Reconstructing My Faith: A Question, The Rapture, And Dreaming of Escape

A Question

Back in 2006, I had a very strange pastoral day - which, if you'll ask any pastor, is kind of a regular feature of the job.

A lady who attended another church in town stopped by my office & asked me for help. She apologized for bothering me when I was busy... but wanted to know if I could give her a "real short explanation of the book of Revelation." Hmmm....

 

I managed to keep the answer down to 5 minutes, which definitely isn't time for much in the way of detail:

• letters to churches (chapters 1-3)
• things are gonna get worse before they better... and everybody & his brother has an opinion on how that's going to work - some are more detailed (read: specific charts, timelines & battle plans) than others... and I'm one of those "less details, more big picture" kind of guys when it comes to this subject (chapters 4-19)
• things will get better (chapters 20-22)

For those wondering - yes, I'm still unclear why she came to me rather than her own pastor (who was/is a great guy.)

Then Shari came home and said she had been hearing ads on one of our local Christian radio stations for a service that will e-mail your pagan friends who are not raptured when the rapture comes. I googled and found www.youvebeenleftbehind.com (the site is thankfully dead now). Seriously, that was the name of it. (I figure Larry Norman was spinning in his grave at someone profiting off his song in such a cheeseball way.)  

 

My reaction: "If we love people who don't follow Jesus so darn much, why not do something about it now rather than spamming them from heaven?"

The Rapture

A few years later, as the Harold Camping end of the world nonsense metastasized, I found myself looking more carefully at my own history and the theological assumptions I'd grown up with. (Note: I don't want to get into the details of Camping's prediction - they're the usual mess of numerology, Scripture-twisting & outright nonsense... which, when they failed, caused him to talk about the "spiritual" end of the world... and then finally to admit that he was flat out wrong.)

As I've noted before, I grew up in Southern California in the 1970s, back when it was one of the great gathering places for Jesus Movement folks - Calvary Chapel was king & Chuck Smith (their pastor) was a gifted speaker who spent a lot of time on the sure return of Jesus Christ. One of the guys who led my youth group Bible study was an ex-hippie who came to Jesus & was a big part of a "Jesus Music" band - and he was also very into teaching & talking about the End Times.

You see, evangelical culture was flooded with books (The Late Great Planet Earth was the most notable), films (I still run into people who were profoundly influenced and/or scared by "Thief in the Night"), and music (Larry Norman's "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" was popular - long before DC Talk covered the tune or LaHaye & Jenkins ripped off a line to title their fiction series) about the Rapture.

Remember, it was the 1970s: Watergate, the fallout from the Sexual Revolution, the loss of the Vietnam War, the energy crisis - complete with gas rationing, the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, etc. It was pretty easy to convince folks that life was getting worse & a one-way ticket out of here was an incredibly desirable thing - esp. if the destination was eternity with God.

Notice that the fervor for this kind of thing began to ebb as circumstances got better - reaching a real low point for the End Times business when the perennial favorite for the "Who is Gog & Magog?" contest (see Revelation 20) - the Soviet Union - went belly up in 1989.

But the flames were fanned again with the release of the "Left Behind" book series... and movies... and young adult book series... and one begins to wonder whether the primary motivation is theological or financial. (My personal critique of the Left Behind series? In short: "badly written dialogue, cardboard cut-out characters in an interesting plot... but undercut by the need to shoehorn in the author's very detailed premillenial dispensationalist view of Bible prophecy.")

Of course, there's been a long history of prophecies (check out the website A Brief History of the Apocalypse for that long, sad lineage) about the end of the world, both inside & outside Christianity... 

OK, enough history. With that particular theological context growing up, I'd always just assumed that the Chick Tract/Left Behind/Thief in the Night storyline was the only or best way to interpret the Scriptures.

But with some research, I kept running into the inescapable fact that the "doctrine" of the Rapture (as we know it) pretty much started in the 19th century with the teachings of John Darby (pretty much the father of dispensational theology) & C.I. Scofield (who published the Scofield Chain Reference Bible, which put Darby's theology on the same page as the Scriptures in the form of footnotes). So, the Rapture is a theological belief that's a little more than 150 years old.

New isn't necessarily bad... but when it comes to theology, it's always possible that something "new" simply means folks pulled stuff out of context to come up with their belief system... so I found myself struggling with what I believe about the Rapture - but, then again, I've always struggled with what I believe about the End Times. Not about the sure return of Christ or that God will reign... but with the nitty-gritty details of what will happen when and the tendency of some believers to want a "map" of how it's all gonna go down.

Am I saying there won't be a Rapture? No. Is it possible that the return of Christ (the Second Coming) and the Rapture will occur at the same time? Yes. Do I know this for sure? Absolutely not.

Here's my two cents - this particular issue (the Rapture) can NOT be one of those theological hills that we chose to fight to the death for... the divinity of Christ, the truth of the Resurrection, the inspired nature of Scripture - yes, these fundamental beliefs are worth everything we have.

But a particular brand of End Times theology is not worth our time & energy. Since we acknowledge that "no man knows the day or the hour" (Matthew 24:36) and that appearance of the Lord will be "like a thief in the night" (1st Thessalonians 5:2), we do a horrendous disservice to those in need of Jesus' saving grace by focusing inordinate amounts of attention & emotion on fighting with each other over signs & interpretations.

