NEWSFLASH! JESUS IS EXPECTED TO ARRIVE MAY 27

I’m kicking-off my second month of blogging with this bit of scary stuff.

Well, say it ain’t so, Joe! According to Ronald Weinland, the former preacher of the Worldwide Church of God, the Maya prediction is wrong by seven months! That’s right. The world is NOT ending on December 21, 2012, but on May 27, 2012.

A prophet of God in his own mind (well, he says God declared him a prophet in 1997), Weinland asserts that those who mock God will die slowly from cancer. Holy crap, now that’s what I call enlightenment! Doesn’t every Christian believe that? Didn’t Jesus strike down his enemies with cancer? Isn’t there a quote in one of the Gospels, “Do unto to others with cancer?”

Anyway, as I said above, he’s a prophet in his own mind, declaring that with the Worldwide Church of God’s founder Herbert W. Armstrong dead, Weinland is now “the pastor of God's Church on earth, has also been appointed by the God of Abraham to be His end-time prophet and one of the two end-time witnesses (and spokesman of both), preceding the return of Jesus Christ on May 27, 2012.”

Heavy stuff, man. Somebody fire up the bong.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Trying to speak for deities is dicey business. Jesus may not be peering over Weinland’s shoulder, reading the schedule. And let’s face it, Weinland is setting himself up as did our pal Camping. If Jesus appears on May 27, I will bow down and admit my mea cupa; if, however, he doesn’t return, I’ll give Pastor Weinland a laurel and a hearty raspberry!

OK, here’s a little background on the Worldwide Church of God. Under Armstrong’s leadership, the church rejected the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity and instead adhered to Old Testament holy days and extremely ridged rules regarding tithing. How rigid? Rigid enough to leave people impoverished. Oh, yes, and by the by, Armstrong predicted that Jesus would return in 1975. OOPS!

Well, to heap rejection on renunciation, after Armstrong kicked the apocalyptic bucket in 1986, church members began tossing out much of Armstrong’s theology and by 2009, the Worldwide Church of God became the Grace Communion International. Weinland was appropriately p.o.ed and determined it was all heresy and formed splinter churches with Worldwide Church of God True Believers.

Thus, on January 8, the world entered a “half-a-time.” (And I didn’t even hear the whistle.)

According to Weinland:

“January 7, 2012, is another important occurrence for the timing of God’s work and end-time events. This date is an important crossroad in time as it ends a prophetically historic portion of time in Daniel that consists of a prophetic measure of ‘time’ and ‘times’ that began after Trumpets of 2009. January 8 of this year begins the final “half-a-time” of this full prophetic period known as ‘time, times, and half-a-time.’ That day is the start of the final period of 140 days (half-a-time) that leads up to the very coming of the Messiah spoken of in those same prophecies of Daniel.”

Got that? Clear as mud?

Yip.