Against the Rapture

In which we argue contrary to the "blessed hope" of the apocalypse junkies.

Undoubtedly one has heard of the "Rapture"... Popularized by books like Left Behind and preachers like Hal Lindsay, Pat Robertson, Jack VanImpe, and John Hagee (and even subscribed to by Billy Graham), the Rapture is a supposd future event in which Jesus will cause all "true" Christians to simply dissappear. The purpose for this is to spare the true and faithful believers (which usually only translates as conservative Evangelicals) from the Tribulation: a period of 7 and a half years in which God will unleash His judgement upon the earth in miscillaneous plagues, floods, wars, etc. This is the time when the dreaded Anti-Christ will rise to take control of the earth. This will be followed by a Second Coming of Christ, who will depose the Anti-Christ and rule on earth for a thousand years, and then a Final Battle when Satan and all his cronies will be thrown into the pit of burning sulphur and the New Heavens, New Earth, and New Jerusalem will formed. End history, enter eternity.

This is a peculiar and novel doctrine in Christian history and faith, and one that I personally don't subscribe to. There are many reasons why, and it is these reasons I am outlining in this article... Why should one not wish to believe in such a seemingly wonderful and pervasive belief as the Rapture and all that follows?

Jesus Never Spoke of It

The foundational interpretive principle of Christianity when it comes to Scripture is that Jesus, the Living Word and God Incarnate, is God's clearest revelation to humanity. His words take prescedence over all others in Scripture, and it is His words and deeds that act as our lens to interpret the rest of Scripture. If from the Bible's prophetic books, such as Revelation and Daniel, we arrive at a belief about the end of the world that is not only not what Jesus taught, but is directly contradictory to what Jesus taught, then such a belief must be rejected. The scheme of the Rapture does exactly this.

Matthew chapter 24 is Jesus' clearest prophecy about the end of the world. The chapter reads as follows, through which I've interjected my own thoughts:

As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"

And Jesus answered and said to them, "See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will mislead many. You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs." (Matthew 24:3-8)

"Merely the beginning of the birth pangs"... Often one sees self-styled apocalyptic prophets and interpreters pointing to some time of increased military tension or weather phenomena (as with El Nino), and saying that the end is nigh. Yet here, Jesus specifically tells us that we are not to worry about such things, because they say nothing about the end. Indeed, wars, rumours of wars, and natural disasters are always occuring, and have been since time and humanity began. The writer of the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes makes the observation that there is never anything new under the sun, and he includes war in that list.

"Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come."

"Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. Whoever is on the housetop must not go down to get the things out that are in his house. Whoever is in the field must not turn back to get his cloak. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! But pray that your flight will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath. For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. (Matthew 24:9-22)

And here Jesus speaks specifically of tribulation, what will happen, and that His followers will have to endure it. Is this "the" Tribulation? Proponents of Rapture theology say no: this is the just the "little", day-to-day tribulations that Christians have and generally must endure for as long as there has been and will be a faith. However, that arguement shoots them in the foot later on, as I will point out in another section. Given the context that this talk of tribulation occurs in, and what is spoken later in the passage about tribulation, I can only conclude that this is "the" Tribulation. Only, the "true" Christians seemed not to have been Raptured.

However, there may be a sideways reference to the Rapture in this passage. Several persons have theorized that the great "falling away" Jesus spoke of could occur when the masses of Rapture believers find themselves decidedly un-Raptured. So caught up with the idea that the Rapture must occur because that's what the Bible supposedly says and the Bible is supposedly inerrant, they will come to reject it.

"Then if anyone says to you, 'Behold, here is the Christ,' or 'There He is,' do not believe him. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. Behold, I have told you in advance. So if they say to you, 'Behold, He is in the wilderness,' do not go out, or, 'Behold, He is in the inner rooms,' do not believe them. For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather." (Matthew 24:23-28)

In a particularily brilliant passage, Jesus warns us of the very Rapture promoters themselves. Those like VanImpe, Hagee, Lindsay, and LaHeye (author of Left Behind) are in the quite profitable business of telling us "behold, here is the Christ" and "there He is!" Their books, programs, and lecture circuits are meant to have us pointed in whatever direction, so that we will be ready for when the end comes. But how prepared are they making us? Not prepared for Him, as He will go on to say in this chapter. They are looking for Jesus, when Jesus warned that they will not know the time of His coming. They are false prophets, directly contradicting Jesus, and directly warned about by Him.

