Rapture

The Rapture is an event in the eschatology of some strains of Protestantism accompanying the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. First, all dead True Christians™ are to be resurrected. Then all living True Christians™ are transformed into immortal bodies, and both groups rise up into the air to meet Jesus and watch the fireworks which are about to happen on the Earth below. Non-Christians and Christians who aren't True Christians™ (such as Roman Catholics and liberal Methodists like Hillary Clinton) have to suffer the horrible plagues of the seven year Great Tribulation (described in the Book of Revelation) as punishment.

An alternative theory is that the rapture has already happened, but not many qualified. Ooh that smarts!

Not to be confused with Rapture from BioShock (a dystopian underwater city).

Christ died for our articles about Christianity

Schismatics

Western (Latin) Catholicism Eastern (Greek) Orthodoxy Protestantism Restorationism

Devil's in the details

Catholic Eastern Lightning FairMormon Family Foundation First Great Awakening Name it and claim it Randal Rauser The Passion of the Christ

The pearly gates

Christianity portal v - t - e

“”The death of a Rapture preacher is doubly awkward. Because for Rapture preachers like Tim LaHaye, those passages have nothing to do with death, or with the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. For LaHaye, et. al., those passages are all reinterpreted as the reassurance that Christians will escape death — that death will not apply in our case. Those verses, in their view, are not about death at all, but about the Rapture — about “Jesus coming back to get us before we die.” To die before the Rapture, then, is to be consigned to the ash-heap along with all the other generations of Christians who weren’t special enough for Jesus to come back and get them. It means not making the cut as one of the special snowflake generation of Last Days Christians — the only generation who will live to see "Bible prophecy" fulfilled, and thus the only generation for whom most of the Bible has any real meaning or application. It means joining the dispensation of the dead. And it means doing so after a lifetime spent insisting that this would somehow never happen in your own special case.

—Fred Clark, liberal evangelical pastor[1]

An urban legend states that airlines won't allow a True Christian™ pilot to fly with True Christian™ co-pilot (in case NOBODY IS LEFT TO FLY THE PLANE AAAH), but instead require a non-Rapturable co-pilot.[2]

Although originally invented in Europe, its modern popularity is an American phenomenon. It is absent from other strains of Protestantism such as Anglicanism, Lutheranism or Calvinism, and likewise unknown outside Protestanism, such as in Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.

The Rapture features prominently in several works of fiction, including the Left Behind series (which also features the idiotic pilot scenario described above), and films including the Russell Doughten production A Thief in the Night.

Invention

“”With the deadly heresies entertained and taught by the Plymouth Brethren, in relation to some of the most momentous of all the doctrines of the gospel, and to which I have adverted at some length, I feel assured that my readers will not be surprised at any other views, however unscriptual and pernicious they may be, which the Darbyites have embraced and zealously seek to propagate.

—James Grant writing in 1875[3]

While the seeds for the notion of a rapture were planted back in 1590 by the Catholic Jesuit Francisco Ribera, who suggested most the events described in the Book of Revelation would happen in the future (Futurism),[note 1] and expanded later in Puritan circles this doctrine was invented by John Nelson Darby (a big cheese among the original Plymouth Brethren and the founder of the Exclusive Brethren) and was popularised as dispensationalism.

Darby really, really wanted the sadistic plot devices in the Book of Revelation to be true, but preferably without the bit where "the righteous" suffer as well, so he seized upon this verse as ass cover his justification.

Backing in scripture

The whole thing is based on a tiny snippet from First Thessalonians, 4:16-17:

“”^16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

“”^17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

That's literally the entirety of biblical justification behind all this. You're welcome.

Variations

Most Evangelicals are "Pre-trib". That means they believe the Rapture is the very next event on the prophetic calendar, and they will be raptured out to miss the entire Tribulation. Some Evangelicals are "Pre-wrath" which means they have to suffer the first three and one-half years of the Tribulation, but all those plagues will be man-made (Democratic US President, worldwide economic downturn, gun control, socialist health care, taxes raised to 39% on top earners, etc.) and they are mild compared to the divine wrath of the last three and one-half years. A few Evangelicals are "Post-trib", but they aren't True Christians™ so they won't get beamed out.

Previous Raptures

See also: List of predictions of the end of the world

“”...what I'm trying to say is, who has time to go round picking people out and popping them in the air to sneer at the people dying of radiation sickness on the parched and burning earth below them? If that's your idea of a morally acceptable time, I might add.

