"But is it weapons' grade?" wondered Brother Grove of the Presbyterians.

"The Lord has led us to it like He led the sons of Israel to water in the wilderness!"  thundered Pastor Providence.  "He will not disappoint us!  I reiterate-the Baptist Family moves that we institute our long-term master-plan to subdue our attackers and return to Earth as the keepers of the One True Faith."

The Arch-Patriarch seconded the motion.  Although the vote was close, Pastor Providence's will carried the day.  With only minor bloodshed.

That night the heavy artillery seemed even closer.  Pastor Providence felt secure.  ˜Not only had the Lord blessed their plan with a majority vote, he knew that some families within Christendom also possessed substantial weaponry.  A brief worry that having the Quakers protecting the border soon evaporated in the dry heat.  Christendom, unlike their anxious heathen exiles, knew how to wait until the unsuspecting moment before pulling out their hardware.  No other faith knew they had artillery.  Although the Lord was on their side Paul did wish for aircraft reconnaissance just to confirm the Lord's good work.  Aircraft, unfortunately, had also landed on the contraband list.

Despite growing objections and strident voices from the "mainstream" and liberal wings of Christendom, the traditionalists had done their job well.  Surprisingly it was a simple application of mathematics: in a democracy every vote counts.  While the mainstreamers and lefties were busy whining over their old home Earth and were engaging in purposefully unfruitful fornication, the traditionalists had let nature take its Malthusian course.  Where birth control was banned populations blossomed like the fecund flowers of a cherry tree.  Each generation produced more, a virtual quiver full of arrows, while liberals rattled around quiet homes.  Even if just half the sacred offspring survived to vote, logistics were in their corner.  So it was that Pastor Providence's voice demanded attention.

The balding leader frequently mopped his head and always kept his rifle near.  Especially at church.  His faithful formed a willing shield around his sacred person.  They would swallow lead for him.  They would burst into flames, if need be.  The Holy Spirit, after all, was fire. 

Soon joining the Arch-Patriarch came the unexpected white-garbed figure of Pope Hilarius II.  Pastor Providence deeply distrusted the man and abhorred the form his expression of the faith took.  But, he continually reminded himself, he was on the right side of nearly every issue.  Pro-life and pro-capital punishment.  Anti-fornication and anti-perversity.  If he didn't insist on wearing a dress and praying to idols they might have been friends.  Great progress had been attained by the Holy See, for the Vatican was populous and wealthy and had learned that you can take it with you.  With millions scrambling for salvation, and all living in the same clan, laborers and materials weren't difficult to procure.

"So, can we get to a first-name basis?" Pastor Providence nervously asked, feeling the inherent size implications of "Your All-Holy Eminence" and "Your Excellency" versus his humble "Pastor."  To start off the bonhomie, he announced, "I'm Paul," his hand extended in anticipation.  Expectantly he watched his guests as they exchanged significant glances with each other.  Titles make the man.

"Oh, hell!" the Pope finally gave in.  "I'm Marco."

"Gerasimos," intoned the Arch-Patriarch at last.  They shook.

"Good, good," Paul muttered, rubbing his dry hands with a rasping sound.  "I have checked in with our brother supporters and I have full authority to speak on behalf of the Protestant majority.  With our undeviating attention, progress has been swift.  We had scientists in all branches of government and academic research back on Earth and they've been able to overcome most of the shortfalls we initially experienced."

"The Vatican had its own science program with first-rate researchers," Marco couldn't resist adding.

"The Kremlin employed many underground faithful," Gerasimos anted-up.

Paul was nodding eagerly.  "Within two months we should have a viable atomic weapon," he grinned.  "When the heathen are subdued we will begin focusing our best engineers on an atomic-powered spacecraft.  We will return to the remains of Earth as the One True Faith and they will know the wrath of Christianity!  It will be the Second Coming."

"I have always admired the Church Militant," sighed Marco.  "I've read and dreamed of the days when the Popes were the scourge of Europe.  Emperors trembled before them.  O for those days again!"

Paul's eyes clouded and a great set of deep furrows rippled his naked forehead.  "The details will have to be worked out-" he mumbled.  As long as America went to the Protestants he could live without Europe.  And probably South America.  At least for a while.

Gerasimos sighed.  "The autocephalous churches of Asia never had such an opportunity.  Now that we have an acknowledged ruler, imagine what we might do in Asia without interference from other faiths!"  His profound bass rumbled into an ecclesiastical purr.

This turn of events was unexpected.  In his head Paul had pretty much assumed that he would occupy some privileged position as the one who had conceived the whole plan.  Still, a third of the world under Protestant control-well, Africa would be up for grabs and how many ritualists could there be in Oceania? 

After the meeting he drove to the Valley of Dry Bones and gazed over the wreckage from Earth to ponder the fate of this venture.  He slung his M-16 into position at the approach of another standard auto.  Quietly he slipped behind a rocky pillar and watched.

Pastor Wellsley clamored out of the vehicle along with his own sidearm, a Winchester lever-action.  Paul relaxed.  Methodists and Baptists generally got along without much difficulty.  Methodists tended more toward the liberal end of the spectrum, but they shared many generations of tent meetings and revivals back in the frontier days on Earth.  Paul resumed his meditative stare.  Perhaps the busy preacher wouldn't even notice him.  The skies seemed preternaturally silent here.  He just didn't feel the presence of the Lord up there like he had on Earth.  Perhaps because of the opposite pattern of revolution or perhaps because the Lord was more intimately familiar with His home planet, His own and only Son having died there.  In either case, he had to lead the expedition back to Earth, back to where he felt the Lord's presence.

