That's how Christians tell the story, anyhow. And now, there's a new chapter: The day before Christ's unexpected comeback, some jackass in Crookston, Minnesota vandalized an atheist's truck.

Jeff Carter awoke on Saturday to find that his truck had religious messages painted on the doors and the back end -- 'If you don't like God, go!', 'God is great', and 'Jesus is life,' respectively -- and that his atheist bumper magnets had been ripped off. The car had also been egged, and spots were covered in a white powder.

"'Loving' Christians?" Carter asked, rhetorically, when he posted photos of the damage to Facebook that morning.

The messages washed off easily, but the car's paint suffered damage from the raw eggs. Carter told the Bemidji Pioneer his tires were once slashed, not long after he moved to Crookston about six years ago, and his atheist bumper messages have also drawn verbal abuse.

"I'll get a middle finger every once in a while, or my girlfriend will get yelled at," Carter says.

He plans get more of the bumper magnets, and says his goal is simply to "make it socially acceptable for someone to be open about their disbelief and religion."

Carter's post caught fire on Facebook, and has been shared 14,000-some times in 48 hours. In another post, this one on Easter morning, Carter says what happened to him might've revealed some real Christ-like Christians.

"This was just a handful of idiots that did this and it was only a minor inconvenience," he writes. "I have received hundreds of messages from absolute strangers offering to pay for damage to my truck and apologizing for what happened. Nobody owes me an apology for this except the people that did it."

Now that you mention it, Jeff, asking forgiveness was a pretty big part of that Jesus guy's philosophy.

No such effort has come forward from the actual perpetrators in this case, which is being investigated by Crookston police. Carter wrote his replacement bumper magnets have been ordered, and should be affixed to the back of the truck by the end of the week.