Ch. 4: The Miraculous Theft of Identity

God-With-Us was walking through a Birmingham suburb, followed by a large crowd. Many who lived in that neighborhood came out on their front porches, angered that the crowd was trampling their lawns and setting off their car alarms. Assuming it was another peaceful protest, they shouted obscenities and waved their firearms in the air.

But one woman ran out to God-With-Us, saying, “I saw you healing people on the news! Please come inside and help my mother. She is terribly sick with the flu.”

So, God-With-Us went in and healed the woman. She got out of bed and, seeing the crowd, began making iced tea and brownies for everyone. God-With-Us rose to leave, but could not even make it to the front door because the crowd kept shoving another sick or injured or disabled person in front of him.

By the time he finished healing them all, it was well past midnight. The owner of the house said he could sleep on the spare futon in the basement if he didn’t mind sharing her son-in-law’s workspace.

In the basement, God-With-Us found a thirty-something man in his underwear, sitting in a black rolly chair before a desk covered with computers and junk food.

“Hey,” said the man, swiveling in his chair, “I’m Sym.”

“That’s a dumb name,” said God-With-Us. “I’m going to call you The Rock.”

“Like the wrestler?” asked Sym.

“Exactly.”

“Ok, then. Where you from?”

“Florida.”

“Ha! Nothing good comes from Florida,” scoffed Sym. “What are you doing here?”

“My father’s work,” said God-With-Us, then seeing the many glowing screens on the man’s desk, asked, “Who are you working for?”

“Oh, I’m self-employed,” said Sym.

“You’re right to say you have no job. You’ve lost five jobs this year alone and the job you have now is a scam.”

“I didn’t say that,” said Sym. “How do you know about my work? Are you a cop?”

“Are you impressed because I know about your little phishing operation?” said God-With-Us. “That’s nothing. Try sending one more email.”

“I’ve been sending totally legitimate emails to potential clients all damn day without a single reply, but to prove there’s nothing fishy going on here, I’ll send one more.”

As soon as Sym hit “SEND,” his inboxes began to fill with tens of thousands of emails containing PINs, passwords, social security numbers, and credit card numbers. He collected so much personal information that he had to call Jackie and Johnny Z, a sister and brother who lived next door with their dad, to come over and help him back up the data because he couldn’t fit it all on his free cloud space.

When Sym realized what they had done, he scooted his rolly chair over to God-With-Us and said, “You really shouldn’t be here; we’re felons!”

“Don’t worry,” said God-With-Us. “Come with me and we’ll steal identities for God.”

“But my mother-in-law depends on me,” said Sym, “and their dad depends on them. They’re buried under a mountain of medical bills, second mortgages, and back taxes.”

“Open the first email in your inbox,” commanded God-With-Us, “and you will find a Bitcoin. Sell it and give whatever you earn to your parents to provide for their needs.”

The Rock obeyed and everything happened as God-With-Us had said. The next morning, the three left their parents and all they owned to go wherever he went, sleep on tour buses and airplanes, bring him coffee and sandwiches, cheer him on, fight off mobs, and do whatever he asked of them. And so they became his first groupies.

Ch. 7: The Solving of Climate Change

God-With-Us had spent all day teaching large crowds in downtown Atlanta. When it started getting dark, he made his groupies take an Uber to the airport ahead of him because he had a major speaking engagement the next day in Houston.

By the time God-With-Us finally dismissed the crowd, his groupies were already on a plane, flying high above the earth. They were experiencing some turbulence when one of them saw out the window God-With-Us riding on a cloud. When he pointed this out to the other passengers, they cried out in terror because they thought they were seeing a ghost.

“Don’t worry,” said God-With-Us, passing into the cabin, “It’s only me.”

But this frightened them all the more.

As they flew, the turbulence grew more and more severe until the passengers thought the plane would break apart. At last, the captain announced that due to another category five hurricane making landfall sooner than predicted (the third time that year), he was being forced to reroute to DFW.

Someone made a flippant comment blaming climate change for the inconvenience, which began a vicious argument among the groupies. They rehashed all of the familiar propositions–carpooling, globally synchronized prayer walks, government-sponsored homesteading, colonizing Mars, genetically engineered clean cattle, longer prison terms for the use of plastic straws, and other more laughable ideas–but they couldn’t agree on a solution or whether climate change was even real. For each point, there was an even more passionate counterpoint and with each counterpoint, at least half of them took great offense, for God-With-Us had groupies on both sides of the aisle. Soon, the plane was in as much danger from the blowhards within as it was from the gale-force winds without.

The shouting became so tempestuous that it woke God-With-Us, who had been fast asleep in the restroom. He came out and rebuked them, saying, “Peace! Be still!”

But they argued all the more.

“Don’t you care that our planet is dying?” they asked him.

In response, God-With-Us walked out onto the wing of the plane where, with a word, he reduced greenhouse gas emissions, restored the ozone, enlarged the ice caps, lowered the sea levels, extinguished all forest fires, emptied the landfills, recycled all plastics, purified all drinking water, reforested the Amazon, and saved the polar bears. The strong winds, however, continued to blow for this particular hurricane had nothing to do with climate change.

Back inside the cabin, the debate was raging worse than before. Some interpreted this miracle as releasing mankind from all environmental stewardship. Others warned mankind mustn’t take this second chance for granted. Still, others said these were unmistakable signs of the End Times which meant the earth and everything in it would soon pass away. And still, others said they had just witnessed the arrival of the New Earth which meant the End Times had officially ended.

Seeing the state of their hearts, God-With-Us went back onto the wing and revoked his miracle. Everything about the earth went back to how it had been moments before, only this time he commanded the winds to stop blowing and they obeyed.

As soon as the captain announced they would manage an on-time arrival after all, the arguing ceased and a great calm fell over the cabin.

– Ryan Shane Lopez

Author’s Note: God-With-Us’ Adventures in Churchland is a series of satirical retellings of Jesus’ ministry set in the modern American Bible Belt. For more questioning of the faith and faithful questioning, follow Ryan Shane Lopez on Twitter and Instagram.