"But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.

"Now learn the parable from the fig tree: when its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near; So, you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left. Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. (Matthew 24:29-42)

Some people try to use this passage as a proof of the Rapture, especially "Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left." But look at the context, look at all that came before these two verses. If this is the Rapture, then the Rapture came after the Tribulation and after (or during) the Second Coming. Not only that, but gauging by the talk of Noah's Flood beforehand, the implication is that it is the wrongdoer who will be taken away, not the "true" Christian (although those claiming to be the "true" Christians might find themselves taken anyways).

And still in this passage, Jesus is warning us that noone will know the time. When all Hell is breaking loose, there may be signs, but this is a far cry from the schedule of apocalypse that Rapture proponents have placed it on.

"But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will. Who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his master put in charge of his household to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But if that evil slave says in his heart, 'My master is not coming for a long time,' and begins to beat his fellow slaves and eat and drink with drunkards; the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 24:43-51)

And this is Jesus' final warning to the effect that we cannot know.

So where is the Rapture in all this? Nowhere. In fact, Jesus explicity tells us that we will have to endure Tribulation, we will be given cause to flee for our safety, that there will be those who will fall away from the faith and who will turn us over for continuing in it. Any subsequent interpretation of Scripture and prophecy must draw from this prophecy of Jesus' because while other prophecies are told through the eyes of John or Daniel, these are considered the very words of God Incarnate Himself.

Dubious Scriptural Interpretation

So what of Revelation and Daniel then? There are certainly no shortage of possible interpretations of these prophetic books. But by virtue of unbiased interpretation we can eliminate many possibilties. For example, much of Daniel was actually fulfilled in time between the Testaments, when the Hellenites conquered Israel. These events are written about in the Apocrypha, which ordinarily isn't included in the Bibles of Protestants, and my supicion is that part of the reason is because they throw a monkey-wrench into the theories of the Rapture believers. The books of the Apocrypha are clearly written to show that they fulfill much of the prophecy in Daniel... So whether those events actually took place or whether there was some rhtorical tweaking, the fact remains that the Jews seemed to think prophecy was here fulfilled. The "Abomination of Desolation" that the Hellenites placed in the Jerusalem Temple - a statue of Zeus - was such a profoundly horrible event that it was remembered even centuries later when both Jesus and John use it as a metaphor.

Another example is Revelation 12:1-6,13-18:

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days...

And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.

And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

While some pro-Rapture people insist that the woman clothed with the sun is the nation of Israel, that makes little sense. This passage is nothing less than a mystical Nativity story. It is fruitful to cross-refference it with Matthew 2:13-21, the escape into the desert from Herod, who wished to kill the infant Jesus because He was to become king. Mary is the woman clothed with the sun, her seed is Jesus, and the remnant of her seed is us, the followers of Jesus. This reaffirms that the book of Revelation is not a simple text about tomorrow, but a mystic account of the whole of history, from the beginning to the birth of Jesus and the rise of His followers, through to the end.

Prophecy is notoriously difficult to interpret simply because it is the intangible and Divine witnessed to through the conceptual framework of human beings from nearly two millenia ago... It is chronically filled with symbols and metaphors, so much as as to be (as sketpics point out) nearly useless beforehand. The job of this sort of prophecy is to give hope to believers... It is the good news that God's Will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It is not meant to be a checklist of apocalyptic events.

The Rapture is Ahistorical

A far cry from the faith of the Apostles, the Rapture was unheardof before the 19th century. It's inventor was a man named John Nelson Darby.

Born in 1800, Darby was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and ordained in the Church of Ireland. In 1827, he developed anti-clerical notions and resigned his ordination, going on to join a denomination called the Bretheren. Later still he would breakaway and form his own denomination, the Plymouth Bretheren, which centred on his doctrine of "premillenial dispensationalism". In short, the Rapture, Tribulation, and all it entails.

