Consequences of Believing in the Rapture

In Case You Missed It: History of The Rapture

Belief in the rapture may seem like an innocuous eschatological world view to some, to others the consequences are readily apparent in "Christian" nations' foreign policy doctrines and attitudes towards Israel and the Middle East. In the first decade of the 21st century, many accused then-president George W. Bush of trying to spur on the coming of the rapture by changing U.S. policy regarding Israel and Gaza. Environmentalists accuse rapture-believing Christians of supporting policies that do not protect the environment based on a "we-are-close-to-the-end-so-it-doesn't-matter-anyway" belief. Both of these issues are of concern, but perhaps of even more concern is how it shapes the practices of the Church, and what mission Christians have in the world.

Wars and Rumors of War, Famines and Earthquakes (Matthew 24)

In the last few weeks the world has seen increasing tensions with North Korea, an increasingly violent, Syrian civil war, a terrorist attack in Boston and earthquakes around the world. Proponents of the rapture look at the news services and confirm their suspicion that these are indeed the "birth pangs" of the end times. Now, unlike any time before, we have instant access to information. Alarmists, conspiracy theorists and doomsday preachers have a potentially global audience through social media and the internet.

What is perhaps worse, is that some seem to encourage these military conflicts as necessary events before Jesus returns. This especially includes the rebuilding of the Temple on Mt. Moriah in Israel - a site that currently is home to two mosques. The return of this site to Israeli control would certainly either require military fighting, or a treaty that would lead to fighting.

This isn't a new phenomenon though, just a continuation of how misguided thoughts about the end of the world lead to violence. In The Rapture Trap, Paul Thigpen says, "Irresponsible rhetoric about an impending end of the world could and did provoke tragic results," (156).

He goes on to describe various Christian leaders and sects who used end times concerns to rally people to their causes - almost always ending in violence and death. We are not without modern examples of sectarian views regarding the end times resulting in death. It was only 20 years ago that the federal government of the United States led a siege against a fringe sect of Seventh Day Adventists that ended in the deaths of 86 people. Many who have written on the subject have pointed at the Branch Davidians belief in a fiery apocalypse as one of the contributing factors to their violent resistance and eventual deaths.

It seems reasonable to look at the correlation between distrust of governments and world institutions with apocalyptic worldviews. It is quite likely that "rugged individualism," so deeply entrenched in the Protestant ethic and American mindset, increases the tendency for this distrust. It can initiate a self-feeding where the distrust builds up apocalyptic mindsets, leading to more distrust, etc..

Apocalyptic worldviews leading to violence are not unique to Christianity, though. It has been suggested that the rise in jihadism and terrorist activities around the world by Islamic extremists is due to the belief in an Islamic prophecy regarding an imam returning. It is interesting to me that Americans, in their Islamophobia, are so quick to point to this as a source of violence, without acknowledging their own contributions to the violence by their own views.

It is not  only fringe sects whose beliefs are dangerous. "Of course, end times speculation does not always lead to the violence of Thomas Muentzer or a Jan Bockelson. Nor would we suggest that contemporary believers in the rapture are likely to raise a revolutionary army. The point to be made is that even it its milder forms, eccentric apocalyptic doctrine can lead to harmful delusions," writes Thigpen (160).

The Focus of the Church

Thigpen's point is that even without violence, these worldviews lead to a faulty view of the Church. "Dispensationalists see the Church more as a collection of individuals with a correct belief, a voluntary association of those who are already 'saved,' each waiting his turn to escape a corrupt world  and enter the safety of heaven," (163). In the following pages Thigpen goes on to explain that this view, "Devalu[es ...] the Church's purpose in the world," and that it, "warns Christians not to dirty their hands with attempts to improve the conditions of the world," (165-166).

Often times this is true. There seems to be an arrest in the development into a mature faith in Christians who focus on the rapture. Conversion and evangelism becomes the sole focus instead of deepening one's personal faith - moving from the milk to the meat. This conversion experience is preached as becoming a "new creation," certainly words from the Bible, but neglects the effort required to have a fuller expression of  faith - what Paul calls continuing to work out our faith with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). The continuing work of personal faith ought to be the apex of the Church's mission. Thigpen calls it a "repeated, lifelong giving of the self to God," (167).

That is not to say that evangelism deserves to be demoted, but must be combined with this continuing pursuit of faith and it must work hand-in-hand with Jesus' words about dealing with the "least." It has gotten better in recent years in regards to social issues, various ideas from the emergent, emerging, post-evangelical (etc..) Church have had increased the importance of the missions of social justice, eliminating poverty, slavery and other worthwhile pursuits. Too often, though, this third aspect of developing faith is given lip-service or dressed up in pseudo-psychology and self-help.

So then, while some actively work in pushing the world towards Armageddon, others let this ideology passively affect how they operate as Christians in the world. Altar calls and the sinners' prayer have replaced orphanages and soup kitchens. Conversion has replaced Catechism as the mode for developing faith.

Final Thoughts

Using Thigpen and a reference to the Catechism is not an implicit endorsement of all things Catholic. No institution or individual is without failures and shortcomings. Instead, it is to highlight that on this particular issue, the rapture, Evangelical thinking has perhaps gotten it wrong - and in doing so have undermined the true mission of the Church which is spreading the Good News of Jesus to all people and further developing personal faith into a more meaningful relationship with God. Further, this developed faith leads to a desire to be an agent of change in a way consistent with Jesus' message - changing how we treat the those with the least.

