Father Mork Hadrian Buggeridge, widely regarded as an expert in the field of eschatology, nevertheless comes across as a bit of a four-flusher in his latest book, The Second Coming of Jesus H. Christ, which posits, firstly, that among the many false Christs who shall appear in the end times, the way to know the true one is by his middle initial; and secondly, that the surefire palladium for avoiding a fiery damnation at the Lord's second advent is to hold aloft a golden David Lee Roth figurine and chant

By the pow'r of three times three,
Lord, won't you please just let me be?

...and 'tis this last bit (a curious blend of witchcraft, Dr. Seuss, and complete idiocy) that has caused a groundswell of negative opinion to mount against the Barnabite friar of late, casting doubt upon a corpus of teachings once described as "friggin' sweet" by no less an ecclesiastical authority than Pope Rudy himself.

What began as a lone voice crying out in the wilderness had become a groundswell of public opinion – that the world would end on December 12 – and those who studied eschatology and thought otherwise could do nothing to quell the panic but to rely upon their educated guesses and calculations to four-flush about God’s decision making regarding those who would be saved, or to encourage others to use faith as a palladium against eternal damnation.