Churchies Ruin Pub: 'Barstool Prophets' Send 'Em Running

“I must point out that my rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them."

Winston Churchill during a lunch with the Arab leader Ibn Saud, when he heard that the king's religion forbade smoking and drinking.

Back in April, we brought you the story of an Ohio preacher who noticed that attendance was flagging at his church and wanted to bring the good word to the people in the place they would be most ready, or at least well-lubricated enough, to receive it: the local pub. That preacher booked a pub for a few hours a week and held a service on Sunday evenings.

Presumably there was a sign outside the bar: Thursday: All-you-can-eat shellfish, Friday: Hits-of-World-War-II-themed karaoke. Saturday: Disgraced teen-star look-alike contest Sunday: Vespers with the Electric Padre. Barflies knew what was going on at the pub on Sundays and could choose whether or not they wanted to participate, thus those who weren't interested would be spared that most dreaded of all pub conversations -- the one that begins "A certain somebody died for your sins. I'll give you three guesses."

There is that approach, the odd but restrained kind, and then there's what a couple of Charlie Churches in the UK did to nearly sink a pub that had been going strong for over 30 years. The couple took over the bar promising that they would make it a place where a couple of women could "come into the pub, buy a bottle of wine and feel comfortable drinking it."

By that they meant, "a place where Ned and Maude Flanders could walk into a bar, school the assembled on the immorality of drink, and their sons Rod and Todd could enjoy a round of a biblical boardgame." Stopping short of declaring prohibition, the couple banned horse racing, took down the dart board, and initiated a policy whereby anybody caught swearing faced a lifetime ban. And if that weren't enough, they ruined that most British of traditions, pub quiz night, by gearing the questions to biblical matters, ex. "Who had the most wives in the bible?" A) The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, B) King Solomon, C) Rashomon, D) 'D' is for the devil, who you will meet in hell soon enough you ignorant heathen.

If you've ever had the misfortune of finding yourself taken unawares by a proselytizing effort, you'll sympathize with the plight of these poor pubgoers who were seeing their local turn into the homebase for Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show.

A smattering of their responses from the ABC report:

A 61-year-old regular at the pub: "Any swearing and you were barred. It was well over the top."

His more succint wife: "You can't run a pub and not swear. If they are Christians, they should run a church, not a bloody pub."

Another regular: "They should have built pews in here rather than chairs. I have no problem with their religion but ... a pub is a pub."

An elderly gentleman whose arse impression was worn into one of the stools: "Those two were almost the ruin of this place. They told everyone who swore once they would be banned. They barred people who had been coming here for 30-odd years."

While religion and drink have gone together ever since someone first figured out how to hide a whiskey flask in a hollowed-out bible, this particular mixing of the suds with the sacred threatened to bankrupt the bar. The pub's owners gave the couple their walking papers and hired a new manager. After being fired, the man and wife, apparently insane, barricaded themselves in the apartment above the bar with three of their six children.

It's all the same to the pubgoers though, as the new manager has returned the dart board to its former glory and put up a sign, "Swearing Now Allowed."

Holy Christ in the Cornflakes! The Top 10 Oddball Jesus Sightings

Unless you’re mixing your booze with a cupful of the communal Kool-Aid at a Ken Kesey-themed 60s night, it’s unlikely that getting drunk – even on absinthe as a recent study revealed – will lead to hallucinations. (Editor’s note: Spinning rooms don’t count in this regard, and neither does vision compromised because you just broke your glasses head-butting a vending machine). Only a drinker approaching last call (and not the one they ring the bell at the bar for) is likely to experience hallucinations, and thus most drinkers are denied the more mystical side of chemical enhancement that their hallucinogenic-eating peers enjoy.

This past weekend, however, one pub drinker had a religious experience of sorts while out on the piss. The Daily Mail reported on how a taxi driver from Darlington ordered a bottle of cider and “got goose pimples” when the waitress opened it and staring back at him from the foil on the neck was the face of Christ himself. "I have no doubt it is the face of Jesus. You can even see his beard and hair," said the man of what is a decidedly more bug-eyed image of JC than the usual one.

