Beam Me Up, Jesus: A Heathen's Guide to the Rapture

by Jim Gerard

The wildly funny response to the Left Behind series, Beam Me Up, Jesus will help the reader navigate their way through born-again America, with tips on how to avoid being Left Behind, how to protect oneself against demonic locusts, and how to find a guide to class-action suits and post-Rapture therapy.

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2007

Reviews

[Andrew]

Deliciously irreverent. Of course, you don't have to work too hard to make the Book of Revelation seem ridiculous, nor the people who revere it!

[Katharine Grubb]

Funny. Pretty politically charged, which is too bad because the book will end up dated in just a few years time. Granted, he pokes fun at liberals and conservatives fairly equally. There are a lot of pop culture jabs- some which I really didn't get. All in all, I laughed a lot. There were several parts I skipped beacuse the jokes were beat to death though. I don't know much about what others think of "Rapture" and I learned that people are stupider than I thought. Just when I think this world is full of idiots, I go and learn that I have NO IDEA how dumb people really are. I can't wait to PARTY!!

[Robert]

I should have read the description of the author: "Jim Gerrard is (a)...stand-up comic." Thsi book is really hafl-smart, half stupid jokes and all bad. Many times, a paragraph will start out serious and I think I'm going to learn something but then he it turns into a bad joke. F'rinstance, "To Boil down Revelation, it's God going postal on the unrepentant and an awful wicked beast ruling the whole world while flipping God the bird." And all of the jokes are bad. At least all of the jokes in the first two chapters.
Every once in a while you find a book that makes you think, Man, how did the author find a publisher to put up the money to print this book." This is one of those books.

[Christie]

What the believers think is going to happen to us after the Rapture. First he goes through a history of the Rapture; It wasn’t in the original text, John thought it up later in commentary. Then he goes through what might happen and how funny it will be when pilots see naked people just floating up to heaven while the pilot is trying to navigate a plane.

[Leigh]

I was hoping to read something funny and cynical. Instead, the author was seriously angry, barely containing his bitterness with Christianity. Poking fun at religion, I'm cool with. Shameless prejudice--not so cool. Hell, I'm not even Christian.

[Shannon T.L.]

this book started out with some potential then got stupid. he tried to hard to be funny and the whole thing was just dumb. i chuckled at a couple of parts, but for the most part i was just waiting for the book to be over. thoroughly disappointing.

[Jennifer]

This book showed a lot of promise. It was fascinating, but at times I feel like the author got carried away with some kind of hokey creative comedy writing. Plus, despite not being religious, I kind of felt wicked reading it. It is informative and amusing, but I wouldn't rush out and buy it.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty)]

I mostly just scanned this rather than reading it. Mostly not all that funny, but a few laugh out loud moments. I just love it when someone points out the idiocy of certain religious beliefs that people haven't examined carefully.

[Chuckie]

It was amusing in a cheeky way. If you are a devout Christian you won't like it. Read it with a grain of salt of course. After I was halfway through I was over it though, it was just more of the same.

[Lindsay Roylance]

This book can be humorous, but ends up corny the majority of the time and unfortunately, uninformative. The first few pages are the best part of this book.

[Lindsay]

This book can be humorous, but ends up corny the majority of the time and unfortunately, uninformative. The first few pages are the best part of this book.

[Evelyn Hunten]

This was pretty hilarious but I think I missed out on some pop culture/political references. Still totally worth reading, though.

[Reagan]

Not a read from cover to cover type of book, more of a skim through. Very, very funny though, just gets a bit monotonous.

[Charlotte]

A very comical look at the rapture. Fun.

[Andrea]

Funny and irreverent. Totally nailed the blind ignorance inherent in religion.

[Nancy Eudeikis]

Just a silly book but it had me laughing out loud in the first 3 pages. The majority of the book was stupid beyond ridiculous. I borrowed it from Kathy.

[Tori]

Funny and enlightening. All the things the church forgets to mention. However, the humor gets old toward the end.