Blessed are the ripped, for they shall inherit California

Millennial religions generally share a number of characteristics. They generally appear in societies, or segments of societies, which are under a good deal of stress. There is a promise of deliverance from hardship in the form of some type of physical, temporal, or spiritual reorganization. The movements are driven by a charismatic prophet or messiah who has received that promise through a vision or divine inspiration.

The prophets of these movements also tend to follow a certain pattern. In most cases the receipt of the motivating vision produces radical personality change. Frequently the background of the prophet includes behaviors such as drug abuse, alcoholism, and chronic bouts of various forms of debauchery, which are resolved by the personality transormation produced by their vision.

This makes me curious about the Bible. In the Bible Christ jumps from a young boy to a thirty year old man with no coverage of the intervening years, which is really pretty bad narrative. Given what we know of millennial prophets I've wondered what the heck he was doing, and if the reason we have no coverage is that someone is hiding something. Turns out he was pumping iron. What would Jesus do? Winstrol.

Via Jill at Feministe.