The man gathered around his drinking companions to share in this miracle and snapped a photo of the bottle before it was taken away. (None of the other bottles that night bore the face of Jesus, though unconfirmed rumors have it that a glaring John The Baptist was seen in the settling foam of a pint of Old Speckled Hen.)

The drinker didn’t realize how crisp the likeness was until he checked the photos the next day and it was too late to retrieve it. "I'm not sure what message Jesus was sending and maybe now we'll never know,” the man said. The message may have been “Put me up on Ebay and we’ll have many good nights on the cider together son,”; as the Mail mentions, a similar find, the face of the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich, sold for $28,000 just four years ago (Click here for “Virgin Mary (again)”, an up-to-date chronicle of sightings).

His appearance at the British pub was only the latest stop on an unorthodox tour; the Nazarene has popped in for a visit via some unlikely, and occasionally delicious, places over the past few decades. Here then is The Shark Guys’ rundown of the Top 10 Oddball Jesus Sightings of All Time!

10) Fish-stick Jesus: This is the sole Canadian find on the list and appropriately enough was made when a guy was cooking up that quintessential Canadian repast: fish-sticks. Kingston's Fred Wan had left the fish-sticks cooking for too long, a common mistake among fish-stick eaters who are not exactly your gourmet-at-home types when it comes to paying careful attention to following food preparation instructions. The fish-sticks were burnt, but while Fred examined his dinner, he noticed something that he thought could fund many more boxes of ole' Captain Highliner's best: the image of Christ was to be found on the burnt fish-stick. Gordon kept the holy fish-stick in his freezer for some three years (that's usually about mid-shelf life for your average box of fish-sticks) before putting it up on Ebay. Alas, the website denied his posting.

9) The Messiah of the Molars: When Jesus is not making appearances in people's food, he can often be found showing up in their X-rays (click here for that), MRIs (here), ultrasounds (here and here) etc. These visions are usually seen after exams related to something important, like the birth of a child (ecclesiastical sources are split on whether having Jesus's face in the ultrasound means that you are about to give birth to a new prophet or the Antichrist. "50/50", they say). Jesus does not usually meddle in matters of good oral hygiene, but this one was an exception. A Phoenix, Arizona dentist was stunned when he developed his patient's X-ray and found Christ up there above the pearly whites. The man said he was a devout Christian, but that this was the first time his redeemer showed up on his dental x-rays. The reason for the visitation will remain a mystery for the ages as the man's dental checkup revealed no problems.

8) The Pancake Prophet: Not to be outdone by the Virgin Mary grilled-cheese sandwich when it comes to appearances in artery-clogging breakfast food, the face of Jesus was said to have appeared to an Ohio man on his morning pancakes. Ohioan Mike Thompson and his wife were sitting down to breakfast when, he said, he spotted the holy visage and took it to be a "message from above". That message was not surprisingly to take care when setting the minimum bid on E-bay -- start too high and they'll think you a fraud, too low and they'll doubt the veracity of the miracle. Bidding started at $500 and went up to an incredible $15,000 before the listing was pulled due to a "listing infraction."

A report by the website MrBreakfast.Com, entitled "Breakfast with Jesus" (not to be confused with the Andy Kaufman cult film "My Breakfast With Blassie") later determined that the pancake was, horror of all horrors, not the genuine article. An E-Bay commenter had jokingly wondered, "Maybe he has a Jesus fry pan that has an image embedded in the metal so everything cooked will have Jesus on it." The commenter was probably joking, but the pancake guy actually did have a pan that did just that. Jesus Pan.Com, maker of the pan used to create the holy pancakes, offers, for the low low price of two for $29.95 the opportunity to boost your bank account by selling your breakfast on E-bay. Their slogan: "Worship at every meal with Jesus Pan."

