Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

by Jon Krakauer

According to Dan, at a certain point Christ gathered all His children around Him and announced, “‘I want to have a party that’s gonna last for a thousand years. You interested? You want to party with Me on this earth for a thousand years?’ And we said, ‘Hell, yeah!’ So He said, ‘Okay, that’s the good part. Here’s the bad part: you can’t have something for nothing. . . . For six thousand years I’m gonna let the earth become hell before I turn it into heaven. And hell, by definition, is where the devil and his children are running shit. So what I’m gonna do is, I’m gonna let the devil populate the earth with all of his assholes, and then I’m gonna sprinkle you, My children, on the earth a few at a time. And every hour you spend in this hell-on-earth with the assholes, you’re going to be building up credits for the Big Party. It’s gonna take about six thousand years, but by then we’ll have all the credits we’ll need for our party. And then I’ll come, and we’ll harvest the earth—basically, we’ll remove all the assholes—and clear the dance floor for our thousand-year party.’ “Christ told His children, ‘I know life is fucking crazy, but I’m here to tell you there’s a purpose behind it. We’re working for the Kingdom of God. And the way we do that is we just put in our time here. And every hour you put in here is building up credit for the Big Party. That’s the promise. That’s the covenant. It’s going to be crazy down there for a while, but in the end, through Elijah, I will come.’ ”