Insert “Better love story than Twilight” joke here
You know, sometimes I almost feel cruel. But yes, kids, this…
…is a real book, by one Ernest Angley, an Ohio evangelist. Its story, apparently, “reveals the overwhelming fear, torment, death and unimaginable destruction that will take place on Earth after the Rapture. This gripping story is based on 100% Bible truth, and the end times have never before been written about in such shocking reality…”
“Shocking reality” is not, I must honestly confess, the phrase that’s evoked by that cover. We have aggro, laser-eyed WWF Jesus — wearing Elvis pants, and either a crown or a golden skullcap that’s straining to contain his exploding brain — astride a Riverdancing horse who’s got to be voiced by Eddie Murphy. Also, I think Jesus is meant to be holding the horse’s reins, but the artist either forgot to include those or his PC crashed after adding his 103rd Photoshop layer. So it looks more like Jesus is about to left-hook Horsey for a particularly lame wisecrack. “Dayum, Boss! Dat hurt!”
In short, THIS IS THE FECKING AWESOMEST SHIT EVER, and if I didn’t think my own brain would go on strike and possibly divorce me for cruel and unusual punishment, I’d read it yesterday!
Jonathon Cowley:
July 26th, 2012 at 4:17 am
I don’t really understand the premise here. So when the Rapture comes, Christians will be taken out of society and to who-knows-where leaving the rest of us behind…and Christians think that will lead to MORE hatred and violence in society? That’s on a par with the cutting-taxes-on-the-rich-is-good-for-the-poor school of logic.
jdon:
July 26th, 2012 at 4:18 am
I call bullhonky. Bejewelled-Crown Jesus rides a white horse… but not a unicorn or pegasus? Unrealistic, bro.
greg1466:
July 26th, 2012 at 4:30 am
I think they got the wording wrong. Instead of based on 100% Bible truth it should read 100% based on ‘Bible truth’.
PanPan:
July 26th, 2012 at 4:31 am
I think the missing reins are indeed a photoshop oversight. The artist didn’t even bother to give Jesus a face. Instead he badly copy-pasted Leonidas’s head onto his body.
http://www.bwmag.in/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/This-is-Sparta.jpg
Eric:
July 26th, 2012 at 4:32 am
Those fundis should be all place in a mental institute and be released only if they pass basic classes of science, logic and philosophy.
MarkB:
July 26th, 2012 at 4:37 am
Went to the Ernest Angley Ministries website…so much cheese. And the sermon/prayer pages all have text reading “player will appear in this paragraph” where, I’m guessing, some sort of audio player should be…but isn’t.
BJeff:
July 26th, 2012 at 4:52 am
How did they get Sarah Jessica Parker to agree to be on the cover?
Martin Wagner:
July 26th, 2012 at 4:55 am
BURN!
Kingasaurus:
July 26th, 2012 at 5:04 am
Highly amusing!
Especially how Jesus and the horse have the same weird, open-mouthed expression.
I’d bet they just took an existing piece of schlocky art of a guy on a horse (Cowboy? Centurion? Fantasy art book cover?) and somehow photoshopped it to be even schlockier. No way the “artist” produced that horse and rider from scratch. So the reins were probably in the original art, but you can imagine the theological thought process of cloning them out – “He’s Jesus – why would he need reins or a saddle on his horse? He could just magically…blah, blah.” (Of course, why GOD needs a horse at all is never answered, other than “it’s in the Bible.”)
You know you’re dealing with a real winner here. It’s bad when even Bob Larsen (the Jerry Springer of Christian Radio) thinks Ernest Angley is a huckster.
michaelbuchheim:
July 26th, 2012 at 5:06 am
Provably supposed to be a white donkey, rather then a horse. According to Jewish legend, the messiah would arrive on a white donkey. Nothing about him screaming and bro-fisting though.
Hortan:
July 26th, 2012 at 5:08 am
That is the worst photoshop I’ve seen this year..
Joe:
July 26th, 2012 at 5:10 am
At the very least, some sort of design/photoshop course. That thing is just scary.
Kingasaurus:
July 26th, 2012 at 6:20 am
I love the “Lord of Lords” T-shirt/tunic on Jesus.
Just in case you weren’t sure who he was.
“Must be the Lord of Lords.”
“How do you know that?”
“The T-shirt says so.”
LOL
RickRay:
July 26th, 2012 at 6:40 am
Eric, I love the way you think! Logically !
John Kruger:
July 26th, 2012 at 6:48 am
This made my morning. Why you wanna punch the pony Jesus? The horse even looks afraid as if he knows the blow is coming, even without looking. Nice robe chest logo, too. Deliberate mockery would have a hard time outdoing this. Love it.
