Reverend Charlie Sheen

Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Reverend Charlie Sheen

An organization styling itself Family Radio declareth unto us that the world is going to end on the 21st of May. There are several reasonable responses:

“What? The world is ending? Again?”

“Oh, no! Can’t the end of the world wait until after graduation?”

“It was on the ‘net, so it must be true.”

“But I haven’t finished reading all my vampire books yet.”

“Well, okay, I guess I won’t have the lawnmower serviced.”

There are few among us these days who aren’t ministers, priests, priestesses, or preachers. Indeed, there are so many churches, ministries, outreaches, fellowships, temples, assemblies, assemblages, and what-nots that soon each one of us will be his or her own The Bright Light Free Will Four Square Full Gospel Missionary Temple of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Lamb Holiness Sanctified of the Infallible Me, Me, Me, complete with a website and an official tee-shirt.

The leader of Family Radio is Harold Camping, who calculated the end through pushing together lots of numbers in a loosey-goosey spasm of numerology that would embarrass even Pope Mel Gibson, grounding the base numbers in dates which aren’t in any of the hundreds of versions of the Bible, but maintaining their (and his) inerrancy anyway.

Oh, yeah, we gotta follow this man.

The Family Radio website (www.familyradio.com) features a button for online donations. Now if the world is going to end in two months, why would Family Radio need your money? They could close out the holy checking account and use the cash for milk and fresh bread, eat out of the pantry and freezer, and not sweat the utility bills. After all, are they going to need money when they’re beamed up to the Hale-Bopp YK2 and KY Mother Ship? It’s not as if there’s going to be a baggage fee.

True believers have left families to travel around the country in caravans of SUVs to advise folks that the very few who are to be saved will be teleported up on the 21st of May and that the rest of us are going to live in a totally Charlie Sheen / Fred Phelps world until October, at which point the cosmic plug will be pulled.

One of the site’s “Caravan Letters” reports from San Antonio, but the photograph accompanying the letter (as of last Saturday) is of the state capitol building in Austin. If these folks don’t know the way to San Antonio, what are their chances of directing you to Heaven?

While The End is only two months away, there’s plenty of time for all of us to start our own churches and then start sneering at each other as unscriptural. Friends have suggested the Cowboy Happy Trails End-Times Ministry, the Truckers’ Last Jump-Start Fellowship, and the Certified Public Accountants for Jesus (Your Number’s Up), but I think I’ll begin The Official Massey-Ferguson Three-Point Hitch Bible Fellowship and Gallery of Collectibles, joining the many who have found the Holy Spirit to have been off-task for the past 2,000 years.

Oh, and where will the Family Radio whatever folks be on The Day? Jerusalem? The Bermuda Triangle? Captain Kirk’s house? Nope. The end of the world takes place in Flagstaff, Arizona, the City of Salvation and jumping-off point for the Planet Krypton. Hey, see ya there, okay? But go ahead and send me your bank account and credit card numbers and your car title. It’s all for the Lord’s work.

-30-