He has been called, "Jesus of Suburbia." Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is a 60-year-old man living in Houston, Texas who claims to be the second coming of Christ. He has a growing group of disciples in a number of countries.In March of 2007, ABC's Primetime featured a story about Jose that included interviews with some of his followers, and the man himself. In case you missed the program, here are some interesting facts about Jose:
- He grew up in poverty in Puerto Rico.
- During his time in Puerto Rico, he served stints in prison for petty theft convictions.
- He was forced to enter a long-term chemical dependency program in New York city after a heroin conviction.
- He claims to be un-killable despite his entourage of NINE bodyguards.
- He originally declared himself to be just a preacher, but in 1998 he claimed to be the apostle Paul.
- In 1999 he claimed to be "the Other" who would pave the way for the second coming of Christ.
- In 2004 he changed his story yet again by declaring himself to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.
Jose explains the claim that he is Jesus Christ by telling of an epiphany he supposedly experienced in 1973, during which, as he puts it, "a resurrected Christ integrated himself within me." He says, however, that he does not know why he was chosen.
Jose is a walking contradiction if ever there was one. For example, in the early part of 2007, he declared himself not only to be Christ, but also "The Anti-Christ" (someone please email me if you can make sense of that one). He is now requesting that his followers have the number "666" tattooed on their bodies (which, by the way, is a portion of Revelation that has become needlessly and ignorantly entangled in superstition). Jose's request is being granted by many of his followers.
Jose's main point of teaching is that sin no longer exists. He affirms that when Jesus (I guess he's referring to himself in third person??) die on the cross, sin was completely eliminated -- not in the Biblical sense, mind you (i.e. atonement), but in a universally sinless sense. In other words, there is nothing -- absolutely NOTHING anyone can do to put his or her soul in jeopardy; and since sin does not exist, neither does hell. Perhaps this explains why Jose proudly smokes cigars and cigarettes, and flaunts the fact that he hangs out at bars while kicking back a few beers and tequilas. He does say that one should not get "drunk" (how he defines such we may never know). Strangely enough, he was arrested a few years back for D.U.I.
Although Jose rejects most of the Bible, he does say that the apostle Paul did "have it right" (I'm thinking that admission may have something to do with his one-year stint as the second coming of Paul in 1998). So this tells me Jose knows little to nothing about the New Testament (just in case the other 37,000 lies were not enough to convince me of that). If Pail did indeed have it right, I wonder what he could have meant by...
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel -- not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
Galatians 1:6-9, ESV
The arrogance of Mr. Miranda appears to know no bounds. When asked about his critics, he said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." To which I say, forgive us for what?? If there is no sin, Jose, how could we possibly be in need of forgiveness?
The fact of the matter is that Jose isn't all that bright. There have been scores of false Christs over the past 2,000 years, but I would venture to say that most of them possessed reasonably impressive intellectual capacities or a very persuasive personality. I can confidently say that watching this charlatan for 25 minutes had me convinced of one thing -- he has neither. And yet, here are thousands of men, women, and children who swear up and down that he is Jesus Christ!
If it were not so sad, it would be hilarious.
If you would like to learn more, you may want to visit ABCnews.com to see more on this story.
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