(Photo: Thomas Hawk / Flickr [3])

A few weeks ago, my wife and I took a drive to visit friends and family in her small hometown out in western Pennsylvania. It was what you’d expect from a region that has been dealing with economic recession since the steel and rail industries dried up and blew away forty years ago – sweet and beautiful in places, blighted and depressing in others, but with the first faint bloom of spring on the trees whispering of better days to come – except for one strange, glaring thing.

It was one of those digital billboards, looming and gaudy amid the neglected sprawl of Altoona, and displayed on it was something I’d only heard about in passing. According to that blinking monstrosity, Jesus was going to ride back to Earth on the wave of a planet-annihilating earthquake that would summon The Faithful to Heaven and consign the remaining mass of sinful humanity to the yawning doom of the damned. This was to happen on May 21st, roundabout six in the evening (Eastern Standard Time), and the last dregs of the un-chosen would be completely scourged from the Earth by October. Continue reading →