John Kruger:
July 26th, 2012 at 6:50 am
LOL, just noticed he has an ass flap logo the same as the chest one. Priceless.
beammeupscotty:
July 26th, 2012 at 6:54 am
What’s up with all the other white horses in the background? Does armageddon mean we are all going to be trampled to death?
I also thought there were going to be four horsemen at the apocalypse. I count 5 in the background plus the big J himself making SIX horsepersons! (horse people?)
Clearly the bible got it wrong.
Regardless, I am suitably terrified of my impending doom.
Not!
Michael:
July 26th, 2012 at 6:56 am
If you put the words “Robot Chicken Presents” at the top there it would make so much more sense.
Martin Wagner:
July 26th, 2012 at 6:57 am
Or maybe that’s the name of Jesus’s heavenly metal band.
Raging Bee:
July 26th, 2012 at 6:57 am
Um, no, there’s really nothing “better than ‘Twilight’” about this hot mess. This wanker’s Second Coming story suddenly makes “Twilight” look plausible and serious by comparison.
What’s really pathetic about this book cover is the desperate attempt to make a god of healing and reconciliation into a macho badass. What the fuck kind of religion is this guy peddling? The fact that other religious “leaders” were willing to break their shield-wall and call one of their own a “huckster” really shows what an embarrassment he is.
Martin Wagner:
July 26th, 2012 at 6:59 am
I suspect it’s the same macho Jesus fetishism that inspired this little masterpiece.
andrewkiener:
July 26th, 2012 at 7:14 am
The missing reins are not an oversight. They wanted to display Christ’s Righteous Fist of Wrath(tm).
baal:
July 26th, 2012 at 7:28 am
I was confused for a moment there. I thought this was a TZT zombie jesus satire art thread. The red looks like airbrushed out blood spray. Very ‘price of peace’.
pete:
July 26th, 2012 at 7:37 am
Horsey looks like he’s on an X-factor audition.
Kingasaurus:
July 26th, 2012 at 7:46 am
Martin, you won’t be laughing when DragonBall-Nuclear-Jesus casts you into the fiery pit. You’ll be sorry…
Aaron:
July 26th, 2012 at 8:24 am
Zombie Jesus versus Shrek: The Movie.
extian:
July 26th, 2012 at 8:40 am
C’mon, admit it – if you were an eight-year old kid and someone pointed at this book cover and said “This is your god,” you would all be theists.
I know I would. Sign me up, Crackhead Jesus!
ChaosS:
July 26th, 2012 at 8:59 am
Cthulhu would still kick his butt… just sayin’
chaos-engineer:
July 26th, 2012 at 9:42 am
The cover is a pretty good rendering of the description of Jesus in Revelation 9:11-16.
The only major flaw I see is that Jesus is supposed to be holding a sword in his mouth. (Maybe the artist is one of those vile heretics who think the sword is a metaphor?) If you look carefully at the bottom of the picture, you can see that the horse is trampling grapes in a winepress, so the artist got that bit right.
LykeX:
July 26th, 2012 at 10:48 am
Apparently, the Reverend Ernest Angley was a formative influence on no less a dignitary than Marilyn Manson who, in his autobiography (a kinda cheesy, but also really fun book), says that the Reverend “reeked of artificiality”.
Seems he’s got a long history of being a sleazy scumbag for christ.
LykeX:
July 26th, 2012 at 10:53 am
OH MY FREAKIN’ TENTACLED LORD! This is hilarious. Check this link and watch the prayer video (don’t worry, it’s short).
Pay attention to what he says 7 seconds in. Please somebody tell me I’m hearing it wrong.
Alan:
July 26th, 2012 at 11:32 am
For lack of a better place to put this (and while everyone is in a chuckling mood) check out this clip form a British comedy series http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QarofaycN3c (Mrs. Brown’s Boys). Could you imagine this ever airing in the US?
Chris:
July 26th, 2012 at 11:40 am
So this is the legendary ‘Jesus Christ on a pony!’ I’ve heard so much about.
Former Senator Larry Craig:
July 26th, 2012 at 12:02 pm
Ernest Angley is still around? We used to get stoned and watch his Sunday morning program back in the ’80s. “HE-yal! HEAA-yal! DEAYMONS, come OWT!!!!”
Martin Wagner:
July 26th, 2012 at 12:05 pm
I guess the artist didn’t think a pogo stick was dramatic enough.
Eric:
July 26th, 2012 at 12:16 pm
Don’t worry people, I just saw an interview in France with him and Nietzsche and he doesn’t seem to prepare any Armageddon at all. ;DDD
sambarge:
July 26th, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Massive eye-roll.
Onamission5:
July 26th, 2012 at 1:19 pm
Jesus H Christ in the second coming, wearing his finest Vegas Elvis/WWF pantsrobe, rage-tripping on PCP whilst Punch Pony gallops in a frenzy over an ocean of bloody globules.
