most religious billboards are local efforts. He says that Answers in Genesis is the only major organization he knows offhand that puts up billboards, although he knows many churches that organize local billboards.

Christian Aid Ministries is a major organization with billboards across America. Most of its budget funds charity, like food aid and disaster relief. The organization says funds for its billboards come mostly from fundraising at local churches. Similarly, the Knights of Columbus is a large Catholic benefit society. Its billboards are modest efforts by its local chapters. The billboards of both organizations are done without huge budgets or the work of glossy ad agencies. Christian Aid Ministries spent just under $1.7 million on billboards in 2013. The committees that develop the text are employees, and itssupportive messages from fellow Christians. A few are from atheists and agnostics who mock the billboard and the organization. The most substantive calls, however, come from people who are struggling and look to religion for help with problems like drug addictions and broken marriages.

Johnny Miller worked for Christian Aid Ministries for 18 years, and as director of a Romanian orphanage for many of them. He spends his retirement as one of 13 volunteers who man the billboard hotline. Miller has three buttons he could push during a call to play recorded sermons, but he says he enjoys talking and connecting to people every day.

Over the phone, Miller tells us about a caller who said he was a Satanist because God let his mother murder his father. He tells