Part of the rationale behind this doctrine was as a response to Higher Criticism, which was seen by conservatives to be eroding at the foundations of Christian faith (the irony here floors me). The doctrine of premillenialism provided as complex a religious theological construction as any that has occured before or since. By plying through the Bible to find support for it, by learning history to find events to claim were the fufillment of prophecy, believers could claim to be every bit as scholarly as those engaged in Higher Criticism. Through their "scholarship", they could "prove" that the Bible was literal and inerrant.

Though not popular in Darby's British Isles, belief in the Rapture soared in America. The 1909 Scofield Reference Bible made extensive use of the premillenial dispensationalist scheme, treating it as a given fact, and interpreting the Bible thusly. One of America's favorite reference Bibles, it can still be found today, and is quite often suggested to new converts and would-be converts who are looking to study the Bible. Following in Darby's footsteps, Scofield codified the treatment of the Bible as a puzzle-book to be pieced together... Christianity went headlong from intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ based on the principle of love to a set of doctrinal propositions one must believe to "get saved" and get Raptured.

As doctrines go, the Rapture is recent and quite novel. It is not widely held outside of America and outside of Evangelical circles. And for very good reason...

Americocentrism

In the great scheme of apocalypse that conservative Evangelicals proclaim, the evil end-times armies of Satan are always handily ascribed to the political opponents of America and American Evangelicals. Rome reborn is the European Union, the Kings of the North are China and Russia, the One World Religion is New Age, the Anti-Christ is a Jew...

While a perfectly reasonable arguement could be made, using the exact same rhetoric and passages, to throw America into this role, it is rarely done. This is exactly because those who believe this doctrine are almost entirely American, and those who aren't were taught this doctrine in churches formed and based in America.

Evangelicalism is a very politicized religion, and almost requires a special view of America as "God's Country", peculiarily blessed by the Lord, a nation always on the right side of history. They believe that America was founded as a Christian nation, that any divergence from that supposed origin (which is false, for the Founding Fathers were either Deist, atheist, or agnostic, with few exceptions) is a Satanic plot against this important country, and that America has a duty to support the modern nation of Israel no matter the cost and no matter the affront to Christian values or human rights to recieve the blessings promised by God in the Old Testament. America is viewed a unique nation in the history of the world, like none before and none that ever will come after... A hypothetical thought, though, since America will supposedly never fall.

The Americocentric view of the end times comes more from American patriotism than anything at all to do with Scripture. Powerful nations have come and gone, and the Lord asks us to place our faith in Him rather than in human power structures. This Americocentrism also stands a stumbling block: while it may make sense to a viciously patriotic American, it makes little to no sense to anyone who is not an American. Standing outside the USA, and with no particular need to blind ourselves to America's history and continued exercise of military dominance, political machinations, deplorable foreign policy, free-for-all attitude to corporate globalism, genocidal atomic bombings, and more, we don't see anything especially Christian or even moral about this one nation-state. What makes America so special? What makes conservative Americans' enemies so bad? It just doesn't add up.

The Rapture is Immoral

So why is the Rapture believed at all then? Because it holds an attractive promise, and comes with a wonderful little perk.

Ask nearly any Rapture believer, and they will say that their prime motivation comes from the hope that the Rapture brings: that God loves His children so much that He wishes to spare them from the time of Tribulation. Yet He has not done so for millenia... Since the faith began, Christians have suffered and died for the good news of Jesus Christ. From the early Church enduring persecution by the Roman Empire in the first 3 centuries to the faithful in China and African still suffering death, rape, mutilation, enforced poverty, ethnic cleansing, and slavery today, Christians have always endured tribulation. Jesus Himself made no promises about anything except that we are to die in His name.

"Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. But beware of men, for they will hand you over to the courts and scourge you in their synagogues; and you will even be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to say; for it will be given you in that hour what you are to say. For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you." (Matthew 10:16-20)

And again:

"Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:11-12)

Jesus bids us to take up our crosses and follow Him. This is not merely a metaphor: at the time of Christ, there was a very real danger of being crucified.

Yet we here in the western world, the 1st World (and the first shall be last, remember), complain at the slightest inconvenience. When a single insult is hurled or special right taken away from the majority Christian population, cries of persecution are raised. Yet we do not know persecution. We cannot know persecution until armed soldiers burst into our houses, shoot father in the head, rape mother and sister, and haul brother off to slavery simply because we're Christians. Not only have we not endured the cross for His sake, we don't even know the meaning of doing so.

