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Touchdown Jesus and Other Acts of God

Over there at the Solid Rock Non-denominational, Tending-toward-Immersion Church in Monroe, Ohio, Self-appointed Bishop Lawrence and his Ministerial Wife built a giant statue of part of Jesus.  They left off the whole lower half of Jesus because they wanted it to look as if Jesus were just coming up out of a water baptism, with his arms reaching up to heaven, signalling a touchdown.  That is why people called it, "Touchdown Jesus".  The top part of Jesus, above the Plimsoll Line was sixty-two feet tall. 

Then a terrible thing happened!  God struck Jesus down with a bolt of lightning and a terrible fire from heaven, burning Jesus right down to the water line.  There was, of course, no one else to blame.  The Good Bishop and His Ministerial Wife had did their best and finest.  People stopped their cars and came to admire the touchdown before it was torched down by the Almighty. 

It brought to mind the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755; another terrible Act of God.  That earthquake, just like lightning from Heaven, could not be blamed on the Jesuits, or Protestants, or anybody but God.  People in Finland felt the quake, estimated to be about a 9 on today's Richter Scale.  As if shaking the earth were not enough, a tsunami rolled in, too, and even far away, at least as far as Barbados.  When the earthquake and the tsunami were done, the fires came.  No one knows for sure, but something like 50,000 people died; maybe more.  In Monroe, Ohio, God spared everyone but Touchdown Jesus and the insurance company. 

This is, you understand, a matter of serious theological importance.  Already, back in 1755, people realized that if there were a God, an Almighty God, a God deserving of the name, he (sic) had to be in charge of things; had to know what happened even before it happened, and had to be responsible for everything except perhaps what could be blamed onto the sins of Adam and Eve and Bishop Lawrence and the rest of us.  But there is no way Bishop Lawrence, or even his Ministerial Wife (or the rest of us) could have caused the Great Earthquake of Lisbon in 1755.  Oh, no!  And not the tsunami, either.  Or Mount St. Helens, or the earthquake in San Francisco in 1906.  God designed the tectonic plates:  not Bishop Lawrence!  God might have designed Bishop Lawrence, and Bishop Lawrence might have designed Touchdown Jesus, but it wasn't Bishop Lawrence or his Ministerial Wife who struck down Touchdown Jesus, or who blew the top off Mount St. Helens, or sent a mighty earthquake to level Lisbon to the Plimsoll Line, too:  it was God!  God has a thing about Plimsoll Lines.  Let us just face it!

Here in Minnesota, God visits us with tornadoes that come twisting in over the hill, dealing death and destruction to trailer parks and asphalt shingles.  God might have a thing about trailer parks, too; and asphalt shingles.

Bless the people at PETA!  When they heard what God had done to Jesus, they offered to rebuild the statue, if only Bishop Lawrence would put a lamb in the arms of Jesus, and put up a sign that said, "Blessed are the Merciful.  Go Vegan!".  The Good Bishop refused, of course.  We have long-known that lightning and earthquakes can strike twice in the same place, and what could possible be more offensive than watching God strike a lamb down to the Plimsoll Line? 

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