Sorry Guys - There Will Be No Rapture

[SGOS]

A Christian afflicted with Rapture Obsession finally comes to his senses, and rejects the Biblical Prophesy, but still clings to the second coming.  Follow his painful journey of awakening out of his old bullshit, into different bullshit.

Actually, I found this article interesting as it explains why, during my Christian days, I had never heard of a rapture where people go zooming up through the stratosphere:  Because it's not really in the Bible!  Or there is some metaphorical interpretation that some self proclaimed Christian theologians came up with about 200 years ago, but apparently the literal Rapture is a relatively new concept in Christianity, and just taking hold in recent years.

It explains why even though I read the Bible, I never came to believe in the idea of such a rapture on my own.  It's only another addendum to Christianity taking root that is just part of the ever changing religious beliefs of man's history on Earth.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-hunt/nobody-is-getting-left-be_b_5926886.html

I'm sorry Left Behind fans.

But, there is no such thing as the rapture.

Of course, you couldn't tell me this when I was in high school because I was head over heals in love with biblical prophecy. Nothing else mattered. I was utterly convinced that the book of Revelation was a road map to the future and Jack Van Impe was the prophet who could unlock the apocalyptic map for me. I even had the Jack Van Impe Prophecy Bible, leather bound and color coordinated to let me know exactly what each verse prophesied. So sure was I that the rapture would happen at any moment, that I believed it to be my mission from God to scare let everyone around me know that the end was nigh so they would not be left behind.

I was genuinely shocked every morning when I would wake up to find myself still in my bed and not standing at the pearly gates.

Was my math wrong?

Had I missed a color-coded clue in my prophecy bible?

Surely Jack Van Impe hadn't misread a sign in the news. So why hadn't I been raptured already??

This went on for years, until finally I entered college.

A christian college, of course. Where else would a end times expert go to school?

I was a religion major. So, I decided I would clear this rapture matter up once and for all with one of my religion professors as soon as possible and finally get an precise date for the rapture.

After all, isn't that the whole point of being a New Testament scholar? To be able to predict the rapture?

Not long after I arrived at college I had a meeting with my advisor, a professor in New Testament theology. I thought surely, if anyone understands the signs of the times as well as Jack Van Impe it would be him. So, I confidently marched into his office, instantly recognized that his efforts to work through my class schedule were a not so subtle invitation to discuss the apocalypse, and spent the next 20 minutes or so explaining to him why I knew that the end was nigh and why I was so frustrated that this fact wasn't the only thing we talked about in class or the only thing my pastor preached about every Sunday morning.

Fortunately for me, he was a patient man.

It was almost as if he had heard this speech before from some other young end times expert. While I hated his response at the time, his words forever changed my perspective on biblical prophecy and the rapture.

He said, "Here's my problem with Jack Van Impe and guys like him: They are trying to pinpoint places on prophetic map that simply doesn't exist. Are we living in the last days? Absolutely, but we have been ever since Jesus walked out of the tomb on Easter morning."

He said more, but to be honest I don't remember it because I was floored. How dare he say there is no prophetic roadmap?! Had he not read any of the Left Behind books?? It was all there in black and white!!

When I finally calmed down about a week later, I decided to investigate his nonsensical claim further and attempt to do so with as open a mind as I possible could. It wasn't an easy process. Or a short one. But once I reached the end of my prophetic investigative journey I reached one clear and indisputable conclusion.

I was wrong.

It hurt to admit it and to be honest it kinda still does. But there was no way around it -- the rapture was never, ever going to happen.

You see, I had made the same mistake that Jack Van Impe makes. He shouts (or at least passionately pleas) the loudest and only hears others like him shouting that the end is nigh. So, over time he becomes convinced that the rapture is imminent, that he has it all (or at least a lot of it) figured out, and that everyone who disagrees will be left behind.

Like my prophetic hero, I was screaming the loudest that the rapture was imminent and I only surrounded myself with voices that agreed with me. Because of this, I was never able to hear a crucial piece of information: No one in the church has ever even believed in the rapture until the last 200 years or so.

You see, the idea of a rapture never even appears on the church's radar until the late 18th and early 19th centuries. You would think that such a pivotal moment in the life of the church would get a least a brief mention by someone like Luther or Calvin or Aquinas or maybe Augustine. But there is only silence.

Why?

Well the first reason is fairly straightforward.

The term "rapture" appears no where in the Bible. Of course, neither does the word "trinity." But the concept of a triune God does appear throughout the New Testament. While the idea of believers being "caught up in the air" is mentioned, it is metaphorically describing the Second Coming. Paul is not claiming, nor even implying that Christians will disappear before all hell breaks loose on earth.

In fact, (and this is probably the second biggest reason the great thinkers of the church don't talk about the rapture) the very idea of the rapture is antithetical to the narrative of scripture.

Why?

Because the Bible is a story about a God who journeys with His people through hard times even when it is God who has unleashed the judgment. He doesn't pluck them out of danger. Whether that danger is slavery in Egypt, wandering in the wilderness, exile in Babylon, the travails of Job, oppression under the Romans, or the persecution of the early church, God walks with God's people through the valley of the shadow of death. He doesn't snatch them out of it.

If that is true, then our love for the rapture reveals a lack of love for the very world Jesus came to save. The very idea of the church abandoning the world in its time of need is endemic of an American Christianity that is more focused on the self than the needs of the other, more gnostic (concerned with right ideas) than actually Christian, and hyper-focused on the hereafter to the detriment of the here and now. Yes, the Second Coming is important -- but so is everything that happens before.

But perhaps the most important thing to remember is the book of Revelation is not a road map to the future. It is the declaration that Jesus will return, justice will be granted to the oppressed, and all things will be made new. But it is not attempting to give precise details on how that will happen... more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-hunt/nobody-is-getting-left-be_b_5926886.html

The transition to his new "understanding" is kind of interesting to follow.  It vaguely resembles a common path from Christianity to atheism, except it doesn't employ logic.  But the internal struggle is there.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

I'm disappointed.. I really want them to just go *poof* and disappear. He's obviously been caught in the clutches of Satan so of course he won't go *poof*.

[the_antithesis]

This rapture-obsession and fixation on the end of days illustrates the childish arrogance inherent in religious faith. They want to be special, so they think they are part of the last generation to be here on Earth before it's destroyed. Kind of like hoping your ex-girlfriend gives up on men after being with you or something.

[stromboli]

Even without the Rapture obsession- which was there for a while, but didn't really get aired until the 90's with the LaHaye/Jenkins books- the prophetic utterance and end times mindset has always been there. the second coming predictions number in the hundreds and date all the way back to 66 CE with the Jews and the Messianic revolts of the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events

So much for prophetic inerrancy.

[SGOS]

I picked up a book at an airport a few years ago.  I read various jackets and found a sci fi that sounded good.  Turns out it was by some writer know for religious fiction, which I didn't know at the time.  The story begins with some weird disappearances of people, and gradually you learn the rapture has begun.  People are flying up into the air with happy faces.  Another strange thing was that it was raining rain that smelled like semen.  (WTF?)  I don't know if this is a known aspect of rapture mythology, or if the writer just thought it up himself.  The semen rain was pointed out in the story at several points making it seem like it was important.  Anybody ever hear of such a thing before?

[AllPurposeAtheist]

How DARE you blasphesize  the great snatch? 
Or even nice ones for that matter..

[Solitary]

When I walk under my carob tree when it is raining it smells like semen rain. And then lightening hit the tree and I thought it was the rapture.