Photo of the day: March 26, 2009

Amid shouts of “Repent! Repent!” well-known Atlanta street character Prophet Love seemingly rose from the dead this afternoon at Last Chance Church on Love Street. Staging what he called a “casket demonstration,” Prophet Love acted out his own funeral in hopes of saving people from the depths of hell.

“If we continue with our wrongdoing, heaven will not be our home,” he preached while sitting up in a coffin in which he’d been lying for over an hour. He says the idea came to him to do the half-funeral, half-performance-art act after his wife and son refused his request to be cremated upon his death. “So I said, ‘I will just do my funeral myself,’” Love explained.

“It’s strange,” said Missionary Forte, one of five other people sitting in the church during the mock open-casket viewing. “I’ts unique,” added Barbara Phillips, who says Prophet Love saved her years ago. “It demonstrates that we are all going to go through this, and we better get our lives right.”

Prophet Love described lying in the coffin as, “Not feeling much different then laying in bed.” He added: “Death is inevitable. Be ready to meet God. Repent for your wrongdoing. You know when you are doing right and wrong. There is no water in hell — hell is real. The majority of people will end up in hell.”

View more photos of Prophet Love’s Casket Demonstration.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)