Even Prophets Die

I was saddened to read this morning that one of my all time favorite, super crazy, new age spiritualists, Elizabeth Prophet, had crossed the eternal threshold. She was 70 and had Alzheimer's disease.

Back in the 1970s, a decade that seemed to spawn more than its share of off-the-wall religions, hers was one of my favorites. Actually she picked up the ball her husband, Mark Prophet, dropped when he died in 1973. In 1975, she founded the Church Universal and Triumphant, a formal religion with ceremonies and sacraments, extending the work of the Summit Lighthouse which was Mark's baby.

Then in the 1980s she issued warnings of an imminent Soviet nuclear attack against the U.S. and she and her congregation gathered in Montana with their supply of K-rations. When Armageddon didn't occur, the Church's followers left, thus sounding the death knell of the religion.

Can we blame her though? With a name like Prophet she was designed to run a religion.