A Pennsylvania Church has drawn national attention for its billboard displaying a bold declaration from God: "I love Sex."
The Restored Church placed the billboard, resembling the iconic "I Love NY" T-shirts with the red hearts, over a major Wilkes-Barre highway on Wednesday to commemorate its first anniversary.
Members of the non-denominational worship center said they wanted to spread the word about its upcoming sermon series on sex and the Bible's Song of Solomon, ABC affiliate WNEP reported.
"If the culture can be so bold, I think the church can be so bold and speak directly on the subject and be up front about it," Restoration Pastor Dan Nicholas told WNEP. "It's in every single sitcom. It's on the radio, I mean, you go on any major news media outlet and there's stories about sexuality."
Some were a bit freaked out by God's "quote" on the billboard above Route 309.
"It's awful strange. You might see something like that in Phoenix, but not here," one driver told the station.
A pastor from another church named Church on the Square wrote a letter to a local newspaper denouncing the billboard for its misleading message. But all of the negative attention has the pastors at Restored Church unfazed.
The 100-member church's mission is to take the shame out of sex and teach the importance of a healthy marriage.
"It really doesn't rattle us when we get negative feedback," Tim Walker, another Restored Church pastor, told the ABC affiliate. "We really put a lot of thought into this."
The billboard is expected to stay up until the end of September.
So far, God has not commented on the situation.