7) Pizza Hut Pasta Jesus: In 1991, Stone Mountain, Georgia resident Joyce Simpson had a dilemma; she was, apparently, a good singer, and had to decide if she still wanted to keep on belting it out in the choir for free, or if it was time to move on to more lucrative paid professional work. Driving along she gazed upon a Pizza Hut advertisement for the chain's new spaghetti lunch that it was promoting at the time and in it she found her answer: the face of Jesus was clearly visible to her in the pasta.

Skepdic defines Pareidolia as “a type of illusion or misperception involving a vague or obscure stimulus being perceived as something clear and distinct. For example, in the discolorations of a burnt tortilla one sees the face of Jesus Christ. Or one sees the image of Mother Teresa or Ronald Reagan in a cinnamon bun or a man in the moon.)." It might also explain why Joyce saw Jesus, while other passersby saw different holy men, like Willie Nelson and John Lennon.

6) Shower Jesus: This one, which could also be dubbed the "Calling Bob Vila Jesus", was spotted by Pittsburgh resident Jeffrey Rigo on June 11, 2005. Stepping out of the shower that day Rigo saw both the need for costly home repairs and the means to pay for them in one water-stained piece of plaster. Rigo was quoted in the reporting newspaper as saying "I got out of the shower and yelled, 'Jesus Christ!' My girlfriend asked me, 'Oh, my God, what is it?' I pointed and responded, 'No, Jesus Christ!'" Rigo cut out the piece of plaster with the image on it and put it up on E-bay with the description "a section of plaster wall bearing the apparent face of the Son of God." It sold for $1,999.99.

5) The Jesus Pierogi: Miracles, it seems, adjust with the times. Gone are the days of the fish and loaves; it seems that now Jesus is focused on the kind of foods that will cause your insurance premiums to go up if you circle them under the heading "Do you eat any of the following on a regular basis?". In November 2005, he made an unexpected Easter appearance on a pierogi, the tasty Polish dumpling typically boiled and then thrown into a pan with some butter to ensure that your heart is given a proper run for its money. The woman doing the cooking was sure that she saw her saviour seared into the side of the pierogi and presumably wanted to share the revelation with others: the family put it up on Ebay and netted $1,775.

4) Tailgate Jesus: In November, 2005 a Laredo Texas man's pickup truck became a site of holy pilgrimage where the faithful would go to light candles, take pictures and pray. Julio Radillo found the image of Christ (or Kurt Cobain depending on how your synapses are firing when you look at it) in the dirt on the truck's tailgate. The man was a believer and said that the appearance of the deity on his truck was a reminder for people to strengthen their faith. It may also been a reminder to Radillo that a run through the car wash every few months or so wouldn't be the end of the world..

3) The Jesus Couch (links to MySpace page of man claiming to be co-discoverer): Sometimes Jesus just needs to kick back and relax and what better time to do so than on his own birthday. On Christmas Day, Jesus appeared in a city where his name is most commonly invoked over a pair of just-kissed dice, Las Vegas. The holy visage turned up this time on a red-suede couch. The MySpace blog of one of the man who claims to have discovered the oversized relic reads:

"I am in no way religious or even moral nor do I pretend to be, yet I am telling you it was there on his couch and everyone who sees it in person can see it. I'm not saying it is some kind of miracle, or sign, or that my ass is shaped like Jesus... Sure it's no doubt pattern recognition and the power of suggestion and a whole slew of other psychological nonsense but one thing remains- the power of the jesus couch cannot be denied."

The website that the Myspace poster set up for the faithful, JesusCouch.com, sadly is no longer online and, although we're not positive, it seems unlikely that the Jesus Couch ever sold on Ebay given the high asking price of the co-owner, who wrote on his blog "Hell if a grilled cheese sandwhich can sell for 25 grand and potato chips with the face of Abraham Lincoln get thousands than we should be able to sell this couch for trillions of dollars."