"Pastor Providence!" Pastor Wellsley called out in that friendly dog sort of manor of his.  He bounded over, his rifle looking all out of place.  "Whatcha doin'?" he asked, a little breathless.

"Waiting for revelation, Charles," he replied in an offhanded way.  Although his face clearly read "leave me alone," his colleague was body-language illiterate.  An enthusiastic but clueless Saint Bernard.

"How's the plan comin' along?" he asked, right out in the open.

Paul shot him an icy stare and shifted his semi-automatic slightly towards the Methodist.  "Keep it down, Charles!" he whispered fiercely.  "The very will of the Lord rides on this strategy.  We can't see if vehicles from other tribes are here-there could be heathens in the valley!"

The Methodist nodded understandingly, but continued the conversation, struggling to control his decibels.  "Patriarch Instanbulus is more active than I supposed.  I never pegged the orthodox as fighters."

"Well, they had to be convinced.  Christians are normally peace-loving, but there is a time for every purpose under heaven."  Paul instinctively looked upward.  "A time to gather stones, a time to scatter them, a time for peace, and a time for war."

"But to invade Earth itself?  Don't you think it would be more convincing if they came here and found us all living peacefully hand-in-hand?"  Charles persisted in his naive optimism.

Paul turned on him rabidly.  "You have to believe that one religion is true!  It is your own religion-defend it!  The Lord is not mocked!  The truth allows no dissenters.  Otherwise we all become Episcopalians able to make dainty distinctions between dessert spoons and cold-cut forks, but unable to tell who's a heathen and who's not."

"But don't all people believe their religion is correct?  That's why they believe it.  I've never met or heard of anyone believing what they know to be a false religion.  Who'd say, 'I know my religion's wrong, but I'm believing it anyway'?  If we all got along, what a powerful message it would be."

"Don't you believe in the truth of your own faith?" Paul violently hissed.  "The Lord Himself revealed Christianity as the One True Faith.  None of the others are going to Heaven."

"You make me as afraid of Heaven as I am of Hell!" Charles exclaimed.  "Maybe all religions are trying to reach the same goal, but each in their own way.  Maybe we all need to try to understand this!"

"Keep your voice down!"  Paul sounded like steam escaping a loose-fitting valve.

"Maybe there isn't one true faith-"

A semi-automatic report echoed through the silent valley.  Paul found the Methodist heavier than he looked.  Dragging his headless corpse away from his favorite praying spot, he dumped him unceremoniously among the jutting blades of the ancient volcanic caldera that constituted the ridge.  Not all the scavengers on this planet had been classified, but they were voracious enough to consume at least one heathen in Christian clothing.

As the weeks passed progress raced ahead with the effort devoted to the Orthodox Christian Nuclear Program.  Meetings between the triumvirate-Arch-Patriarch, Pope, and Grand-Pastor, as they were now styled-grew longer and more intense.  Grueling hours in close quarters revealed an unexpected stubbornness on the part of the Arch-Patriarch.  Surely he should have realized that Orthodoxy ran a distant second behind Protestant and Catholic together.

"Orthodoxy from every orifice!" Pope Hilarius sighed following one particularly frustrating meeting after Gerasimos had left.  "If only Jesus had said 'Take thou a bath and brush thine teeth!'"

"You weren't here when it was just the two of us in Lent.  I am certain he gave up oral hygiene for the entire season," Paul complained.

The clean-shaven Marco nodded in agreement.  "I wish they could be more Episcopalian in their habits-but not their theology."

"Uh-uh!" warned Paul.  "Theology is a forbidden topic."  It was a wondrous world where a Protestant could reprimand the Pope.

That night the artillery was disturbingly close.

"I didn't think the heathen could get so far," he mumbled to Betty Sue.  He clutched his M-16 like a stiff teddy bear.  The rumbling of great tire treads on the gravel streets outside urged him to the window.  And there it was-on the back of a standard flatbed.  The atomic bomb manufactured by the Orthodox Christian Nuclear Brotherhood! As the artillery grew closer, the Grand-Pastor smiled at his ace in the holy hole.  Well, he assumed "ace" meant a crack pilot, not a satanic gaming piece.  No one else on this planet had uranium.  The key to world domination was parked right outside his door.

Something wasn't right.  Grabbing his field glasses he scanned the horizon.  No! The artillery was that of the Episcopalians-they were shelling other Christians? As a projectile exploded the house next door, he realized they were gunning for him. He fumbled for his cell phone in the dark.  Speed dial.  "Arch-Patriarch! This is Paul! Emergency! The liberals are shelling us!"

"They are too late," Gerasimos' bass rumbled in the night.  "Good-bye Grand-Pastor."

Just a second of shock froze on his face as the atomic device detonated with a concussion felt throughout Christendom. 

Far out of sight overhead, the surveillance satellite from Earth monitored the explosions in all regional capitals that night.  Land of Nod, as they had known from the beginning, was very rich in uranium.  Very rich indeed.