About 137 years before Good Ol' Charlie Brown waited hopefully on Halloween Night for the Great Pumpkin to appear, William Miller, a Baptist preacher, convinced his flock that Jesus would return Oct. 22, 1844 to take them all to heaven.
Miller's message — based on his complex "calculations" of Bible verses from Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelations — gave comfort to these hardworking mid-easterner folks who had little schooling. Lots of simple faith. Abundant trust.
Miller and hundreds of his believers put on white robes and gathered on a starry-night hill, praying, singing, holding hands, waiting expectantly. They stayed up 'til dawn. Disappointed that Jesus & Co. never came to whisk them away. (Casting everybody else into the Lake of Fire.)
Brother Bill was beet red, to be sure. But today's 20th and 21st century "Millerites" soon took up where he left off, busy punching their own apocalyptic adding machines.
New dates for J. C. Superstar's return became 1914. 1925. 1950. 1975. 1989. (Ticket stubs nonrefundable.) A majority of fundamentalist, evangelical Bible believers expect the Left Behind Rapture to happen any day now.
If there's a lesson to be learned from these numbers games, it's Alpha — don't second guess air traffic, and Omega — maybe Jesus has no intention of returning to our purple mountain majesty above the fruited plains, doing the Democrats a big favor in the process.
But if you're on a mission to clone the world in your lottery image, the lessons to be learned from the past don't count. There are many brands of body snatching to prove the point: Seventh-Day Adventist, Mormon, Worldwide Church of God, Christadelphian, Jehovah's Witness, Southern Baptist, Four Square Gospel Church of the New Jerusalem Welcome Wagon in Christ (Klan County Synod).
Choose the wrong 3-in-1 oil, and it's tough going, Nicodemus. It's our way or the highway. And that ain't Route 666!
Make no mistake, today's anti-LGBT, Last Days death-defying scenario earns big bucks: movies, videos, bumper stickers, comic books, ex-gay shrink tanks and a slew of simple-sentence Left-Behind pulp(it) fictions, making some televangelists, like Pat Robertson, very, very rich. And paranoid.
True: everyone is — as yet — free to believe whatever they fancy. And many choose to believe nothing. God bless them! Unfortunately, those who subscribe to Armageddon Agenda America — theocratic, political, patriotic — are too often self-centered, cavalier in thinking, actions, priorities and treatment of others. Love the sinner, hate the sin BS.
In LGBT charity: wear their triple-A desert sandals and their polyester choir robes for a hot New York minute. Consider, their scriptural take on things.
"If Jesus is coming soon, why do I need to worry about the shrinking rain forest? Why do I have to bother about Great Lakes pollution, glacial meltdown, endangered species, overpopulation? Why give a fig leaf about AIDS funding, Head Start programs, Social Security, Planned Parenthood, women's health issues, Donald Trump?
"I tithe, pew sit my fundament six days a week (resting on the seventh), update my prayer list every 30 minutes, do Weight Watchers so I'll look good when the final trumpet toots me home. Hallelujah!
"And gays! Land O' Goshen! Doesn't God just H-A-T-E fags. They're our misfortune. Tsk. Tsk. And it'll be too damn-, er, darned bad for those unsaved pinkos once I get my heavenly air-conditioned, appliance-free, Cloud 9 condo. Yes sir-ree-bob: to hell with everybody else! Jesus can't come soon enough for me."
(And hopefully for Democratic America before November 2016!)
Parting Glances: Show Us Your Left Behind, Mary!
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