Evangelical pastor Gordon-John Manché’s ‘end times’ – 2017

For a religious campaigner who is seeking a referendum to stop gay unions and adoptions, evangelical pastor Gordon-John Manché is less confident about the future of the world.

The charismatic pastor, who hosts his own TV programme on the low-end Smash TV, has presented a petition signed by over 10,000 calling on MPs not to introduce gay unions and gay adoptions. He claims he can get 10% of the electorate’s signature for a referendum to abrogate a future law on civil unions.

His action comes late in the day: Manché, days before the 2013 election, told his flock that politicians proposing civil unions were being “arrogant” [WATCH], and even said that civil unions would not pass in a popular referendum.

News of his petition has been trending strongly on news websites, and raising readers’ interest into his River Of Love fellowship, one of several pentescostal and evangelical churchs in Malta, and the former ballet dancer’s formation as a pastor in the United States.

What many may not know is that Manché sounds reasonably confident of when the apocalypse – the end of the world – is to take place. Some time between 2011 and 2020, at the so-called ‘jubilee of jubilees’. Watch the video of one of his bible classes. “Smokin’,” says Manché at 10:19 of this clip, feeling quite chipper at this news.

“I don’t think we’re that much in the dark,” Manché says about the end of the world. “We’re in that season. Many of you, if not all of you, will see the Lord with your own eyes,” he tells his congregation.

It’s a complicated meandering through some biblical math. Manché cites biblical texts to point out that “God awakes his people after two days”, which signifies 2,000 years from the birth of Jesus Christ (and that's where the world is at now...) before his wrath is visited upon the 3rd day. Before the birth of Christ, there’s a 4,000-year gap from the fall of Adam. These 6,000 years in total are supposed to represent 120 ‘jubilees’ – 50-year cycles - proclaimed in the Bible as the 'natural lifespan' (120 years) for a human being.

You have to watch the video to make sense of it, but somehow Manché gleefully proclaims that the rapture is bound to come some time in 2017.