“He’s not Arab, Nelson. He’s Spanish.”
Darby swatted the correction away. “Same difference. He’s still Catholic.”
“It doesn’t matter. What did you think the messiah of the Second Coming was gonna be? Lutheran?”
“I don’t know, but . . . Catholic?” Darby groaned.
“That’s an irrelevant detail right now. He’s Christian. More importantly, he happens to be one of the holiest men on the planet. He’s spent the last few months holed up in some cave near a monastery in Egypt. Which is part of the Holy Land. Jesus himself hid in that same valley when he was being hounded by the Romans.”
“What about all that Coptic business?”
“The monastery where he’s staying is Coptic, but he’s not a Copt. You know much about Copts?”
“Not yet,” Darby answered with a self-effacing smile.
“They’re the Christians of Egypt. Maybe ten percent of the population. But they’re the ones who’ve been there longest. They were there long before the Arabs invaded in the seventh century. In fact, they’ve been there since day one. Uninterrupted. The purest, oldest uncorrupted Christians you’ll find, Nelson,” Buscema insisted. He paused to let his words sink in, then continued, “You do know who started the Coptic Church, right?”
“No,” Darby said.
“Mark. As in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That Mark. He went out there to preach the gospel, about thirty years after Jesus’s death. He didn’t have too much of a hard time getting the people there to sign up. They already believed in everlasting life, had done so for thousands of years. Difference was, Mark told them it wasn’t just for pharaohs. No need to be mummified and put inside a huge pyramid and have priests perform all kinds of weird rituals for it to happen. Everyone was entitled to go to heaven, provided they believed in the One God and asked him to forgive them for their sins. Which, as you can imagine, was music to their ears. And that’s where it all started, where Christianity first took shape. The symbolism, the rituals. A lot of it came out of there. Look at the ankh—the ancient Egyptian symbol of eternal life, and the cross. Think about their God, Ra—the God of the sun— and our holy day, Sunday. And that valley where Father Jerome is holed up? It’s holier than you think. Those monasteries out there? They’re the oldest monasteries in the world. They hold some of the earliest holy books anywhere. Fourth- and fifth-century gospels. Priceless manuscripts. Piles of them. Just lying there. They’re still translating them. Who knows what they’ll find in them. It’s a deeply religious place, Nelson. A deeply religious,
Darby nodded, grudgingly allowing his advisor’s sermon to sink in. “But why now? And why the signs over the poles?”
Buscema’s brows rose with uncertainty. “Maybe he’s telling us to watch out. Maybe he’d like us to stick around a bit longer. And who knows?” he smiled. “You might find people end up preferring that message to the End of Times prophecies you’ve been telling them about. Regardless of how much they’ve been looking forward to that.” He smiled inwardly at that last little dig.
Darby’s eyes narrowed as it registered. He let it pass. “It’s our destiny, Roy. That’s what the Bible says. That’s how those of us who’ve accepted Jesus Christ as our savior are going to be saved. Before Armageddon. Before the earth is reaped. Besides, you don’t really believe these greenhouse gases are gonna end up by wiping us all out with their tidal waves or with that new ice age they’ve been harping on about?”
Buscema gave him a noncommittal shrug. “I’m not sure it couldn’t happen.”
“Hogwash,” Darby shot back. “War’s gonna bring about the End of Times, Roy. Nuclear war between the forces of good and evil. Not global warming.” He sighed and sat back. “The good Lord created this earth. And if you remember your Genesis, He said, ‘It is good.’ Which means, He’s happy with how it turned out. It’s His divine creation. And He’s the Almighty, for crying out loud. You think He’d design it in a way that puny little man could destroy it just by driving some SUVs around and setting the A/C on high? His divine creation? It can’t happen. He wouldn’t let it happen. Not like that.”
“All I’m saying is,” Buscema countered in his calming manner, “there’s a sign popping up over the planet’s climate change tipping points. It’s a sign, Nelson. And I just saw the first national polling numbers.”
That fired up a totally different subsection of the pastor’s brain, and his face sharpened with keen interest. “What do they say?”
“People are taking notice. They’re listening.”
Darby exhaled with annoyance. “I bet those ‘creation care’ jugheads are smiling now.”
“‘The Earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof,’” Buscema quoted playfully.
Darby frowned. “Thanks for reminding me.”
“It’s in the Bible, Nelson. ‘The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it . . .
“They’re misguided. And dangerous. We’ve got to be careful, Roy. What are we talking about here? Are we saying the planet’s holy? Are we supposed to worship nature? That’s a slippery slope. We can’t go out there and tell people to love Mother Earth and look after her. Hell, that’s what the Indians believed in.”
Buscema smiled. The man understood the subtleties of faith. And he was smart, there was no denying it. A branding whiz, as well as a mesmerizing orator who knew how to entrance his audience. There was a reason thousands of people endured punishing traffic jams every Sunday morning to hear his rousing sermons. Why millions of others tuned in to catch their slick broadcast on national cable and network TV. Why the man’s opinions, despite being primitive and bigoted and containing such brain-dead inanities as blaming 9/11 on gays, had helped him build an empire that extended to over fifty different ministries and a global network of over ten thousand churches, a school and a university, a conference center, twenty-three radio stations, and a couple dozen magazines.
“It doesn’t have to get to that,” Buscema said. “Think of it more in terms of man’s sinful desires that have led him astray. He needs to see the road to salvation. And it’s your job to hold his hand and show him the way.” Buscema studied him, then leaned in for emphasis. “Unless I’ve got the wrong end of the stick here, you’re pro-life, right?” He teased him by letting the question hang for a beat, always perplexed—and pained—by how pro-lifers applied their zeal to the smallest cluster of cells, no matter how tragically disabled or conceived, but not to any other living species or to the habitat we all shared. “That’s what saving the planet’s all about, isn’t it? Life?”
Darby breathed out heavily, clearly not liking this, and steepled his hands, buttressing his chin with his thumbs.
“Why aren’t any of those bozos in Washington saying anything?”
“They will,” Buscema said, his expression leading Darby to assume he knew more than he was saying.
Darby bought it. “What have you heard?”
“He’s the real deal, Nelson. They know it. They’re just mapping out how best to handle it.”
Darby frowned. Small crinkles overpowered the Botox and broke through around his eyes. “They’re worried about the same thing I am.” He waved his arms expansively. “You build all this, you get to the top of the heap, king of your castle . . . then someone shows up and wants you to call him massa.”
“It’s happened, Nelson. We can’t change that. And he’s out there. I just don’t want you to miss the boat, that’s all.”
Darby asked, “What do you think I should do?”
Buscema thought about it for a beat, then said, “Grab him. While you can.”
“You want me to endorse him?”
Buscema nodded. “Others are thinking about doing it.”
“Who?”
Buscema held his gaze for a beat, then confided, “Schaeffer. Scofield. And many others.” He knew mentioning the names of two of Darby’s biggest competitors in the soul-saving sweepstakes would generate a reaction. One of them even had the affront to have his megachurch in the same city as Darby.
Judging by Darby’s expression, the names hit the sweet spot he was aiming for.
“You sure of that?” the pastor asked.
Buscema nodded enigmatically.
“The man’s a friggin’ Catholic, Roy,” Darby grumbled, a flutter of panic in his eyes.
