Pulling to give John 3:16. the incredible story of the sports fanatic apostle

Yes. Twitter is a jungle, full of entities that believe they are predators but are nothing more than cannon fodder for those who do not lose reference to the real world, of people who do not distinguish a plate from a sardine and of bots managed at the blow of a whistle to who vomit insults But there are also other people. Those who add and contribute, and can turn Twitter and, by extension, social networks into a great collective brain. And in reality, as in everything, there are more of them: those who come to add and subtract, to selflessly offer their knowledge and talent, even though 'the others' make more noise.

The other day a tasteful tweeter (David Mosquera, @renaldinhos) posted a few shares of Diego Maradona in the World Cup in Mexico. Your servant, leaving aside the aesthetics of Diego's plays, noticed a detail in the stands: A banner that read 'John, 3:16'. Neither the banner, nor the letters, nor its location will surely attract the attention of anyone under 30 years of age. But for those who are around or over 40, that 'John 3:16' is a kind of key. Because during the 70's and 80's 'John 3:16' was a constant presence in the sport, in North America, South America and Europe. The NBA, the 'football', the 'soccer', the NASCAR...

Whenever there was a big event, the best camera shot was 'John 3:16'. So I asked a question "What happened to those of John 3:16?". An insignificant question. First, because 'John 3:16' is a minor detail of major themes. Second, because in those years you looked at Jordan, Abdul-Jabbar and Maradona. And yes, you saw 'John 3:16' and it caught your attention to see it so often and nothing else. But it was easy to deduce that if he was in so many places so many times, it was for a reason. In effect, 'John 3:16' was 'someone' as well as something. And he had a plan.

'John 3:16' is what it sounds like: a Bible verse: verse 16 of chapter 13 of the Gospel of Saint John. In the Reina-Valera biblical edition -the classic Protestant version in Spanish-, it says: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish." , but have eternal life", which has been called a 'Gospel abridged'. Clearly the people behind the John 3:16 banners were engaged in religious proselytizing at sports arenas. Who and how?

Two other high-level tweeters, sz9 @seizenine and SoccerFutbolForum @SocrFutbolForum provided the name of the mastermind behind all the actions: Rollen Stewart. Either a very religious person, or he had found a way to "sneak" into the best events in the manner of that "ice man" who is said to have entered all the great shows in Spain for free for a long time with a ice bar on the shoulder, presumably destined for the refrigerators of the bars. Electricity, progress, ended up surpassing him but the tribute to his ingenuity remains.

Sneak in, Mr. Stewart, no, because he had managed to get his followers to finance his trips and tickets. Stewart was not a 'bishop', one of those who swarmed through the United States, at the head of a church founded by himself, in the manner of medieval sects. Stewart was simply a preacher, a 'born-again Christian' who had created a community around him that financed his message and, therefore, the parties.

And what parties. The John 3:16 was first seen under the baskets of the 1977 NBA Finals (Blazers 4-2 Sixers), at the 1979 MLB All Star, in Augusta, at the Indianapolis 500, in all the places we mentioned before, as well as at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. He came to go to the USSR: he stood at the Moscow 80 Olympic Games, in the middle of the American boycott. The Soviet police prevented him from displaying his banner in the Lenin Stadium, but without major consequences for that strange 'capitalist enemy', who once again visited major events banner in hand. Nor is it that in his own environment he had great sympathy: In general, the filmmakers and television cameras had instructions not to show him. But sometimes it was impossible to avoid it.

However, Rollen was not a cheek. He really thought that he was doing apostolate: he didn't get rich, he lived in his car. But perhaps he thought that his message was not getting through because, at the end of the 80s, he changed his modus operandi and dedicated himself to attacking places or events that he did not like with stink bombs: other Churches and religious centers or events such as the America Music Award. : his message was no longer a peaceful proclamation: "God thinks this stinks," he proclaimed with his bombs, perhaps after having received a revelation. And his way of acting, in parallel, was becoming more violent. He was kicked out of the 1991 Augusta Masters for honking a horn when Jack Nicklaus was preparing a putt. Before, his fourth wife filed for divorce and accused him of assault: he would have tried to strangle her for not putting her banner in the right place at an event. It was not accredited.

