Episode 004
Wherein we meet Henry Whitmore, the Evangelical End Times prophecy fanatic
In the waiting area beneath the stage it was cramped and hot. Henry dabbed his forehead for at least the tenth time and frowned at all the makeup which clung to the cloth. Why is he unaffected by the heat? Then Henry noticed the custom tailored, ultra-light-weight silk suit the pastor wore.
“What’s with all the fire and brimstone Henry? ‘Tribulation’ this, ‘Armageddon’ that—The Number Of The Beast, The 7 Seals, The Rule Of The Antichrist, persecution of Christians…you’re scaring people. No one wants to hear that stuff.”
The wasn’t the first time Henry’d been lectured by a fellow evangelist, it wouldn’t be the last.
“It’s in the Scripture, Ken.” He had to yell to be heard over the twenty-thousand watts worth of speakers blaring praise and worship music to the packed auditorium.
Ken, not surprisingly, wasn’t satisfied. “Well it’s all a matter of interpretation, isn’t it? You’ve got your version, but far more people believe the alternative, am I right?”
“All the more reason I need to preach the truth,” Henry said without looking up.
The theological ‘alternative’ Pastor Kenneth Worley was referring to had caught on like shopping for groceries at Wal-Mart. The Pre-Tribulation crowd were fellow Christians who believed the Rapture Of The Church would happen before The Great Tribulation. Wishful thinking in Henry’s exhaustively studied opinion. Worse (but harder to prove), wishful thinking propagated by stadium-fillers like Worley.
“Truth? That’s debatable, and frankly, beside the point, Henry. Think about it: who wants to tithe away their hard-earned coin to a God who’s just going to rain down plague and fire on them right along with the unsaved? You’re making God look like an asshole.”
Henry said, “Was God was being an asshole when He asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a show of faith?”
Ken made a show of rolling his eyes.
Though he could never share this with “inerrancy of the Bible” types like Ken Worley, the confidence he had in his post-Tribulation Rapture message was inspired as much by his research outside of the accepted canonical scripture as it was by anything to be found in the Bible itself. Henry certainly wasn’t alone in his belief, that certain of the so-called “apocryphal” books were legitimate vessels of God’s Word; however, his reliance upon texts he alone had translated—that would prove heretical among evangelical Christians, who, so far, remained at least grudgingly open to his controversial teachings. He could ill-afford to lose their support, for these were members of the flock God had commanded him to reach.
Henry (formerly “Dr. Harris Whiting” to fellow eschatologists) was no stranger to condemnation. He’d already been shunned by the academic community when a critic discovered one of the papers he tried to get published in The Journal Of Theological Studies had quoted from an unknown source. When pressed to substantiate the quote, Henry had been forced to admit he had been the author of the quoted document, and more damning still, that the text in question was in fact “the inspired Word of God,” revealed to him in a dream. Once known not only for his creative insights into apocalyptic literature, but also for his linguistic genius (Henry was a celebrated polyglot: forty-three fluently spoken languages and counting), his reputation had been ruined. Ironic, he’d thought, how evoking a revelation from God made you a laughingstock among Bible scholars, while building a sermon from academic resources alone might brand you an agent of the devil in some churches! And while the recognition of this irony made Henry cynical at times, he was in no hurry to make a similar mistake in his new calling. He’d learned the hard way that what’s left unsaid can’t be used against you.
“Look Henry, reasonable people can disagree on this. But when you get up there and tell people they’ve been lied to, that despite what other great men of faith have written books in support of—bestsellers mind you—that they’re going to have to suffer through plagues and pestilence such as the world has never seen—and worse—that it doesn’t even matter if they love Jesus, if they’re saved, or if they’ve adopted an entire village of AIDS babies from Somalia—they’re still going to be around for God’s wrath all the same…that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the church, does it?
“Here I am, competing for attention against Tony freakin’ Soprano, and animated puppets who openly mock our Lord on television to legions of kids and adults alike, and I’ve got you, someone supposedly on my side, creating division among the flock.
“This is a time for unity, Henry. Unity. Whether folks believe Jesus gathers up the saints before The Tribulation, or after in a pink-polka-dotted Volkswagen—doesn’t make one iota of difference to their salvation.”
“God doesn’t care if you’re a Pre-Trib, a Post-Trib, or a no-Trib believer, does he?”
Henry tore his gaze from the distracting brilliance of Worley’s diamond-encrusted Rolex for the first time during their exchange, and looked him in the eye, if only for an instant.
“If God doesn’t care, then why do you?”
Worley didn’t answer.
The organ sounded one final triumphant chord and the singing stopped in such a precise unison of silence that only an echo could be heard above squeaks of plastic auditorium seating and the rustle of paper as the congregation fumbled to stow their checkbooks. Timothy Simmons, the local pastor, announced Henry to the audience, and introduced the message he’d be sharing. Let’s give Pastor Whitmore a warm welcome…
Henry stood and walked over to the large men in suits waiting to escort him to the podium (“ushers” to be politically correct, security guards in actuality).
“Nice watch.”
“Fuck you, Henry,” he said through newly capped pearly-whites, “and the four horses of the apocalypse you rode in on.”
“Horse-men,” Henry corrected.
Author: Jeremy James
Shelved In: Episodes
Main Topic: End Times
Keywords: 7 Seals • Antichrist • Armageddon • Chapter 2 • God • Henry • Jesus • Lord • Number Of The Beast • Pastor Kenneth Worley • Pre-Tribulation • Rapture Of The Church • Tribulation • Whitmore •
Bookmark & Share: Tell A Friend Form
