Jesus Christ is alive and well at 77 years old, and living in Burnley.

Jesus Christ is a retired bus driver from Burnley. Well, sort of.

John Edward Birtwhistle, 77, changed his name by deed poll to that of the Messiah after realising he had ‘healing powers’ and that he was the son of God in a past life.

Despite claiming to have the extraordinary ability to heal people, Mr Christ is still struggling with shingles.

Mr Christ started believing he was heaven-sent in 1986 when people unexpectedly started calling him Jesus.

[…]

He now realises he was Jesus Christ in a past life, with memories coming back to him ‘in dreams’.

‘When I was here 2,000 years ago I was teaching these people how to live in harmony with the spirit and it was all to do with nature; grow your own food, eat fruit and veg and only drink water,’ he recounted.

[…]

‘People say Jesus changed water into wine. I didn’t do that, I changed wine into water. Alcohol is bad for you.’

Mr Christ has been suffering from some health problems in recent years but says he will not let them stand in his way.

He has been suffering from shingles since 2013 and also had a stroke two years ago.

‘I got shingles because of the stress,’ Mr Christ said.

‘I was frightened of losing my eye because it was so bad but they operated and saved it. But I’m still taking the tablets.

‘I’m trying to get off these pills but it’s up to the force. It’s the force of nature,’ he added.

Mr Christ has been the victim of hateful attacks since changing his name, but has no plans to stop doing what he believes is God’s work.

‘People spat at me, shouted at me. I’ve had people get hold of me and shake me. It’s not nice. They didn’t like my name. They hated it.

‘I don’t have any friends. They talk nice to your face but stab you in the back when you’re not looking.’

The grandfather-of-two plans to run to become MP in Burnley, currently a Labour seat, at the next election.

He has drawn up his own manifesto of policies including weekly bin collections, free bus passes for over-60s, scrapping the TV licence and children being taught at home by their parents.

[…]

Speaking about the future, he said: ‘There will be more violence and climate change coming. We mustn’t get involved in wars because we will be destroyed ourselves. We must stay out. We shouldn’t have gone into Syria.

‘Things are getting really bad. There’s a lot of violence in the world. It’s not going to be nice. It’s going to escalate.

‘People are killing people in the streets. I’m not a violent person. I’m a very quiet person.

‘The message is in the commandments. If you break one commandment, you’ve got a debt.

‘You get debts in life and you’ve got to be careful you don’t build that up. People lie, they cheat, they don’t realise that they’re being monitored in the spirit world. You have got to clear yourself.’

The full article on Mr. Christ is here.