The religious environment in the United States is very curious. Colonized in the 17th and 18th centuries by Europeans fleeing, in many cases, from religious wars, they had brought their beliefs and their bellicose spirit there, demanding tolerance so that they could proclaim biblical intolerance. As we have pointed out before, these religions became fragmented in many cases, joining their biblical fundamentalism with the rejection of all kinds of alien power, perhaps as a memory of those wars in which States reserved the right to kill those who did not follow the 'correct' religion. And, as a 'safeguard' of their 'freedom', the staunch defense of the right to arm themselves and, in parallel, to establish armed militias. Recent events in the United States, with the presidency of Donald Trump and the nature of the support it has received, give an idea of ​​the extent of this movement.

Stewart belonged to that 'environment'. Part of those believers believe that, before the Second Coming of Christ to earth, the 'Rapture' will take place: the true believers, living and dead, will be taken from earth to Heaven to return together with Christ. And it's not a tangential belief: Especially in the 1840s, some of those churches set dates for the end of the world. As it did not occur, they went from one to another. That nothing happened in the end was known as the Great Disappointment, but it did not create major problems of faith for them either: they would be right, they told themselves (*). And in September 1991 Rollen was sure that the Rapture, and therefore the end of the world, was near. He had to make an effort to proclaim his message to save Humanity.

His plan has not become fully known. Only that he hired two workers for some kind of mission. He took them to a hotel next to the Los Angeles airport and there, armed with a pistol and stink bombs, he tried to lock them in a bathroom along with a surprised floor waitress. The workers managed to flee and the waitress, to lock herself in the bathroom. It was possible to notify the reception, this to the police and the SWAT teams arrived. Rollen engaged them with stink bombs. In the negotiation, he asked for a broadcast team to spread his message, but he also threatened to fire on the planes that took off and landed at the nearby airport. And SWAT didn't know if he had any more weapons. Finally, after eight hours of siege, Rollen, who had boarded up all the windows with John 3:16 posters, was arrested and the waitress was rescued unharmed.

Rollen went to trial: an attempt was made to plead guilty, in exchange for 'only' 12 years in prison. But he refused. So he was tried for three felonies. Among them, kidnapping, and he was found guilty as well. The truth is that he was not judged at a favorable moment. At that time, another fundamentalist sect armed to the teeth, the Davidianos, had held a battle against the forces of order in the Texas town of Waco that ended with 80 deaths: four agents and 76 sectarians. A year later a far-right terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, blew up a federal building in Oklahoma in revenge, killing 168 people. Another radical, the Unabomber, sent bombs through the mail with no way to catch him.

Rollen Stewart did not go to those extremes, although it cannot be assessed whether he would have followed the increasingly radical drift in his actions had he not been arrested. Today, sometimes a John 3:16 is seen in some stands but it is no longer Rollen who wears it: At 77, he is in prison, serving three consecutive life sentences (**). He no longer wears the multicolored wig that also made him famous, especially in this case in the United States, as 'Rainbow Man'.

(*): Today, the QAnon conspiracy theory and other movements favorable to Donald Trump launch one prophecy after another -such as Biden's resignation in March- that have not come to pass. So they launch others.

(**) Usually acknowledges that he should have pleaded guilty at trial

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60 Comments

Aln_Kennedy

#41 22.Jul.2021 | 16:46

What you say about the "interest" in talking about the audios to try to cover up (hiding so much crap is impossible even for the best financial makeup artist, in that office Laporta found the viscous shapeless mass of the tasty z series by-product "Splitter" (La Plaga), frankly I don't know where you see it because the information blackout is evident. Nobody, not even the Barcelona press, talks about it anymore and about Barcelona and its balances so as not to formally decree suspension of payments prior to the undoubted bankruptcy (If Barca weren't so universal and so beloved, they would have already gone bankrupt, undoubtedly), that and the fringes of Messi's contract, that at all hours. That pio is also from Goobbless. Counterattacking an irrefutable argument (the obvious scandal of the audios) with another more exaggerated and shameless argument putting q to give birth to the rival. Everything is invented, everything.

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Aln_Kennedy

#42 22.Jul.2021 | 19:58

A very important guy from the Tokyo '20 organization resigns due to a verbal excess in 1998. Same as here...

