The scent of blood was thick in the air when withering mouthpiece for the Christian God Billy Graham met his legion followers in New York’s Flushing Meadows-Corona Park to bid them good-bye as he departed for the Middle East on this, his Final Crusade. Graham, long suffering from the many afflictions from God’s magic bag, vowed not to return alive until he had successfully converted the doomed to the one true faith.
“They will be saved, or their blood will stain their heathen streets,” said Graham, his voice failing and his body frail as the 70,000 true believers in attendance rained their approval down on him.
It marks Graham’s final attempt to convert the world’s worshippers of false idols, as the 86-year-old scion of the Lord, who started as a simple Protestant preacher before evolving into the leader of the final crusade of Christianity, continues to grow weaker from the countless ailments plaguing him, including water on the brain, prostate cancer, Parkinson’s disease, several fractured bones, and three arrows in the back sustained by a Cherokee attack in 1934.
“The devil wants to stop me, I don’t doubt that,” chortled Graham, clad in his shining suit of armor, and supported by six fellow Christians to keep from being ground into dust. “Let the devil come, I say! The Muslims, the Buddhists, and those—what do you call them… the Indian religious guys… not the Hari Krishnas… anyways, they’ll all call their false idols and the devil in to torture me, but I will not be stopped before each and everyone of them knows the true salvation of God. Or death. Either one works for me.”
Much excitement surrounded the event, the first church-sanctioned Christian crusade in almost a thousand years—noting that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are not officially church-sanctioned. Graham announced his plans for a Final Crusade months ago, and leaders of the Protestant church gave their approval as Graham built an army of supporters numbering in the low hundreds of thousands. Some in the know suggest the sanction for the Crusade is more of a tribute to Graham’s long service than any conviction he might be successful.
“The man is not even able to walk in his armor anymore, let alone smite the enemies of the Lord,” said an inside source we love to call “Reverend Blue Jeans.” “Add to that Graham hasn’t built a sufficient army for an attack of this scale, and the fact that they’re intent on utilizing medieval weaponry when even Middle Eastern radicals have access to missiles and firearms… you’re looking at a bloodbath. But Graham is convinced the Lord will give him strength for a final victory. You got to give it to the man, he knows how to go out in a blaze of glory.”
The ailing Christian soldier marched onward, if you count marching as being hoisted by a dozen men, and proceeded to board the large command ship bought by his ministry for the expedition, one of sixty paid for by the Graham Ministries and representing the first wave of the onslaught of the true faith.
“Victory!” screamed Graham in a raspy, failing voice from the bow of the ship, named “The Savior.”
The fragile Protestant then fell overboard, sinking instantly to the bottom of the bay, but was rescued by his followers before any more serious damaged was inflicted.