You & I may not agree completely on what will happen at the end of time - but I once again would suggest that our call to evangelize & disciple, to serve & minister in the name of Christ is substantially more important than convincing someone of our particular eschatology.

The Escape Hatch

Let me be clear - all of the "reconstructing" I wrote about concerning the Rapture & the End Times occurred 12+ years ago. So what does that have to do with my faith right now?

Well, I've come to the realization that I am always looking for ways to cope with the struggles of life... and the current chaos of our political and cultural climate makes an escape hatch particularly tempting. Like I wrote back in the day, the Rapture looks like a pretty good theological idea when you think the world is in free fall.

.

Douglas Rushkoff wrote (in his book, Get Back in the Box) that:

In extreme cases, like fundamentalist religious or political stories, the chaos of any given moment becomes an indication of some great impending apocalypse when justice will be done. I've seen cheeky bumper stickers that read: "In case of rapture, this car will be empty." The passengers are literally looking forward to that scenario. When we are addicted to stories with endings, we'd prefer Armageddon to no ending at all.

I think, at some level, that's what is happening to many evangelical followers of Christ right now - seduced by fear-mongering news sources and fueled by those claiming to speak for God, they are tempted to buy into a persecution narrative that leads inexorably to excusing, minimizing, and/or even participating in things like this...

...or pictures like this (life-sized sticker of the current president hogtied in the back of a pickup truck) being posted by a presidential candidate:

Political fervor and tribalism has become an escape hatch... a way to run away from the difficulties of a multicultural society full of people who desperately need the love of Christ. Rather than obeying the Biblical commands to "conduct yourself with wisdom in your interactions with outsiders (non-believers), make the most of each opportunity [treating it as something precious]" (Colossians 4:5 AMP) and to "always be ready to offer a defense, humbly and respectfully, when someone asks why you live in hope" (1 Peter 3:15 VOICE), the tendency is to lean into sloganeering, idolatry, and raw abuse of power.

There's a temptation - documented by Russell Moore in conversations with pastors - to give up on the words & example of Jesus and instead invest your time, talents, and treasure in uplifting a strong man to fight for you and/or choose to focus on fighting yourself.

It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — "turn the other cheek" — [and] to have someone come up after to say, "Where did you get those liberal talking points?" And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, "I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ," the response would not be, "I apologize." The response would be, "Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak." And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis.

 I'll note that (as David French so aptly put it) "one doesn’t comply with the command to “love your enemies” by hiring someone to hate them for you."

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Relentless cynicism and disengagement can be an escape hatch as well - especially for those of us tempted to disassociate ourselves from theological and political viewpoints we find repugnant. It's all too easy to bury our heads in the sand, to stay silent in the face of subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) pressure to hunker down and "stop rockin' the boat." This could be about politics, theology, ethics, or simply evidencing the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23 AMP):

But the fruit of the Spirit [the result of His presence within us] is love [unselfish concern for others], joy, [inner] peace, patience [not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting], kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Thinking about the gnawing desire to disengage from the world around me, I was reminded of the lyrics of Steve Taylor's "Since I Gave Up Hope, I Feel A Lot Better":

Life unwinds like a cheap sweater

But since I gave up hope I feel a lot better

And the truth gets blurred like a wet letter

But since I gave up hope I feel a lot better

While the world winds down to a final prayer

Nothing soothes quicker than complete despair

I predict by dinner I won't even care

Since I gave up hope I feel a lot better

And this cartoon by Dan Pegoda:

I feel this temptation in my bones - and I'm thankful for the examples of folks like David French & Russell Moore who haven't given up and/or given in to bitterness. 

Moreover, I find myself clinging to the words of  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.

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Our desire for escape from the stresses and fears of this world - whether into tribal politics, cynical detachment, accumulation of possessions and power, or hedonistic indulgence - is so much less than what God intends for us. Erwin McManus (in his book, Chasing Daylight) says it well:

Our pop theology has eliminated the place for risk and insulated us with a comfort-and-security theology. This view runs counter to what is found in the Scriptures. I want to reiterate the fact that the center of God’s will is not a safe place, but the most dangerous place in the world. God fears nothing and no one. God moves with intentionality and power. To live outside God’s will puts us in danger, but to live in His will makes us dangerous.

Mike Yaconelli wrote something similar in his book, Dangerous Wonder:

I want a lifetime of holy moments. Every day I want to be in dangerous proximity to Jesus. I long for a life that explodes with meaning and is filled with adventure, wonder, risk, and danger. I long for a faith that is gloriously treacherous. I want to be with Jesus, not knowing whether to cry or laugh.

Those both sound a lot better than longing for an escape hatch - even couched in spiritual language and Biblical imagery.

This is the eighth post in a series... if you'd like to read the first seven, here they are:

#1: Reconstructing My Faith: Rocks, Dross, and Almonds

#2: Reconstructing My Faith: Syndrome, Mars, and the "F" Word

#3: Reconstructing My Faith: Cheaters, Ice, and Déjà vu

#4: Reconstructing My Faith: Flywheels, Smokescreens, and The Medicine

#5: Reconstructing My Faith: John Wayne, Straight Lines, and the Benefits of Being a Nerd

#6: Reconstructing My Faith: Pedigrees, Car Crashes, and Saying Goodbye
#7: Reconstructing My Faith: Worst. Church. Service. Ever.