Pastor Josh Howerton, leading Lakepointe Church, stated, 'The gospels tell us Jesus was taken outside the city walls to be crucified. This fits. It's within walking distance.' He emphasized the geographical context of the crucifixion.
On Ash Wednesday, 2026, two Roman Catholic priests and a religious sister entered an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, to celebrate Mass with detainees inside. It might seem like a simple, routine event: a religious service to mark the start of Lent. But the Mass represented a legal win for the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, based in Chicago.
According to the Gospel of John, Roman soldiers broke the legs of the two men executed alongside Jesus to hasten their deaths. But when they came to Jesus, they did not break his legs because they saw he was already dead. This detail has long intrigued historians and doctors because crucifixion victims often survived for many hours, and sometimes days.
So I worked at General Electric's Finance and Accounting division in New York City for three years. And then I moved to GE Capital, which was their financial services arm, which was really booming at the time in the mid-'80s. So I moved there in 1985. I took a job in human resources and I thought that would be a little more congenial, but gradually I started to realize I'm in the wrong place.
Mathematician Peter W Stoner tackled this question in his 1960 book Science Speaks, calculating the odds of a single first-century individual fulfilling just 48 of these prophecies by chance. The result was staggering: one in 10 followed by 157 zeros, a number so vast it far exceeds the total number of electrons in the observable universe. To make the math easier to grasp, Stoner began with eight key prophecies, including being born in Bethlehem, descending from David, and performing miracles.
I grew up fervently anti-religion, like Don up there. "The opiate of the masses," and all that other shit. To me, every public Christian was either a shitbag televangelist or, even worse, a politician. My favorite comedian was Sam Kinison, a former preacher who turned on his church. I didn't simply disagree with religious people, I looked down on them, like a Ricky Gervais-type would. I thought this made me more rock-and-roll or whatever.
