No. But definitely fodder for a blog entry!

Via CNN:

Pastor with 666 tattoo claims to be divine

The minister has the number 666 tattooed on his arm.

But Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is not your typical minister. De Jesus, or "Daddy" as his thousands of followers call him, does not merely pray to God: He says he is God.

"The spirit that is in me is the same spirit that was in Jesus of Nazareth," de Jesus says.

De Jesus' claims of divinity have angered Christian leaders, who say he is a fake. Religious experts say he may be something much more dangerous, a cult leader who really believes he is God.

Miranda (called by his middle name "de Jesus" in the article) heads a church named, unassumingly, "Growing in Grace", flaunts a lavish lifestyle, and teaches followers that they are "already in heavenly places."

Looking only at these details, Miranda easily blends in with thousands of other "prosperity gospel"-teaching "pastors" -- who are often incorrectly called "Christian fundamentalists" though they hold and teach beliefs which are considered heretical from an orthodox Christian point of view, but are endemic to the New Age movement.

Claiming to be God is pretty ho-hum these days; what makes this story interesting is Miranda's claim to be the Antichrist:

Although it's a number usually associated with Satan, not the son of God, de Jesus says that 666 and the Antichrist are, like him, misunderstood.

The Antichrist is not the devil, de Jesus tells his congregation; he's the being who replaces Jesus on Earth.

"Antichrist is the best person in the world," he says. "Antichrist means don't put your eyes on Jesus because Jesus of Nazareth wasn't a Christian. Antichrist means do not put your eyes on Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Put it on Jesus after the cross."

And de Jesus says that means him.

The number '666' and the term 'antichrist' designates Jesus's physical re-incarnation, thus his followers tatoo '666' on their forearm, and attack Christian churches, "smashing crosses and statues of Jesus" -- after all, it's idolatry to worship a dead image of Jesus when the real thing here right now. And since Miranda is Jesus, God incarnate on earth, he and his followers are of course entitled to run the world politically: "The church calls itself the 'Government of God on Earth' and uses a seal similar to the United States."

You, gentle reader, may find Miranda's claims a bit off the wall, but it's instructive to note that millions of books have been sold which push the same premises -- albeit usually stated a bit less bluntly.

For example, go into any bookstore and you can find Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach -- which many call "a beautiful book", and which has served as the basis for countless sunday school lessons. Bach's follow-up, Illusions openly advocated the term "Antichrist" as a positive one, spiritually. Both teach a theology very close to that of Miranda.

Likewise, there's been quite a bit of interest (and belief in) The DaVinci Code, and it's forerunner, Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Yet an important theme in the earliest editions (and perhaps still -- I read it in the 1980s) is the way Baigent and crew are eagerly awaiting a world political ruler, who they identify as the "Antichrist", who, they claim, will be one of Jesus's ancestors. (Pierre Plantard, their erstwhile divine ruler, turned out to be a French petty conman, Nazi supporter, and probable pedophile. But people still take their other assertions seriously!)

And let's not forget that the same idea is advocated in many New Age books.

These are, again, things which capture the public attention, and which apparently exert a fair amount of influence on the celebrities and especially journalists (judging by the number of DaVinci-inspired errors I'm seeing in news articles). So you can laugh at Miranda and his followers, but the underlying belief, if stated prettily enough, is apparently fairly palatable to many contemporary Westerners.

Lucy Fuentes, a former Catholic who joined the movement in 1988, said she was tired of feeling like a sinner. De Jesús' message freed her from such ideas, she said. [1]

There are undoubtedly millions of people who feel the same way. The message that I'm not at fault, and have no moral culpability goes a long way today -- and will go further in the next generation, as we've raised our children with even less tolerance for challenges to their self-esteem.

Biblically, "Antichrist" is not just one person but actually a series of people making the same claim. Jesus predicted this would happen, and warned his followers these people were fakes:

Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Messiah [Christ, religious world-ruler]' and will deceive many.... At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time.

"So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Another interesting characteristic of the biblical "Antichrist" is that he is often called the "man of sin" or "lawless one" -- predicting, it seems to me, that he would teach a doctrine in which there was no sin or railed again "legalism":

For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. (2 Thes 2:7-10)

So I'm not surprised when I see Miranda teach his followers the same -- and indeed, the same teaching -- unlimited grace without repentence or a serious notion of sin -- seems to be quite popular in liberal Christian circles. (Again, I'm not saying liberal Christians are the minions of the Antichrist -- just pointing out how popular these beliefs are.)

There is no overt conspiracy or association here: from a biblical perspective, we would say these groups have theological continuity because they have a common spiritual experience and wellspring.

As a Christian, I don't discount the claims of supernatural experience in other religions. So, for example, while Miranda may simply be lying about his supernatural experience which changed him from a heroin addict to preacher ("he learned he was Jesus reincarnate when he was visited in a dream by angels"), it's also possible that he had exactly such an experience. And he may thus be quite sincere in his convictions.

But the bible again predicts that: The New Testament teaches that there is a spiritual power which actually interacts with people to inculcate these beliefs. There is a "secret power of lawless already at work", the gospel of John insists, "even now many antichrists have come" (1 John 2:18), and elsewhere "the spirit of the antichrist... is coming and even now is already in the world ." (1 John 4:3)

From a biblical perspective, it's practicing, re-working the same scenario over and over in small groups until it gets it right -- honing it's skills until "the one who now holds it back... is taken out of the way." Until that time, this will be an aspect of life as usual.

A good mental model is one which produces testable predictions, and results which conform to the world around us. In my experience, the content of the bible seem to do that very well: not just in broad diagnosis of human behavior, but even in more specific details like this one. Anticipating a string of people like Miranda -- even down to their prevailing motif, identity claims, and theology -- was quite a startling claim for an obscure monotheistic Jewish movement to make.

Yet such predictions match quite nicely with many newspaper stories you can find on any given year. Not many people claiming to be the re-incarnation of Zoraroaster, Mohammad, Hermes, Zeus, or Thor -- and I know of no scriptures predicting such.