8-Second Pre-meal Prayer Saves Student From Eternal Damnation

Story by Ben Plowman 

| Published Oct 14, 2008

Jimmy Ellis, a sophomore accounting major from Sioux Falls, S.D.,  thought yesterday’s lunch would be just like any other. As he was hunched over a plate of General Tso’s chicken, however, he remembered something that had been mentioned at the Newman Center earlier that week: prayer.
    
Over the course of an eight-second prayer, Ellis successfully averted an afterlife in which he would be exposed to such terrible heat that all his skin would burn off, and he would plead in vain for death only to be met with the sulfurous cackles of Lucifer himself.
    
“At Bible study, one of our missionaries, Jules, gave this great talk about how we should incorporate prayer more completely into our everyday lives,” Ellis told reporters yesterday after his landmark prayer. “She talked about how it really laid the groundwork for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
    
“She also mentioned that not praying was a mortal sin and that without it, our souls would fall into the pits of hell, and that we would suffer incomprehensible anguish until the end of days,” he added.
    
John Turner, University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor of religion, said that prayer has long been a mainstay of the Abrahamic religions, as well as other various monotheistic and polytheistic belief systems. While the wording and requirement for each one differs considerably, Turner said, “Not praying in each religion almost universally leads to torture and pain that lasts, if not thousands of years, then indeed the rest of all time.”
    
Several student groups on campus think that leading students to revelations such as Ellis’ is part of the real value they bring to the UNL campus.

Chad Orville, director of UNL’s chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ believes there is a lot to be, learned in just how close Ellis was to damnation.
    
“Every day in your life, there are times where if you don’t say the correct sequence of words, the very ground may crumble from beneath your feet causing you to fall to the depths of hell where you will join the likes of Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky and be constantly devoured alive by hordes of hungry jackals for all eternity,” Orville said.
    
Maggie Cash, junior political science major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said she had no idea life was so dangerous.

“Up until today, I had no idea that sequences of magic words controlled whether I went to a secret torture palace buried deep within the earth,” she said.
 
“If only there were vocal groups on campus to let me know the benefits of arbitrary strings of words to show my devotion to God, I think everyone would be a little better off,” she added.