable with admitting my discomfort, either.

I worry that if I admit to discomfort that someone will take it as a sign that I am somehow opposed to religion, or that I think these people should not be permitted to mark their religious beliefs on their advertising. I worry that people who know me slightly better will consider me one of those people whose knee jerks at the slightest hint of Christianity in the vicinity. I suspect few people will do that, but I worry nonetheless.

The ichthus challenges me here. I don't know what it is supposed to mean.

Clearly, this car dealer is not only Christian, but wants me, as a person who sees the billboard, to be aware of that.

But why does this matter? Why is it a point of advertising?

Is it to tell me that I am unwelcome if I am not Christian?

To draw in other Christians?

To attempt to convert? One free Saviour with your used car?

I see the ichthus on cars, too, on their own; this doesn't set me into such a confusion. Somehow, an ichthus on the car is less personally challenging -- perhaps because the car is someone's personal space, and their choice to identify themselves or not is in that personal space.

The billboard is reaching out to me, asking me, "Do you want to buy a car?"

Asking me, "Do our quirky Viking helmets make you more inclined to think that we'll sell you a car you like?"

Asking me, "Do you want to stop by our lot and get a car from us?"

Asking me, "Are you a Christian?"

Do I know the other half of the passcode? HaveyouacceptedtheLordJesusChristasyourSaviourthankyoudrivethrough? Is that what I'm being asked?

Am I being asked if I am one of Us, the good and holy, or Them, the downfall of modern civilization, the corrupt, the unsaved? Are the lines being drawn, the sheep separated from the goats, here?

Or is it just intended to be the sharing of identity, of affiliation, of a source of personal joy, the thing that I tend to presume is the case of the ichthus when it is sitting on someone's trunk lid? Is the context of the billboard, the public thing trying to draw people in, to spend their money, that far different from things in personal spaces? Is it Not About Me at all?

I would like to think that even were I one for whom the answer to "Are you one of us?" is "Yes", I would find the implicit sorting into Us and Them offputting, alarming. I would like to think this; I do not know how true it is.

I know that since my answer to "Are you one of us" is "No" I find myself feeling put primarily on edge by the question -- and uncertain in the extreme as to whether the question is being asked in the first place. I don't know whether to feel the need to protect myself from this thought, whether this is social chatter, seeking to identify a kindred soul, or gang recognition symbols.

If I could say, "Truly, I say to you, they have their reward" in however many people they draw in with their fishing attempt to sell their cars, and feel confident that I understood, I might feel better. Or if I could take refuge in the sardonic, point, and say, "I am a fisher of customers."

As it is, I think one of the greatest weights of marginalisation is the doubt.