Jesus Saves

  LITTLE ROCK — Drivers on state road 495 have seen the message for weeks: "Jesus saves ... at First Federal Bank of Arkansas."
    "Jesus" refers not to the man Christians call the messiah, but Jesús Gonzalez, a chicken factory worker from Mexico who moved to Little Rock two years ago. The bank, trying to attract minority clients, "employed a little humor," said the bank president in a statement. But it has become a lightning rod for criticism and confusion.
    "I thought they were saying Jesus Christ preferred that bank, and I thought, how do they know that?" says Barbara Chilton, 52, who switched to First Federal just to be safe.
    Others thought the photograph of Gonzalez was intended to announce the second coming of Christ.
    "I didn't think Jesus looked like that," said Dan Gainsburg, looking at the billboard from a construction site across the street.
    The bank caught so much flak from angry Christians that the bank sent workers to remove the ad, but hordes of Catholics, many of them recent Mexican immigrants, had turned the base of the structure into a shrine replete with flowers, candles and religious items.