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yivyghen

#43 22.Jul.2021 | 20:30

#41 Tranki .... Can Barça can still go bankrupt .... and thanks to Messi that will be able to happen. And in a short time the RMA is going, with a local investment for a Bernabeu incompatible with these pandemic times

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reilly99

#44 22.Jul.2021 | 20:39

#41 @Aln_Kennedy You only belong to one of the sectarian factions and you will never criticize anything that Barcelona does wrong. Nor do you allude to the great trap that is the adulterated Spanish league. And what is worse, in your hatred of everything that Real Madrid is, you support the dissemination of private conversations where Florentino does not commit any crime and in which all he does is give his opinion as we all do without thinking that nobody is recording us. That is what your sectarianism has led you to, so that you do not have your own thinking and support any illegal and mafia act in order to annoy Real Madrid.

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Aln_Kennedy

#45 23.Jul.2021 | 01:55

Yivyghen, de facto bankrupt, is therefore a liability of 1,200 million euros is to be in ruins but exactly, Madrid is just a little better, a rich old man who can also see the seams (in particular the class and style, in the basement today after the gruesome audios), but which maintains another status that is not so tragic and pressing in the public opinion as that of Barca. Needless to say, it is the same press that regularly rummages around with frenzy (Masterpiece Frenzy (1972), the best plot of Hitchok's stalker pig, PRICELESS last scene..."Mr Ross, you're not wearing a tie"...de drooling and a standing ovation of 10 minutes, there is no doubt), I say that the same ones who unceremoniously skin Barcelona 24/7 remain silent in a miserable, impudent way if the scandal is in Madrid, which I remember has won zero titles last season.

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reilly99

#46 23.Jul.2021 | 02:29

@Aln_Kennedy #45 The scandal is that there are jerks like you who advocate for hidden recordings of people to spread their lives and private opinions

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yivyghen

#47 23.Jul.2021 | 21:52

Well... I won't dwell on the NBA finals, only that I liked them this year, in fact, the fact that the 'traditional' ones didn't arrive has made it eye-catching, last year's were to forget . I am very happy for Jrue, that his low shooting effectiveness does not obscure that he has been the factor that has allowed Bucks to go from 'favorite-but-not' to 'hits'. The fifth game was won by him. Booker had to be stopped and he did. That does not detract from Anteto, in fact Durant has not been in a very good place.

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yivyghen

#48 23.Jul.2021 | 22:05

Other than that... I didn't want them to lose either, I like both teams. Especially after learning the story behind Monty Williams, the tragedy of his wife's death..... The scene on the bus when he couldn't complete the interview at the end of the finals are obviously connected. Well, to Phoenix I hope you can enjoy in the heights again. For that I hope that their figures want and maintain the project (no longer Alfonso Ribeiro, I hope). Anteto took a risk (let's see, with that salary it's easier) and he did it, Lillard for example on the contrary, it was the same but he is already losing faith

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Aln_Kennedy

#49 24.Jul.2021 | 14:45

Shameful, the appalling ridicule and the TOTAL and DEFINITIVE discredit of people like Pedrerol, who had a lot of weight in shaping public sports opinion in this country but who has remained as a puppet, an outcast , a slave, a finished. Ignore the fetid audio theme and now shake the Santón de Camas (a super player infinitely more important in the History of Madrid than the autocrat) to continue pleasing his master and I insist defining and definitive for 3l character. it's finished

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Aln_Kennedy

#50 24.Jul.2021 | 23:43

Well, the woman from Madrid (Alcalá d Henares, 17) who has won silver in taekowdo (I haven't seen it but they say only a fatality with 6 seconds to go against a Thai champion of everything has deprived her of the Olympic title. He is young, Fe will have several vendettas.Since Barcelona'92 (22) and except in Sydney '00 11), Spain oscillates between 17 - 20 medals, 17 were in Rio '16, 20 in Athens'04. Before Barcelona '92, NOTHING, welcome then that gigantic effort of the ADO, Governments of Felipe (today) the OUTLAW.

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Aln_Kennedy

#51 25.Jul.2021 | 11:53

The thing about Santiago Apóstol, Patron of Spain, is another joke (in this case not macabre but kind) of Fate. Santiago the Greater son of Zebedee never set foot on the Iberian Peninsula, killed by the sword, beheaded in Jerusalem, 44 AD. It was Teodomiro, Bishop of Iría Flavia, who in the 9th century saw the opportunity to encourage the Reconquest and hunted it down in collusion with a hallucinated hermit named Pelayo (not to be confused with the first Asturian king) who claimed to see lights at night on a promontory from which a decapitated corpse was extracted. That's where Teodomiro's lights come into play. Everything else, Legend, like the sinking of the Maine or the crude hoax of Adolf Hitler with the previous false Polish attack to justify the unjustifiability of the large-scale invasion of September 1, 1939, execrable action perpetrated, of course, by his faithful hitmen from the Schuzftaffell

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yivyghen

#52 26.Jul.2021 | 22:47

#51 What if Prisciliano is buried there because we are going to remove the past? Leave the quintessence of heretics alone, lest they vacate him?

