One Man’s Quest for the End of the World Started on a Ranch in Texas

The story of five red heifers sent from Texas to Israel may seem simple, but it is mired in deep-rooted issues. These cows represent evangelical Christian end-times theology, Jewish religious aspirations, and volatile Middle East politics centered on the Temple Mount. Andrew Logan is a worthy guide through the complexities of their journey, shaping an engaging, accessible essay that makes sense of an improbable subject—an impressive feat.

We sat together at a table in his office, and Stinson told me the story of how he became obsessed with the red heifer. He grew up in a loving, working-class family in Glen Rose. Both of his parents were truck drivers, and they often left Byron alone for weeks on end. By the time he was a teenager, Byron, already consumed by his faith, had accepted Jesus as his savior once, been baptized twice, and read the Bible three times. One evening in 1969, when Byron was fourteen, he sat on his bed inside a muggy six-by-nine-foot
storage shed outside the camper trailer where he lived with his mother and adoptive father. As he pored over the book of Romans in his worn copy of
the King James Bible, the words of Paul the Apostle seemed to leap off the page: “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: Who are Israelites.” Paul wrote that he would surrender his own salvation if it meant the Israelites would accept Jesus; Byron felt overwhelmed with an urge to follow Paul’s example. Then Stinson heard voices.