Would-be papal assassin Mehmet Ali Agca has been released from prison in Turkey. (Note to World: Bad idea.)
He’s got big plans. He wants several million dollars to tell his story. He wants to visit John Paul II’s tomb. He’d like to write a book with Dan Brown. He may help hunt down Osama bin Laden. Oh, and he says he’s Christ.
According to news reports:
As Agca made his way through a media throng to check into a five star hotel after his release, the 52-year-old declared: “I proclaim the end of the world.”
“All the world will be destroyed in this century. Every human being will die in this century.
“I am not God and I am not the son of God. I am the Christ Eternal.” [SOURCE.]
And he says the gospel is full of mistakes and he’s going to write the perfect gospel to correct matters.
As the Church Lady would say, “Well. . . . Isn’t that ‘special.’”
He’s certainly on a different tack than he was last May, when he said that he had converted to Catholicism and wanted to be baptized at the Vatican. From mere follower of Christ to Christ Eternal. Hmmm!
Still, this is one of those situations in which a person makes such extraordinary claims that, per C. S. Lewis, one must either reckon him Lord, a liar, or a lunatic.
So which is it?
Given that we’ve been given prior warning about how Christ’s Second Coming will occur, he’s not the Lord. (But guess what one of the “mistakes” he will correct with his new gospel will be.)
Given the mental examination he was given after his release, as well as his long history of making outlandish statements, it’s easy to simply label him a lunatic and move on.
And he may well simply be a lunatic. That’s certainly how things appear.
But for a moment, consider the remaining alternative: That he might be a liar. I’m not charging him with this. I’m just curious. Not every person who appears mad is mad. Some feign it. Ask King David.
If that’s the case with Acga, why would he be doing it?
Financial gain? Perhaps. Maybe he wants to start his own religion. On its face, that’s what his remarks suggest.
But maybe there’s something else going on here, too. He’s made so many conflicting statements over the years, including whether he acted alone or as part of a conspiracy, that his credibility with anything he says is basically nil.
Perhaps that’s by design. Perhaps it’s a defense technique. If his 1981 assassination attempt was put in motion by forces behind the Iron Curtain (as I assume it was, and as the Third Secret of Fatima would suggest) then he might want to deliberately destroy his own credibility—come off as a madman—so that he would not be perceived of as a potential threat to those same forces and thus not become a target for elimination.
Just a thought.
Discussion, anybody?