And you think you got tribulations nowBill Cope
Boise Weekly
Eight years ago, almost to the day, I announced that should the End Times happen within eight years, I would toss my atheist ways like a worn-out Mr. Coffee and convert to Christianity (BW, Opinion, "Apocalypse Now ... or When for Christ's Sake?," May 14, 2003). And not just any old Christianity, either. I promised to join up with one of those super-hillbilly sects that still believes the world was created a few thousand years ago, that the dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers and mastodons died out during Noah's Flood without making enough of an impression to get a mention in the Bible, and that God, Himself, told George W. Bush to run for president.
However, my part of the bargain depended on the Rapture and all that Armageddon blah, blah, blah coming to pass in the time allotted. The flip side of the arrangement was, if it didn't come to pass--meaning, if after eight years, we were still sitting around waiting for the End of Days like a bunch of sophomores praying for a prom date--then all the preachers would have to quit preaching about it. My exact words were, "So, Misters Ministers, do we have a deal? Eight years to either put up or shut up, and if the world doesn't end, you find yourselves a new line of work and never, ever talk about it again. Even the Boy Who Cried Wolf had the sense to give it up after the third false alarm. And you guys have been false alarming us for hundreds of years."
I decided upon that particular topic at that particular time because, as you might recall, eight years ago, people were grabbing up those "End Times" books like they were how-to guides on getting a condo in heaven. It was also close enough to 9/11 that many Americans were still seeing that horrid event as an omen, complete with images of Satan hiding in the smoke billowing out of the twin towers. (I went with the eight years because the Chunnel had just been completed after eight years of construction, and I reasoned that if puny human endeavor could accomplish such a wondrous feat as a tunnel under the English Channel, then given the same time frame, surely God could wrap this thing up once and for all, if that were really His intention.)
I have never forgotten the promise I made, even after eight years, though I had about decided my chances of having to make good on it diminished with every passing, un-Rapturey day. Which was quite a relief, frankly. To tell you the truth, I was not looking forward to losing my Sunday mornings listening to some guy in a green suit sermonize on the Southern Pentagelical Fundacostal Evanmentalist Heebee Jeebees while I waved my arms in the air like some drunken football ref trying to catch a cab, all while outside, the world was being snuffed in a cataclysm of fire and barbecued sinners.
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