So again, what makes the conservative Evangelical proponents of the Rapture so special? Revelation 6:9-11 shows us a scene of the faithful in Heaven pettitioning the Lord:

When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also. Why does God not seem to give a damn until violence threatens rich Christians in the 1st World? Why does He see fit for the full number of non-whites to die for the faith, but spares us the time of trial? Shall not a greasy hair on the annointed heads of Baptists, Pentecostals, and non-denominationals be touched by strife or hardship or tirbulation or discomfort? (Revelation 6:9-11)

This doctrine of the Rapture should cause no end of moral outrage... Jesus calls us to follow Him, and we create a doctrine that says we won't have to. We live in comfortable excess on the backs of the poor, tired, and huddled masses around the world, and hope to be delivered the momment we're threatened with discomfort. As the old saying goes, we want to have our cake and eat it to: we don't want to live for Christ, and we don't want to die for Him either.

But it is easy enough for proponents to look beyond that, because the Rapture also gives yet another handy threat. "Don't be Left Behind!!" Truely, the Tribulation as imagined in such works as Left Behind is little more than the full measure of terrors and horrors that conservative Evangelicals wish on those different from themselves. Before the Rapture was invented, all they could threaten people with was eternal suffering in Hell. Now on top of that, we get unimaginable suffering in the Tribulation, where God will shower non-Evangelicals (as non-Evangelicals, even when Christian, don't tend to believe in the Rapture) with every form of pain, plague, poison, violence, destruction, and suffering they could ever hope. The Tribulation is the emotional shadow of Evangelicals: it is the expression and projection of their own darkest and evilest desires towards their fellow human being. It is the sweaty-palmed anticipation of God performing all the violence an Evangelical ever wished on anybody they didn't like. It is one more pious threat in the aparatus of violence and coercion used by Christian Fundamentalism.

Sacred Cow

Put it all together, and what have you got? A new Christian Sacred Cow: something held so deeply and vigorously that it becomes unquestionable. Dare to point out that Jesus didn't teach it, and you are accused of calling God a liar. Mention it's lack of historical background, and you are ignored. Preach the immorality of wanting to be Raptured out of martyrdom's way, and you are threatened with being "Left Behind"... At best, the hardcore Rapture proponent will simply mock you or brush you off. At worst, they will condemn you to Hell and even threaten your physical safety.

The Rapture doctrine has become a litmus test for "real" Christianity, even though it is not found in any of the Creeds which have served to define Christian orthodoxy for 1700 years - the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds. The dubious interpretation, the Americocentrism, the promise of not having to follow Christ to the grave, all become a part and parcel of this new heterodox "real" Christianity... It is unquestioned and unquestionable. It is a Sacred Cow that has supplanted following Jesus and living for the Kingdom of God. It has become an idol.

On these principles - Jesus didn't teach it, dubious Scriptural interpretation, ahistoricity, Americocentrism, immorality, and idolatry - I reject the teaching of the Rapture as, at best a simple error, at worst a pernicious and damaging heresy. Historically, the Christian affirmation has always been "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again." There is no need to make it more elaborate than that. "He will come again to judge the living and the dead", the Nicene Creed states, and our only concern as Christians is to be ready by living a Christ-like life of love and the Kingdom within, every day of our lives. We needen't make complex doctrinal propositions about it, and we shouldn't devise schemes that legitimize our wealth and our fear of suffering, nor our hatred of others. For doing so, the Rapture simply isn't Christian.

And to those who are reading this who are seething at what I have said and chomping at the bit to threaten me with being Left Behind, I say this to you: I only wish I was even half worthy to endure the Tribulation. But alas, I am nothing compared to the great saints and martyrs of Christian history who have suffered and died for His sake... Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, the missionaries, Jesus Himself... I am unfit to be counted amongst their number. But if you wish to condemn me to join their ranks, and to suffer the terrors and evils of the Tribulation for His sake, then I am more than pleased to do so. I have no desire to spare myself such a glory.

Back to Top