Religious story + thoughts

 Thread One: Young woman (nun?) has visions proclaiming to her that she is the reincarnated Christ, the second coming of Jesus that has been long prophesied in major Abrahamic faiths. The woman is hesitant to accept this, but comes to believe that it is true. Propped up by a longtime Mother Superior with somewhat impure motives (i.e. power, revenge on the male hierarchy which has excluded women from positions of equal power for thousands of years), she gains a small but vocal following to her new Church of the Fulfillment of the Word of God (Fulfillment Church, C of F, etc.). The Church comes to believe that, in order for the Final Judgement to come about, the New Christ must follow Her spiritual revelations (i.e. visions from God) to the completion of the Divine Plan. What this actually entails remains shrouded in mystery, including to the New Christ. Unlike the Gospel accounts of Jesus, Her mission remains somewhat unclear to her and her divine nature does not fully reveal itself to her until the end of the story.

Thread Two: A down-on-his-luck journalist, fresh off a recent embarrassing failure, has been assigned to investigate reports of tax evasion among snake-handling churches in rural Appalachia. He sees this as a way to get him out of the way, and to remove him from New York or DC, "where news happens", and essentially sideline his career. However, his investigation into the Church of God with Signs Following, aka The Little Blue Church, soon bears fruit. It turns out, this is essentially a snake-worshipping cult masquerading as a Christian church in order to avoid suspicion/do tax fraud. The congregation claims lineage from ancient religions, and worship a great serpent which resides in the vast catacombs beneath their church building as God. 

I'll figure out the climax, where the two threads come together, later.

xx

Comments

  1. Patr2016October 29, 2024 at 10:44 AM

    also- I think Thread One should follow SOME (not all) of the gospel narrative of Christ's awakening to his true nature etc. Don't feel married to it, but use as a guide?

    ReplyDelete

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