-

2) The Nazarene Gets His Own Nebula: In April 2004, the Hubble Science Institute released some dazzling snaps taken from its extremely high-resolution camera. The photos were of the Cone Nebula and when some believers saw the photos a nationwide call of "Oh my God, it's full of stars! And Jesus!" was sounded. The Cone Nebula, according to Wikipedia is located in Monoceros, "a region that contains cones, pillars, and majestic flowing shapes that abound in stellar nurseries where natal clouds of gas and dust are buffeted by energetic winds from nurseries of newborn stars." But, as the folks over at Skyimagelab.com put it, while NASA scientists may see stellar nurseries etc, "others are inspired by the wonders of the God's creations and see something different. Look at this image from a distance, can you see the image of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, crowned by a sparkling ring of thorns as stars? Thus it was said..." and then it gets into some bible verse before getting to the purpose of the website, which is to sell prints, framed and otherwise, of the "Jesus Nebula".

1) The Shrine of the Holy Tortilla: The arrival of the holy tortilla was a watershed moment for holy found faces in food. Prior to the discovery of this relic, much food had been fried up and scarfed down and people thought things like “Hey, that was a delicious burger,” and not “Why didn’t I check that patty for the likeness of the blessed savior?!” People started looking a little harder at dinner following the arrival of the Holy Tortilla.

In 1977, Maria Rubio, a housewife in Lake Arthur, New Mexico, was rolling up a burrito when she saw that the face of Jesus in the skillet burns on the tortilla. Rubio rushed out, told her friends and neighbors (Way to look like a crackpot neighbor: Run over next door and tell them to check out the face of a deity in a dish of Tex Mex) and soon formed a shrine for the tortilla, which a priest blessed.

Over 35,000 people had visited the Shrine of The Holy Tortilla by 1979, and the Rubio house remained a tourist destination for years. The Holy Tortilla survived many attempts to usurp its place as the true miracle burrito (including this one), but its reign came to an end when one of the Rubio grandchildren took it to show and tell and broke it. Admittedly, there was not much to “show” at that point anyway since the face was no longer visible, and a burrito, not the most attractive-looking food item when it’s just been prepared, would probably not have looked too good at 30.

Hallelujah! Now Pass the Beer Nuts: Ministry to Open in Bar

Barring getting lost on the way back from an after-hours bar and popping into one to grab a nap on the way home, it is unlikely that you will see either of the Shark Guys occupying church pew space on a Sunday morning. That said, this story did nearly cause a religious conversion of Paul on the Road to Damascus-like power. It was later determined that the bright lights we thought we saw and errantly attributed to a beacon from a celestial lighthouse were caused by a combination of dehydration and standing up too fast.

Pope Benedict XVI (Return of the Robed One) is currently on his first visit to the US, which has the third-largest Catholic population in the world – this is a fact made most clear in Mafia movies in which gangsters, despite being pimps, killers and thieves of the worst order, can still be counted on to put on a clean shirt for little Antoinette’s baptism. The pope’s goal this time round is to inject a little enthusiasm into a faith knocked sideways by the scandals of various touchy-feely fathers (of the spurned “Russian hands and Roman fingers” sect) and the fact that even Mother Teresa was recently found to have been a closet atheist.

We wish him all the best, but really if he wants to see those collection plates filling up like they did in the good old days when the church owned everything and had the business end of a bayonet ready for naysayers, we suggest he pay attention to the moves made recently by a reverend in Sidney, Ohio. The senior pastor of Sidney First United Methodist Church decided to move his ministry, saying, “We want to minister to them where they are”. If you’ve been reading this blog regularly, you’ll know exactly where they are: at the bar. Thus the reverend has decided to open the Country Rock Church in the Pub Lounge, a typical bar located off the interstate.

The worship sessions will feature “food, fun, and faith”, and those lacking in the third category might just end up converted if the integral fourth “F” – free-flowing booze – is also on offer.