By William Mcpherson
Illustration by Kevin Atherton

Eugene H. Peterson has reached millions of young adults throughout the world with his unique Bible paraphrase, The Message. Since its inception in the early '90s, Peterson's Message has drawn strong praise and criticism from both sides of the religious aisle for its informal tone and dynamic approach.

Peterson himself, due to the many violent threats he's received from various Formal Equivalence and KJV-only para-church groups, until recently has kept himself totally isolated from the outside world within the soundproof walls of his San Francisco dwelling place, penning and re-penning his ever expanding Message Texts.

Word was just released last Tuesday through the religious press that Peterson has at last finished with his forthcoming Magnum Message Remix and plans on releasing it worldwide as soon as his grammatical and ecumenical assistants finish proofreading it to assure ultimate accuracy and heart-piercing power.

However, as reported in an exclusive expose in Christian Century, a determined group of young fundamentalist zealots plotted to sabotage Peterson's new Magnum Remix by any means necessary.

However, just before midnight on July 1, San Francisco police reported that a group of renegade Unified Unilateral Pre-Tribulation Trinitarian Fundamentalists stormed Peterson's loft apartment to put an end to both The Message and The Messenger for good. Sketchy eye witness reports indicate that the break-in began when the six camo-fitted fundies scaled an unguarded side fire escape to gain access to Peterson's fourth story research room window.

When they first surveyed the room, the assailants apparently found Peterson at his desk frantically scribbling, erasing, and highlighting several passages in Galatians, and reading aloud to himself the words of the new Magnified Message.

However, when Peterson began to expound his new Magnum Message, unbeknownst to him, three of the six intruders spontaneously combusted into flames and plummeted out of the window to their immediate demise. Two more still were turned into giant pillars of Sweet and Low� sugar additives and disintegrated on the spot.

In an exclusive interview before his sentencing, Harvey M. Berry, age unknown, the sole surviving young fundie, recalled his final moments during the break-in.

"After he began noticing the racket around him, Peterson pulled out his leather bound Magnum Message and stood over me in the window loft," Berry told The Door News Service. Berry's last memory, before blacking out was Peterson staring him dead in the eye.

"I know what you're thinking, punk," Peterson is alleged to have snarled. "Did he re-interpret six verses or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, I've kind of lost track myself in all this excitement. But seeing as this is the Magnum Message Remix Model .2944x, the most powerful paraphrase on the planet, and it will blow your fundamentalist head clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question. 'Do I feel lucky?…' Well, do ya punk!?!"

Berry, for his part, remains unrepentant for his assault. "Someone had to protect the people from this mad man before he further distorts the real Message," Berry said. "At first it was just a harmless paraphrase, but then came the concordance, the guidebook, endless remixes, and now this … something had to be done."

Peterson dismissed the claims of the Unified Unilateral Pre-Tribulation Trinitarian Fundamentalists.

"Opinions are like bellybuttons," Peterson said in a prepared press release. "Everybody's got em'. People just happen to pay me for mine."