{"id":534,"date":"2013-12-28T00:59:02","date_gmt":"2013-12-28T08:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/lateraltruth\/?p=534"},"modified":"2013-12-28T00:59:02","modified_gmt":"2013-12-28T08:59:02","slug":"friday-messiah-isaiah-robertson-prophet-of-niagara-falls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/lateraltruth\/2013\/12\/28\/friday-messiah-isaiah-robertson-prophet-of-niagara-falls\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Messiah: Isaiah Robertson, Prophet of Niagara Falls"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photos<\/a>
Photos by Fred Scruton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Okay, it’s stretching things to call Isaiah Robertson<\/a> a messiah\u2014he’s a prophet, rather, with an apocalyptic message, which predicts the Rapture in 2014, and pinpoints the Second Coming to Niagara Falls, NY\u2014but oh, how he puts that message across!\u00a0 He expresses it in carpentry and bright colours, in patterns of rocks and beads, candles and found objects, notably including his own modest bungalow.\u00a0 That is, it started out as a modest bungalow, in much the same way that Robertson started out as a humble housebuilder.<\/p>\n

Born in Jamaica in 1947 and raised by a devout Adventist mother, Robertson became a carpenter because that’s what Jesus was.\u00a0 He came to Canada in the early seventies and continued as a building contractor, eventually adding to his income by buying, renovating, and renting out cheap properties on the US side of Niagara Falls.\u00a0 Then, in about 2003, came the fateful, life-changing contract: to drywall the sanctuary of \u00a0Mt. Erie Baptist Church.<\/p>\n

\"robertson2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0 It seems that<\/a> God spoke to him personally and made it clear that drywall was just not good enough; what God wanted was oak.\u00a0 Robertson duly, and at his own expense, did the whole interior of the church in oak.\u00a0 Further, he found that God guided his saw as he cut the wood, divinely inspiring inlays, cutouts, and panels, even coding messages for Robertson in the fine grain of the oak. \u00a0Robertson realized that he was not just panelling a church\u2014he was being given a prophetic revelation.\u00a0 And when the church was done, he continued with the revelation by gussying up his own house in what looks, at first glance, like metastatic Christmas decorations. At second glance, the charm takes hold.<\/p>\n

\"robertson4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Clearly, the Prophet Isaiah is somewhat beyond eccentric, and his apocalyptic vision of Christ touching down on Goat Island and casting sinners into a lake of fire at the base of Niagara Falls is\u2014well\u2014hilarious.\u00a0 \u00a0But what a better world it would be if all prophets and messiahs worked out their visions with jigsaws and paintbrushes, oak panelling, and pretty patterns of \u00a0rocks and beads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, it’s stretching things to call Isaiah Robertson a messiah\u2014he’s a prophet, rather, with an apocalyptic message, which predicts the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/lateraltruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/lateraltruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/lateraltruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/lateraltruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/lateraltruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/lateraltruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/lateraltruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/lateraltruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/lateraltruth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}