This weekend, the Tennessean newspaper ran a full page article from a group calling itself The Ministry of Future for America, featuring a very long letter to the people of Nashville meant to warn them that on July 18, they will be nuked by "Islam." Not any particular Muslim person, not any particular group, just "Islam, the religion." It was as horrifying in its bigotry as it was confounding in its content.

The group explained that they needed to publish this in order to fulfill their responsibility as "watchmen," so they don't go to hell for not telling anyone about it. The newspaper, however, has since realized that it was its responsibility to not publish it, and is very sorry for having done so and is investigating the matter:

The Tennessean is investigating how a paid advertisement from a fringe religious group was published on Sunday in violation of the newspaper's long-established standards.

The ad featured a bizarre, pseudo-religious "prophecy," including the declaration of an impending nuclear attack in Nashville by "Islam."

The ad was immediately ordered to be pulled from future editions by sales executives and the investigation launched. A similar ad, one that did not mention Islam but also contained an end-times prophecy, published in the newspaper on June 17.

The newspaper's advertising standards clearly forbid hate speech. Advertisements that do not meet the paper's standards are routinely rejected for publication.

In the letter, the Ministry of Future for America — which appears to be some kind of schismatic Seventh Day Adventist group — notes that their bullshit is far too complicated to be explained in one full page ad, and so directs people to the website www.July18.news to learn more.

It should come as no surprise to you that the seven chapters and summary dedicated to explaining the reasoning behind their belief in the Nashpocalypse are pretty much a word salad of various conspiracy theories, Bible verses, and prophecies, with very little "we believe this stupid thing and here is why" happening.

In order to even start explaining what they are on about, I gotta drop some real quick history. So like, a little less than 200 years ago or so, there were a whole bunch of kooky religious groups in the general western New York area (like Rochester, where I am right at this very moment!), and one of them was the Millerites. The Millerites were led by a dude named William Miller, and he predicted the end of the world, which obviously didn't happen — and those people either flipped out because they had really been counting on the apocalypse, in what was called the Great Disappointment, or they started looking for new intel on the whole world ending thing.

Ellen G. White was raised by a Millerite family in Maine, and at some point she too started to receive "prophecies" — also, frequently, about the world ending. "God" sent her like 2,000 of these prophecies and they became the basis for what is the Seventh Day Adventist Church. There's more to it than that, but you get the gist.

Anyway, this group (or person claiming to represent a group, Unabomber style) believes in White's prophecies but is very mad at the Seventh Day Adventist church because they "knew" White had predicted 9/11 (because she said a bad thing was gonna happen in Manhattan one time!) and never warned anyone about it. Now they are saying she predicted something bad for Nashville as well, and that in her prophecy, the Seventh Day Adventists were like "Yep, we knew this was going to happen" and their neighbors were super pissed that they never mentioned it.

"While I was in Nashville, a scene was opened before me. A great ball of fire seemed to fall from heaven, and from it went forth flashes of light. When these flashes of light would strike a building, the building would burn like tinder. And then I heard someone say, 'I knew that this was coming. These are the judgments of God that I knew were coming.' 'You knew!' said another. 'You were my neighbor. Why did you not tell me that these things were coming? Why did you not warn others?'" Manuscript 154, 1904.

Oh man, that sure is rough. It also seems like the premise of like every Christian Kirk Cameron movie and Jack Chick pamphlet, ever.

There's also a whole bunch in there about how Nashville is the home of country music and rock music has country roots to some degree and therefore Nashville is bad because rock music is of the devil? Not sure what that has to do with anything, but who expects this to make sense anyway?

Until this point, there has been no consideration taken concerning the influence of unsanctified music on the mind, but the symbol of country music is Nashville and historically the combination of country, soul, and gospel music which became the foundation of rock and roll. False education, competition, humanism, war, and unsanctified entertainment can be associated with Nashville, and this association comes from a city that resides in a part of the USA that is known as the Bible belt.

Anyway, after this, supposedly, all of the efforts to combat Islam and their nukes lead to the rest of the world creating a one world government, which we all know is one of the steps necessary for the full-on apocalypse to happen. Whether people get vacuumed up into the sky before or after that part is not particularly clear. (Very serious people have very serious disagreements about this.)

It seems fair to say that these are the ramblings of a person who is not all there, and that Nashville is in no particular danger of being nuked by one of the world's major religions.

And that is the story of the ad that actually ran in Nashville's biggest newspaper. Yep.

[The Tennessean]

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