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Aln_Kennedy

#53 30.Jul.2021 | 12:27

yivyghen, I didn't know the true identity of the decapitated corpse that was found on the promontory of the hallucinated Pelayo, thank you and yes, a hermit heretic with airs of a new creed who was mowed down...grass...by the roots. ..(The cyborg falls in the Olympic Games semis, swept by Zverev, he, who loves the pressure and the undoubted mental defect associated with elite athletes of individual specialties..., 34 take their toll even on Djokovic, he is also playing mixed, the flame of Serbian nationalism must be kept alive even at the risk of leaving too many hairs on the cat flap, Olympic gold may fly for the last time and only the bronze of Beijing'08 will remain, the Gold Games of the Great Rafa Nadal. Unforeseen knockout of the cyborg maintains the debate about the best of the Big3, if he had also won the Olympic title, the pro-Nadal predicament would have suffered.He has ergo in the USA Open in September a new chapter in the race for the GOAT

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Aln_Kennedy

#54 01.Aug.2021 | 13:12

Novak Djokovic aka Paul Simonon, the bassist of The Clash who gave birth to the most famous/recognizable snapshot in the History of Rock destroying his bass at the Paladium in NY on September 21, 1979, good news that beginning, all up, by The Wall, continuing with the epilogue of the Zeppelin "In throught the out door" and concluding with the delicious little gem of the Supertramp "Breakfast in USA"...

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yivyghen

#55 01.Aug.2021 | 23:41

Well, today Athletics has made my games happy, especially with the disappointment of the terrible 4Q of ESP against SLO that sends us to the hole. First the kid from A Mariña getting into the 800 final, I couldn't believe when I saw him closing the group that he could do it. From home I pulled Peleteiro up so that he would jump more, and when Yulimar destroyed the WR and I saw them both hug each other with joy... it was a day to remember, and remember well. I still had to see a Qatari and an Italian share a gold in what seemed to me pure Olympic spirit.

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yivyghen

#56 01.Aug.2021 | 23:46

Basketball I think I'd rather not talk about... but I'll just let a successful setup during 3Q rot by an unworthy final 6 minutes of 4Q. And from my modest ignorance I point to Scary (the creator of the good first 3Q). I remember the final with the USA that Scary had and since although we lost by a little I never thought I saw the ability to win. Praetorians with minutes and so you can't beat the USA. Our only chance with the USA is a dog game, without rhythm, and since they are going to take out the Gasoles a lot (irrelevant in defense today, neither rebounding nor intimidation)... we are dead: (By the way, AUS I think they do load to USA.

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yivyghen

#57 06.Aug.2021 | 10:10

Quick... get more audios... whatever they are... As if they were Florentino criticizing Patiño, I don't care... but get something !!!

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Aln_Kennedy

#58 06.Aug.2021 | 12:58

There is no audio that hides the catastrophe in Can Barca

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yivyghen

#59 07.Aug.2021 | 19:56

Leaving Messi is the best possible news for Barça, let Piqué go too and you can start building the future now (otherwise this will be delayed between 1 and 3 years) The one I see portrayed is Laporta, his tone of voice seems to me even different from what I remembered, it's as if they had put a comedian in his body, you can't take him seriously. Saying what he says and doing what he does. I saw his return as something negative because I thought he was capable of refloating the club but... so far it's like one more stage of the collapse.

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Aln_Kennedy

#60 07.Aug.2021 | 22:57

yivyghen, Der Untergang, hahaha, yes, the Sinking, what a movie with the late Swiss actor Bruno Ganz embroidering the role of a twilight Hitler, already completely crazy, for the annals the scene of the fight, widely parodied with thousands of motifs at the time (Jonathan Harker of Drakul's adaptation of the German Herzog in 1979, Kinski's emulating Willhem Murnau's Nosferatu of 1922 and the ethereal beauty Isabel Adjani as Mina) and yes, Laporta surpassed. He has fooled everyone starting with himself. Of course, the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse are still there. Maybe it's what we deserve. Barcelona looks like a theater company, not a football club. If this happens to an Italian club, the Tifossi burn the headquarters...

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