Jesus, Mary Magdalene accept Visa

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/05/2011 (5456 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRISBANE — Jesus Christ has returned to the planet, swapping Nazareth for northern Australia this time around.

That, at least, is the claim of Alan John Miller who insists he is not merely the reincarnated Redeemer but has his biblical companion Mary Magdalene with him.

John the Apostle, according to Miller, 47, is also living in Australia but no one is sure of the current address of the beloved disciple.

In a world that gave some credence to the ramblings of Harold Egbert Camping, who believed the Apocalypse would arrive at 6 p.m. last Saturday, it’s perhaps not as surprising as it should be that Miller and Mary Magdalene (Mary Suzanne Luck, 32) have an enthusiastic following.

From his headquarters near the tiny town of Wilkesdale in the northern state of Queensland, Miller insists he’s the literal son of Joseph and Mary made manifest.

But, regrettably, he doesn’t remember every detail of his previous life, including his native tongue.

“The majority of my life happened from the first century until now and all of that time I was in the spirit world,” he explains. “I didn’t speak a language.”

That’s a shame, because his English is good. With a solid grounding in Aramaic he could have given us a more succinct translation of a phrase he allegedly used in his earlier incarnation: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on Earth.”

For as surely as televangelists accept Visa, Miller and Luck are looking for donations to help fund their good works, with even the good people of Canada invited to send a few dollars to fund the Second Coming

Already, followers have purchased a $400,000, 240-hectare property where they hold meetings each week and prepare plans for an international visitors centre.

Queensland journalist David Murray broke the story of the return of the Nazarene in Queensland’s The Sunday Mail two weeks ago.

While the followup reporting has not been as respectful as the Son of God might warrant, the story has gone international.

Murray says if Miller wanted publicity, he got it, but added “with exposure comes scrutiny” and that has revealed some disturbing details about the movement, including a Sunshine Coast man whose sister sold her home to be closer to Miller, who also appears to have a strong emotional hold on her.

The woman reportedly has a history of instability, has been involved in religious cults and has received extensive counselling.

If Miller’s ambitious project gains any more traction, we can be assured of hearing more tales of vulnerable people handing over their life savings in the hope of salvation.

The idea of exploiting spiritual yearnings to make a quick buck is much older than the three-card trick and just as duplicitous.

Australians have not yet adjourned en masse to a jungle to drink lethal cups of Kool-Aid in a Jim Jones bout of spiritual mania.

But though it’s not overly enthusiastic about mainstream religion, the appearance of Miller only reinforces the uncomfortable reality that Australia is just as open to strange fringe movements as any other country.

And Queensland, which hosts an unofficial “Bible Belt” running through regional and rural areas of the southeast, seems to have more than its share of truth-seekers looking for an extra dash of “super” in their supernatural.

This week alone the website The Queensland Times reported the opening of a School of the Supernatural, which, among other things, teaches people how to cure cancer. Seventy people have already enrolled.

Earlier this year, a killer on the run for more than a decade, Andrew Hunter, was found to be hiding in the state’s far north with a “Jesus group” living in a rural area near the city of Cairns.

And near another regional Queensland city, Toowoomba, exists the Magnificat Meal Movement, which is more than a decade old, challenges Vactian II modernization of the Catholic Church and has a number of middle-class followers.

Spiritual musings are part of the human condition and few question the right to seek answers beyond the material when it comes to questioning the true meaning of our lives.

But Australians are being rightly warned about Miller by mainstream churches, such as Catholics and Anglicans who, whatever their failings, don’t have a record of taking large sums of money from their followers or suggesting parishioners move into the presbytery.

Miller may well be the reincarnated Christ and Mary Luck an updated version of Mary Magdalene. The world may also end on Oct. 21 after Pastor Camping did some recalculations on his biblically inspired mathematics last Monday and rescheduled the rapture.

But it’s more likely that if Miller is seeking to impart to us a profound truth, he has already fulfilled his earthly mission.

During a discussion on his own website, he declared:

“One possibility is that I think I am Jesus) and I’m a nut case.”

 

Michael Madigan is the Winnipeg Free Press correspondent in Australia. He writes about politics for the Brisbane-based Courier Mail.