Imagine, for a moment, that you are sitting drinking a beer, discussing fornication and all manner of un-Christian things, when, suddenly, the sky opens up, the righteous are stripped of their clothes (nice) and lifted up to heaven. As soon as you get over the inevitable joy of seeing a bunch of naked folks flying away from the Earth, it’s time to panic, the rapture is upon you and you’re not going anywhere.

Once you’ve calmed down, it’s time to pick up a copy of How to Profit from the Coming Rapture, billed as an investment guide the Antichrist doesn’t want you to read. This humorous dressing-down of fundamentalist Christians (Fundamentalist Dispensationalist “born again” Protestants, if you want to be specific about it), is chock full of silly advice for the end times. From buying property in the Southern U.S. when all the crazies leave, and promptly selling it before everyone moves to Israel for the Third Temple, to identifying the Antichrist early on and capitalizing on his pre-evil popularity.

Steve and Evie Levy, a husband and wife writing team make no bones about the fact they aren’t going to be saved. They’re Jews after all, so they’ll be left behind with the other 5,145,463,700 of us who don’t subscribe to Jerry Falwell’s broadcasts. And yes, they actually have a formula for coming up with that number, based on polls and population figures as of mid-2007.

The couple attack the Christian far-right by consistently mocking the failed logic behind so much of it, all the while couching that criticism as an investment guide. Terms of reference are laid out early. For example, long term, in the midst of the death and war of The Tribulation (which follows the rapture, don’t you know anything?), is defined as anything lasting more than one year. Short term is “anything starting now-ish and lasting until the end of the day, or maybe into the next morning on the West Coast.” Forget about immediately, say the Levys, “as soon as you say immediately is twenty minutes too late, so never mind.”

There are useful charts for when things go beyond a recession, and move into famine, plagues, wars and the Euphrates river drying up. Sure, people are losing their jobs now, but this helpful guide diagrams what you should do when the Antichrist insists everyone bear the mark of the beast, or face beheading or the suspension of trading privileges as punishment. Did I mention God will toss you into the Lake of Fire in a few years if you accept the mark? Tough choices, but these two can sort you out.

Although the book does drag on, hammering home the same points, only differentiated by a new hell unleashed on us non-believers, it is entertaining. And who knows? With all the doom and gloom passing around, maybe we really are in the end times and the rapture is on its way. It will be a lovely place to live for a while — imagine a world with no Pat Robertson, or George W. Bush — but then the horsemen come and everything will go to shit. This book just might help you get some extra lima beans during the famine.