When I was a boy in the Assemblies of God church, all the big kids, like my Aunt Sally and Davey Schnieder and their friends were reading The Cross and the Switchblade. I read it, too, because I was a Book Worm and read everything I could get my hands on. It was popular amongst the Pentecostal/Evangelical/Fundy teens because it was the only book your parents and pastor would let you read that was full of drugs and violence and wicked, evil, pre-marital sex. Everything I knew about the drug-addict lifestyle and heroin came from that book, well, at least until I was 17 and did my own, er, "research." cough But I digress. . .
Well, today I was relaxing by surfin' the web, man like all the Kool Kids Do, and I stopped by Bartholomew's Notes on Religion, a site at which I have not stopped in a while. If you are interested in religion and don't read his blog, you really should start; he finds lotsa weird stuff, which, as we all know, is pretty dang easy to do with the subject matter. But I digress. . . So I was catching up on the crazier aspects of religion when I came across this. This was the first I'd heard of David Wilkerson's "prophecies." Heck, I didn't know he was still alive; I thought he would have died of shame after the release of that Pat Boone movie based on his book. It appears that the Lord has been giving Big Dave visions, and they have to do with lotsa fiy-ah, er, fire. I'll be honest with you folks (just like Jesus in this morning's Gospel reading!): I don't believe in prophecy; I don't believe anyone actually sees the future, and I certainly don't believe that God told David Wilkerson that God wantsta burn down the U.S.A. According to Big Dave the Preacher Man, God's been telling him this for 10 years.
This stuff reminds me of another book which was very popular during my teenage years, The Late, Great, Planet Earth. "Gog and Magog are the U.S.S.R.!" "The Bible is all about how God loves the U.S.A. but since we've turned from God and the gold standard we're gonna get it!" (Hmmm, I may have misinterpreted that last part). Hal Lindsey was all over the dang place, telling us all that The End Is Near and he had proof onnaccounta he could read the signs. But, hmmm, nothing he predicted happened. Heck, the dang U.S.S.R. freakin' Gog and Magog fell apart and Jesus didn't even come back. I guess the Lord has decided to Tarry. But being wrong hasn't stopped Hal Lindsey; he's yet to figure out that maybe he should just
And NOW we have people who believe that December 21, 2012 will be the end of the world. And this makes total sense, because, even though all calendars are man-made, the date 12/21/12 looks really cool (plus 12+21+12=45, which is the speed at which The Record of the Same Name must be played even though it is a 12" record; wait! there's that 12 again! Oh man, you can't ESCAPE THIS!), so that means it'll happen. Plus the ancient Mayans or the Bible Code or the I Ching or the Book of the Hopi or Nostradamus or Edgar Cayce or Merlin or yer Aunt Blanche predicted it, so it's gonna happen. No, really, you know it's true onnaccounta people like Mel Gibson and Shirley MacLaine and Montell Williams said so, so there. Plus the gravitational pull of Planet X and Nibiru are, like, influencing us and mucking it all up. Yer all gonna die and the End Is Near.
I personally believe that the world will end when I die, but, of course, all that means is that the world will end for me. 'cept I'm goin' to heaven so, nyah nyah nyah. But I digress. . . .
Hey, you know what would make
Here Endeth the Rant
9 comments:
Oh, my, "The Cross and the Switchblade,"...you are takin' me back there. I read it too. I am wondering if you read "The Outsiders," too...might be a little after your time since I am a hair younger than you, but who knows...
You are also stealing my line, ha ha. I have frequently been known to say, "Who cares when the end of the world is? When you die, it's sure the end of the world as YOU know it..." LOL
Good grief! If that's what comes from musing on a Sunday afternoon, I prefer to take a nap, which I usually do anyway.
I read the Cross and the Switchblade when I was in Juvenille Hall--in fact read it about two dozen times given it was the only thing they put in my iso cell.
Never did like the book.
As far as the world ending... you mean we are really still here and not in a parallel reality?
That's news!
Well, it's nice to know we have something to look forward to. After the end of the world, conservatives will say, "You know, Obama's programs didn't end the recession, it was the Apocalypse, because after 12/21/12, you know... full employment in the mines serving our alien overlords."
See the Episcopal Cafe - they have a piece (in The Lead section) on people who think Obama is (almost) the anti-Christ.
Wow, The Cross and the Switchblade. One of the great hits of my college years.
Now, Padre Mickey, don't be such a cynic. That thing about 2012 was actually on TeeVee. I saw it myself. So, you know it's true.
I read the Cross & Switchblade in 6th grade or so. To this day, I'm afraid someone's going to stab me in the armpit.
I went to Wilkerson's church, Times Square Church, in NYC and was very disappointed. Kinda boring. And no knife fights or anything.
But I didn't get upset. It's not like it was the end of the world.
Very nice, Michael+; very nice!
The NEWEST Pretrib Calendar
Hal (serial polygamist) Lindsey and other pretrib-rapture-trafficking and Mayan-Calendar-hugging hucksters deserve the following message: "2012 may be YOUR latest date. It isn't MAYAN!" Actually, if it weren't for the 179-year-old, fringe-British-invented, American-merchandised pretribulation rapture bunco scheme, Hal might still be piloting a tugboat on the Mississippi, roly-poly Thomas Ice (Tim LaHaye's No. 1 strong-arm enforcer) might still be in his tiny folding-chair church which shares its firewall with a Texas saloon, Jack Van Impe might still be a jazz band musician, Tim LaHaye might still be titillating California matrons with his "Christian" sex manual, Grant Jeffrey might still be taking care of figures up in Canada, Chuck Missler might still be in mysterious hush-hush stuff that rocket scientists don't dare talk about, John Hagee might be making - and eating - world-record pizzas, and Jimmy ("Bye You" Rapture) Swaggart might still be flying on a Ferriday flatbed! To read more details about the eschatological British import that leading British scholarship never adopted - the import that's created some American multi-millionaires - Google "Pretrib Rapture Diehards" (note LaHaye's hypocrisy under "1992"), "Hal Lindsey's Many Divorces," "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)" and "Thomas Ice (Hired Gun)," "LaHaye's Temperament," "Wily Jeffrey," "Chuck Missler - Copyist," "Open Letter to Todd Strandberg" and "The Rapture Index (Mad Theology)," "X-Raying Margaret," "Humbug Huebner," "Thieves' Marketing," "Appendix F: Thou Shalt Not Steal," "The Unoriginal John Darby," "Pretrib Hypocrisy," "The Real Manuel Lacunza," "Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism," "America's Pretrib Rapture Traffickers," "Pretrib Rapture - Hidden Facts," "Dolcino? Duh!" and "Scholars Weigh My Research." Most of the above is written by journalist/historian Dave MacPherson who has focused on long-hidden pretrib rapture history for 35+ years. No one else has focused on it for 35 months or even 35 weeks. MacPherson has been a frequent radio talk show guest and he states that all of his royalties have always gone to a nonprofit group and not to any individual. His No. 1 book on all this is "The Rapture Plot" (see Armageddon Books online, etc.). The amazing thing is how long it has taken the mainstream media to finally notice and expose this unbelievably groundless yet extremely lucrative theological hoax!
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