Prince of Peace. Got it.
Chris:
July 26th, 2012 at 1:25 pm
I’m slow – I kept thinking ‘Jesus looks nothing like Sarah Jessica Parker.’
Uncle Glenny:
July 26th, 2012 at 2:23 pm
“shed blood” but yeah I heard what you did at first.
JamesM:
July 26th, 2012 at 7:22 pm
I really want to read this book, but I don’t want to give this organization money.
pieceofdebri:
July 26th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
“103rd Photoshop layer…”
Great line! Haha good stuff!
Shplane:
July 26th, 2012 at 8:58 pm
HORSE
LykeX:
July 26th, 2012 at 9:22 pm
SHED blood. Right. That does make more sense.
For a while I thought the good reverend had gone completely off the deep end.
NorskVind:
July 27th, 2012 at 2:30 am
Why would Dragonball-Nuclear Jesus cast me into a fiery pit? Why is that somehow more likely than him just yelling for 10 minutes then get punched by an alien? I’m just Saiyan.
MarkB:
July 27th, 2012 at 5:45 am
But can he tapdance?
Chris:
July 27th, 2012 at 11:09 am
He is leading the fluffy Army of Pareidolites into battle, which appears to include at least one panda bear.
mooniekate:
July 27th, 2012 at 2:23 pm
It’s just like this Messiah manga all about jeebus I found at Value Village. There was a huge stack of them. I bought one so I could lol. I’d scan it but it’s already packed for my move. When I find that box in october, everyone can have a laugh.
BCat70:
July 27th, 2012 at 3:09 pm
I still do. Mostly because he seems to had a dead possum on his head.
captstormfield:
July 27th, 2012 at 10:04 pm
Wow. I thought SDAdventist evangelists had the end-times bad art market pretty well sewn up, but this…! Kudos to Ernest. BTW, is that his rug the horse is wearing?
Stacy:
July 28th, 2012 at 4:14 pm
So that’s it! I thought the horse was galloping through the overflowing blood of heretics and unbelievers.
s0l0m0n:
July 28th, 2012 at 11:07 pm
Eric,
There’s other forms of knowledge that is higher than science.
s0l0m0n:
July 28th, 2012 at 11:21 pm
God can make a housefly fly. God could make horses fly too. Just fix it with a pair of wing. Case closed.
Prophet Depicter:
July 29th, 2012 at 8:31 am
I take it that for christians, that which is the truth falls on a continuum. Interesting to see where 100% bible truth falls on that line, and if it’s analogous to 100% bible reality. It seems to me the only truth in bible occurs in the first couple of pages. The publishers page, and the table of contents. Generally speaking those tend to be the only credible truths in the book.
had3:
July 29th, 2012 at 9:20 am
Marijuana?
Kevin:
July 30th, 2012 at 9:17 am
May I direct your focus this-a-ways: https://www.ernestangley.org/estore/product/third_appearance_of_christ
Another Photoshop masterpiece.
yellowsubmarine:
July 30th, 2012 at 2:09 pm
Thanks for the new wallpaper, Martin! This is going to make it hard to focus on anything, what with all the laughing, but screw it.
yellowsubmarine:
July 30th, 2012 at 2:09 pm
O wtf.
Eric:
July 30th, 2012 at 3:25 pm
Yep, philosophy. And the God of the philosophers told me that if Jesus come back it would be to kick asses to people who have worshiped him or a book instead of “his Father”.
yellowsubmarine:
July 30th, 2012 at 10:13 pm
My husband saw it, and now he wants to read it. He had the same reaction you had. I have mixed feelings about having something like that in the house, but I guess it can go on the religious crap section of bookshelf C.
s0l0m0n:
July 31st, 2012 at 4:56 am
Who cares. Christianity is not the true religion anyway.
LykeX:
July 31st, 2012 at 7:40 am
Say, are you the same s0l0m0on that was caught sock-puppeting back in this thread?
Kazim:
July 31st, 2012 at 9:41 am
Oh hey, yes, he probably is. His email is pretty similar.
BONK!
Eric:
August 2nd, 2012 at 5:47 pm
I guess I wouldn’t have enough time to think about reality if I had 1000 wives and concubines, Salomon.
Cylis B.:
August 15th, 2012 at 12:38 am
Perhaps this isn’t the optimal place for this, but this is the “humor” section, and tangentially linked… so, what the heck.
-A Movie Pitch (hopefully a franchise)-
By Cylis B.
Episode I: “Oh, Rapture!”
The rapture comes, only instead of the common biblical method where the faithful are taken physically to heaven, only their souls are taken, leaving only chaos, multitudes of dead bodies, and shocked “unfaithful” survivors in the aftermath.