Tomorrow I will write about how belief in the rapture has affected me personally.
Go here for a rundown of the posts from "Rapture! Week"

History of "The Rapture"

4:16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 4:17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be suddenly caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17   (NET Bible)

No matter what your thoughts are regarding the topic - premillenialism, mid-Trib, skeptical, etc., the idea of the rapture does not have a long history. As John R. Coats - a former Episcopalian priest - wrote in his article "What's Real About the Rapture?": "In fact, before 1830, no one had heard that, '[i]n one cataclysmic moment, millions around the globe disappear.'" He continues, "It was around 1830 that [John Nelson] Darby, having selected scripture passages from Daniel, Revelation, 1 and 2 Thessalonians and elsewhere, pasted them together, called them a whole, and invented the Rapture, a word not found in the Bible."

This is technically true, in verse 17, as quoted above, "caught up" is translated from the Greek:

ἁρπάζω, which means, among other things, "to snatch away, or carry off." To be fair, this same verb does appear in other verses - specifically Acts 8:39, 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 and Revelation 12:5. The word in Acts and 2 Corinthians are referring to specific people who have already been "carried off." Acts relates the story of Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch where after converting and baptizing the eunuch, Phillip is miraculously transported by God to another city. In 2 Corinthians, Paul writes about someone he knows who was "caught up" to the third heaven - either bodily or spiritually, Paul does not know - and given a revelation of paradise. Neither of these references relate to the belief in a rapture of the church in the end times.

The reference from Revelation is a bit more tricky. The first part of Revelation 12, where this verse comes from, is the story of The Woman, The Child and The Dragon - a story that is indirect and open to interpretation. (This verse will be more fully unpacked on Wednesday, "A Differing View: In Defense of the Rapture.")

As Coats pointed out, the first inclination of this idea comes from Darby in the nineteenth century. Catholic scholar Dr. Paul Thigpen, in his book, "The Rapture Trap," details the history, or lack-thereof, of the belief in a rapture event.

For Dr. Thigpen, the main distinction is in the difference between an event he calls "The Second Advent" and the "secret rapture." Briefly, the Second Advent is the return to Earth of Jesus to judge all of humankind - both living and dead. Dr. Thigpen goes into detail demonstrating that Christian leaders throughout history, when writing about end times events, refer to the return of Christ in the manner of a Second Advent and not a Rapture. He writes, "Neither ancient Christians, nor medieval Christians, nor even the founders of the major Protestant movements ever heard of the secret rapture doctrine," (130).

He gives a history of great Christian thinkers and leaders throughout history whose writings support this idea of a Second Advent, and remain silent on "secret rapture." Men like Justin Martyr, Irenaues, Hippolytus, Jerome, Augustine, John Chrysotom and others from the early church. According to Thigpen, "When we find the Fathers speaking on a particular doctrinal issue in consensus, or near consensus, Christians should pay close attention," (130). He also points out that the doctrine was left out of the Nicene Creed - the foundational creed of orthodoxy. 

This matters because if we trusted the early church fathers to determine the canon, as well as orthodox belief and practices, their silence on this matter must be respected as much as their words on other doctrinal matters.

Unlike Coats, Thigpen acknowledges others, before Darby, who have preached the rapture, but agrees that, "The doctrine as it is currently taught in fundamentalist circles seems to have evolved in the nineteenth century," (143). 

According to Thigpen, as well as many others, it was Darby's idea of dispensationalism that began the very modern idea of a rapture. Further, it was the publication of the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909, drawing from Darby and dispensationalism, that popularized the rapture idea. Thigpen wrote that Scofield was, "an enthusiastic convert to Darby's dispensational beliefs. Scofield was a Kansas City lawyer with no theological training. But his legal background compensated in persuasiveness for what his background lacked as a biblical scholar," (145).

For the uninitiated, dispensationalism, specifically, is the belief that history has been divided into seven ages; and that through these seven ages God's revelations are different for each church of that age. This idea of ages became especially relevant with the progress of technology and media, twentieth century wars and the post-World War II establishment of Israel.

"After the reestablishment of Israel as an independent nation in 1948 - an event many fundamentalists saw as a sign of the end times - interest in biblical prophecy intensified," (Thigpen, 147).

Another popularizing aspect of the idea, according to Thigpen, is what he calls a bias of dispensationalism against the structure and hierarchy of the denominational churches. He writes that this "appealed to isolated Protestant congregations in America that were unaffiliated with any denomination," (147).

Finally, the publication of Hal Lindsey's "Late Great Planet Earth" capitalized on growing fears of war, communism, the atomic age and changing social norms to promote an end times world view centered around the idea of a secret rapture. His book was fear mongering and opportunistic, released in 1970, with chapter titles like, "The Future Fuehrer" and "World War III." Critical of Lindsey, Thigpen writes that his "sensationalist style presented a heady mix of highly selective Bible quotes; news clips of world events that he claimed were 'fulfilling biblical prophecy'; frightening 'scientific' predictions of natural and man-made catastrophes; and a print version of the old revivalist 'altar call,' an appeal to readers to get 'saved' so they would not be left behind at the rapture," (148).

It is very clear that the rapture is a relatively new phenomenon in church history and not traditionally part of orthodox belief. So, either Thigpen's explanation of a Second Advent - the Catholic orthodox belief - must be taken at face value, that the original meaning and teachings of the church did not include the rapture; or, Darby's view of a later divine revelation supersedes the Bible, the Apostles and the teachings of the early church fathers. In my opinion, letting one man rewrite or reinterpret Scripture 1800+ years later is dangerous - especially in light of the consequences such a belief elicits (as we will see Thursday).

Tomorrow: The Rapture in Pop Culture

Refrences
John R. Coats, "What's Real About the Rapture" http://www.thechristianleftblog.org/1/post/2013/04/whats-real-about-the-rapture.html

Paul Thigpen, "The Rapture Trap" http://www.amazon.com/Rapture-Trap-Catholic-Response-Times/dp/0965922820