Fish and chips was the popular fast-food when Benjamin was growing up. The whimsical allusion to elements from the urban landscape is typical of Benjamin's work, where they become symbols loaded with new meanings.
In South Africa, "CHIPS!" is what the classroom look-out hisses at fellow pupils to warn them that Teacher is coming down the corridor, and they had better desist from illegal activities and get back to their desks. It is slang for DANGER! Watch out!
This painting was made before Benjamin's conversion to Christianity, a time when the fish bumper-sticker was an ubiquitous testimony to the presence of "born-agains". They were an irritating reminder that God is not dead.
In the above painting the church is represented as a flat cutout, flimsy and two dimensional. But the spaceship flying into the light not only echoes its shape, but its colours, too. Perhaps Benjamin was aware that the Church with all its earthly flaws was yet to be the vehicle of salvation, no matter how he raged against it.
