crystaldawn
02-02-2008, 07:18 PM
Ah do we ever tire of hearing about him....:lol:
http://www.nlrtimes.com/articles/2008/02/02/opinion/opi03.txt
Remember the Alamo! Not that one!
Thursday, January 31, 2008 3:16 PM CST
Tony Alamo dropped by the other night to say hello.
Well, he didn’t actually drop by, but he placed some literature from his New Jerusalem church group — Christian World Ministries — on the windshield of my car.
No, I didn’t actually see Tony, and the wadful of outdated pamphlets could have been left by one of his many followers.
But at least somebody cared enough to let me know Alamo’s still around.
In case you’ve forgotten, Alamo is the former leader of a kindness-to-all-mankind religious sect of hellfire-and-damnation believers. While he is a whack-job, he’s not one who takes up serpents or drinks poison. He has, however, claimed to be able to raise a dead spousal unit or two.
While he wasn’t able to bring his dead wife back in a Lazarus episode, he did get in legal trouble by not burying her in a timely manner. Or maybe it was for digging her up. Time erodes even pleasant memories.
When the law showed up, he buried her quicker than castor oil goes through a goose.
What a man! He once told the IRS (that “blatantly antireligious” federal agency) to bite the big one. The IRS told him to go to prison. He did, for four years.
Between the “digging up Dead Darlin’” case and his prison excursion, he was slapped with a child abuse charge in California, profiled in a televised Unsolved Mysteries episode, accused of kidnapping and also of converting church funds for personal use.
Some followers considered him an America hero, even though he has been on the FBI’s “Somebody Wants Him” list. He was praised in prose by exposing “the great prostitute” (though he used a different word), the Vatican.
Rumor has it he’s also fun at parties.
In the stacks of pamphlets, Alamo — who could pass for the love child of Jim Jones and Elvis — is shown with his late wife Susan and in a photo with a very young Willie Nelson. He has some interesting theories, like declaring the Jim Jones-led cult didn’t commit mass suicide down in the Jonestown jungle area of South America ... they were poisoned by government agents.
The cheap flyers are filled with letters from Third World countries — Nigeria, Zambia, Ghana, El Salvador, Malawi, Tanzania, the West Indies, Texas and California.
The “World Pastor” predicted in one of the newsletters: “Any time now, a worldquake and a series of prophesied catastrophes will shockingly awaken the entire global population to a horrible, God-sent, unparalleled nightmare.”
In this event and others, Alamo predicted more than 2 billion people will die.
And have a nice day, ya hear?
It had been several years since last reading any of Pastor Alamo’s messages and I had forgotten how abnormal, obscure and bellicose he could be. But even after all that time, the writings seemed familiar somehow.
Maybe they should have. The dates on the brochures were 2001 to 2003.
Why? Maybe Tony went to join Susan. And, maybe, someone is trying to Lazarus him at this very moment.
Wherever he is, you can bet he’s proud someone, even a column-computering heretic, is still thinking about him.
George Smith is a long-time Arkansas journalist and can be reached at gsid143@gmail.com.
http://www.nlrtimes.com/articles/2008/02/02/opinion/opi03.txt
Remember the Alamo! Not that one!
Thursday, January 31, 2008 3:16 PM CST
Tony Alamo dropped by the other night to say hello.
Well, he didn’t actually drop by, but he placed some literature from his New Jerusalem church group — Christian World Ministries — on the windshield of my car.
No, I didn’t actually see Tony, and the wadful of outdated pamphlets could have been left by one of his many followers.
But at least somebody cared enough to let me know Alamo’s still around.
In case you’ve forgotten, Alamo is the former leader of a kindness-to-all-mankind religious sect of hellfire-and-damnation believers. While he is a whack-job, he’s not one who takes up serpents or drinks poison. He has, however, claimed to be able to raise a dead spousal unit or two.
While he wasn’t able to bring his dead wife back in a Lazarus episode, he did get in legal trouble by not burying her in a timely manner. Or maybe it was for digging her up. Time erodes even pleasant memories.
When the law showed up, he buried her quicker than castor oil goes through a goose.
What a man! He once told the IRS (that “blatantly antireligious” federal agency) to bite the big one. The IRS told him to go to prison. He did, for four years.
Between the “digging up Dead Darlin’” case and his prison excursion, he was slapped with a child abuse charge in California, profiled in a televised Unsolved Mysteries episode, accused of kidnapping and also of converting church funds for personal use.
Some followers considered him an America hero, even though he has been on the FBI’s “Somebody Wants Him” list. He was praised in prose by exposing “the great prostitute” (though he used a different word), the Vatican.
Rumor has it he’s also fun at parties.
In the stacks of pamphlets, Alamo — who could pass for the love child of Jim Jones and Elvis — is shown with his late wife Susan and in a photo with a very young Willie Nelson. He has some interesting theories, like declaring the Jim Jones-led cult didn’t commit mass suicide down in the Jonestown jungle area of South America ... they were poisoned by government agents.
The cheap flyers are filled with letters from Third World countries — Nigeria, Zambia, Ghana, El Salvador, Malawi, Tanzania, the West Indies, Texas and California.
The “World Pastor” predicted in one of the newsletters: “Any time now, a worldquake and a series of prophesied catastrophes will shockingly awaken the entire global population to a horrible, God-sent, unparalleled nightmare.”
In this event and others, Alamo predicted more than 2 billion people will die.
And have a nice day, ya hear?
It had been several years since last reading any of Pastor Alamo’s messages and I had forgotten how abnormal, obscure and bellicose he could be. But even after all that time, the writings seemed familiar somehow.
Maybe they should have. The dates on the brochures were 2001 to 2003.
Why? Maybe Tony went to join Susan. And, maybe, someone is trying to Lazarus him at this very moment.
Wherever he is, you can bet he’s proud someone, even a column-computering heretic, is still thinking about him.
George Smith is a long-time Arkansas journalist and can be reached at gsid143@gmail.com.