Then… BOOM! Zombie apocalypse! The bodies of the raptured stagger into reanimated, brain-eating, mindless, hordes; who’s only motivation is the utter destruction of what remains of humanity (yes, the subtext here is fully intentional). True to the genre, the survivors beat back the zombie hordes in a myriad of exciting, heart-warming, and humorous ways. Eventually the day is won, and humanity is safe once again…
Cliffhanger: Just before the final credits roll, Jesus returns to earth… Resplendent and righteous on a white steed, not dissimilar to Angley’s book-cover (but hopefully with better CGI). He looks about himself for a moment, and then says (petulantly): “Where’s my zombie army?! I was supposed to have a zombie army to fight the coming war with the demons of hell…” Roll credits.
Episode II: “Revelations: Reloaded”
This one pretty much writes itself. The exhausted, battle-weary, victors of the zombie wars are conscripted as the reluctant replacement army in the final war against hell. Over-the-top special-effects and hilarity ensues as a plucky, somewhat overconfident, Jesus tries to rally his troops of embittered non-believers. The survivors, for their part, utilize sardonic wit, and hard-won lessons from the zombie wars to eventually carry the day. Group hug, perfunctory snide remark, big laugh, roll credits.
For anyone willing to make this movie/flash-video/web-comic/what-have-you… I grant full rights, and claim no royalties. Just seeing it made would be reward enough (Not to say that being approached a consultant wouldn’t be awesome).
One final caveat: If I was to have my own, selfish, preachy say on the final ending, it would be this: Seeing how well humanity comported itself in the ‘final days,’ god decides to recede from the universe, and leave it finally, and fully, in the hands of humanity…
Though the big hug and laugh thing would suffice.
Sesoron:
August 16th, 2012 at 6:03 pm
As a local who is compelled to drive past it daily, I can report that Ernest operates a giant ugly phallic spire of doom as his broadcasting tower.
john dussault:
August 16th, 2012 at 8:22 pm
I agree that religious superstitions and the total miscalculations of Bible speek lend fanatic Christians to this abomination on Man and womenkind! They seam to want this End time to come true? Well this nonsence is why I dont believe in their god in the first place. I want people to be happy and well fed and enjoy our gift of life! Not wish this bullshit on us as a race. Our ancesters invented these lunitic gods. these unforgiving self rightious melevelent creatures that control everything! Not in my universe they dont, for the simple sceintific fact that they never really exsisted in the first place!
john dussault:
August 16th, 2012 at 8:51 pm
I find that after reading the new testament< Im left with the afterthought of, How could anyone in their right minds believe this crap? But according to scripture, if we dont believe, we go straight to hell and dont collect our two hundred dollars! like in the board game! I for one have been an Atheist since Childhood! and damn proud of it!SO TAKE THAT SPOOK! AND DONT DARKEN MY DOORWAY WITH YOUR lAMBS BLOOD! and your Priests who prey on Children should be Crucified as well, they should take their superstitions and put them up where the sun dont shine!
john dussault:
August 16th, 2012 at 8:58 pm
well at least theres a happy ending to all the mass murdering going on in the name of,,,,,,Auh Which god are we talkin about?
Panda Rosa:
September 12th, 2012 at 9:20 am
You’ll find there’s more than a few Christians who would agree with you about this breed of Fundy, and are staring slack-jawed at this ghastly-if-mega-awesome cover.
For more Fundy-fun, check out the Liberty Gospel Tracts. This stuff is scary.
Timothy Fowler:
December 28th, 2012 at 3:43 pm
after much thought to everything that said on this topic i have to tell you that i have read this book and checked it with the bible and everything that he says lines up exactly.i must agree the cover art isnt completely photoshoped all that well but rev. angley is the sweetest man you can ever meet. i have had a chance on ocasion to talk to him one on one. “his plane” isnt used except to go to overseas crusades and the man doesnt even have a bank account. he doesnt except any credit for the “healings”. as a member and a devout believer ing Jesus Christ. this man is a leader not a healer. jesus heals angley only prays.
Martin Wagner:
December 28th, 2012 at 6:42 pm
I’m sure you’re right that he’s a very nice man. But boy, that cover is some cheesy stuff. In an awesome way.
LykeX:
December 29th, 2012 at 8:37 am
Of course not. Why would he want that? His personal income can be taxed, but the ministry bank accounts are beyond the reach of the IRS. It makes much more sense to let the money stay in the ministry, which he presumably has complete control over.
On the “About” page it says:
Which sounds really charitable until you realize that the ministry in question is the one that he’s founder and pastor of. The guy’s donating money to his own ministry. Curiously, that’s exactly the kind of thing you would do if you wanted to avoid paying any taxes on your income, but still have full access to all the funds; donate the money to a charity, writing it off on your personal taxes and then use the charity to pay for your own expenses.
I don’t know if he’s a money-grubbing hypocrite, but he sure acts like one.