TODAY'S TOPIC: Sinner, You Will Pay

Dear Reverend Hanson:I am an unrepentant sinner. I fornicate at every opportunity, I disrespect my parents, I cuss, and I beat my dog. My friends and I ride around proudly on our bicycles, stealing, lying, being slothful, bearing false witness wherever we go, and generally mocking you and your stupid Christian ilk. On Sundays we pray to the desecrated eyeball of a goat... and Goddamn, do we enjoy it! I hope to commit every sin imaginable before I die, and some others besides.

I just wanted to let you know how the other half lives.

Sincerely,
SINNER'S NAME WITHHELD
(Founder, SELLWOOD X-TREME SINNING TEAM)

Dear SINNER: I suppose you expect me to be shocked. I am only saddened. I suppose you consider your personal level of depravity well above the norm. Unfortunately, nay. Portland teems with unrepentant sinners like you and your friends. It's a sad, shameful shame.

But one day soon, a divine storm will wash this city clean, sweeping all the filth like yourself away to the steaming laundry room below, where the torture you so richly deserve awaits you. Only Jesus' Faithful Followers will be saved from calamity, hoisted from harm by His Helicopters of Love and flown directly to His Holy Landing Pad, where delicious snacks and pleasant, light music await us. Yes, there shall be joyous reunion with lost loved ones and missing limbs, eternal celebration, beautiful choral singing, all those great rewards. Mock them all you like, for you won't be getting them.

Woe to you, SINNER, for you shall reap the bitter fruit of the seed you've spilled on the rock of ages! How your soul shall be tormented! How your flesh shall be rent, gnashed, boiled, singed, squeezed, impaled, and electrocuted! Oh yes, it shall sorely smart down there in Satan's interfaith bathhouse of cruelty. I can already hear your craven pleas: "Oh, Reverend Hanson! Oh how wrong I was! Ouch! Oh, what a terrible mistake I made! Ouch! Oh, I beg Christ's forgiveness! Ouch! Oh, I've seen the light, I really have! Ouch! Ask Jesus to save me! Ouch! Ouch!"

And up there in heaven, my family and I shall sip Jesus' Holy Wine and dine on His Perfect Cooking and relax on perfectly soft cushions, talking of this and that. Yes, we will hear your distant cries over the lilting strains of the angelic band. My dear wife Leona and I will peer down through the clouds with the Lord's finest night-vision binoculars and spot you there, perhaps chained to one of the hot rocks of Hades, writhing in agony as Satan's minions rip out your lying tongue while your entrails are gnawed upon by a one-eyed goat. And because we are charitable and forgiving Christians, we will ask Jesus, "Say, Jesus, isn't there something you can do for that poor guy down there?"

And Jesus shall reply: "LET HIM BURN! LET HIM SUFFER! FOR HE HAS TURNED HIS BACK ON MY DIVINE LOVE AND MADE A POINT OF DOING SO IN THE PAGES OF A WIDELY READ WEEKLY CIRCULAR, TO BOOT!"

I suggest you repent.