—Aziraphale, Good Omens[4]

According to varying Christian sects, the Rapture should have already happened about ten times in the last two hundred years.

• 1843, March 21st - Baptist preacher William Miller predicted Christ would return on this date for a year, before revising his well-researched Rapture theory to 1844, October 22nd. When Jesus didn't appear on that day, several people were bitterly disappointed.[5]
• 1981 - a prediction from pastor Chuck Smith in Future Survival, 1978.[6]
• 1988, September 11th-13th - a prediction from the late Evangelical Edgar C. Whisenant in 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988, 1987.
• 1989 - another prediction from Edgar C. Whisenant in The Final Shout: Rapture Report 1989. Upset that the world didn't end when he first (or second) predicted, Whisenant continued to predict the end of the world in 1992 and 1995, among other years.
• 1992, October 28th - prediction from Korean group Mission for the Coming Days.[7]
• 1993 - multiple predictions put 1993 as the Rapture date as seven years before the millennium to allow for the seven years of Tribulation before the Second Coming in 2000.
• 1994, June 9th - a prediction from Christ Church pastor John Hinkle.
• 1994, September 6th - a prediction from radio evangelist Harold Camping. 1994 was apparently not a good year for Rapture believers.
• 1996 - The Church of the SubGenius states that the Rapture occured in 1996, but that the only person in the USA who made the cut was one old beet farmer in Iowa, and nobody even noticed he was missing for three months.
• 2011, May 21st - a prediction again from radio evangelist Harold Camping after reviewing his botched former prediction.[8]
• 2011, October 21st - Harold Camping again. Nothing happened, as with the previous two times, and he still won't suck it up and admit he was wrong.

At the time of writing, the Rapture has not yet occurred.^{[citation NOT needed]}

Note that the past predictions of Jehovah's Witnesses are not here, since those refer to the Armageddon. JWs do not believe in the Rapture.[9]

Rapture services

“”Oh no, it's the Rapture! Quick, Marge, get Bart out of the house before God comes!

—Homer Simpson

For the convenience of those who have been Raptured, the website You've Been Left Behind offers document storage and email sending services back on Earth after their disappearance to Heaven. "Imagine how taken back [sic] [your friends and relatives] will be by the millions of missing Christians and devastation at the Rapture. They will know it was true and that they have blown it." The friends and relatives who are left to cope with Beelzebub and the Fires of Hades will be even more taken aback to receive emails, good wishes and instructions for the distribution of estates, etc. from those Beyond. All this for the princely sum of $40 a year, which is a paltry price to pay for confirmation of one's Utter Stupidity.

Pets will not be retrieved by that Rapture either, and as such, confirmed atheists will need to handle your pets once the rapture comes. These services can be handled by Eternal Earthbound Pets[note 2] in the US or Post Rapture Pet Care in the UK. Appplying for such care before the rapture occurs will ensure that you are less bound to earthly events and will make sure that you can be accepted into heaven more quickly. See, those pesky atheists do have a use!

An often overlooked consequence of the Rapture would be the instantaneous orphaning of possibly millions of babies, infants, and children. Despite what Christians believe about an 'age of accountability', the concept is not in the Bible. All babies are atheist, and there is now a service that promises to rescue these babies in the event of Rapture.[10] Services offered include using whatever force necessary to rescue such children, prevent them from receiving any sort of Mark of the Beast, and of course ensuring their spiritual salvation too. This business is also run by pesky atheists.

Seriously

Who cares about roadkill when I'm with Jesus?

“”Redeem the time you have here and make the most of it, don’t just waste it awaiting a Rapture that will never come.

—Fred Clark, liberal evangelical pastor[1]

Some fundamentalist Christians believe that the rapture will actually happen, literally, and all good Christians will be taken to Heaven while the heavens rejoice. The rest will be left behind to face the Devil and his tribulations. The bad people will remain on Earth because only Christians are good and good Christians will be guess where, in Heaven. See Revelation for more religious fear tactics.

So what is the fuckin' holdup? People have been talking about this on and off for nigh on two millennia. Let's go already. Or did it happen already and nobody made the cut?

Those who absolutely cannot wait for the Rapture, and want to escape right now, are cordially invited to Go Galt.

See also

• End times
• Dispensationalism
• Rapture Ready

External links

• Slacktivist's Left Behind Archive
• An "Atheist" during the "Rapture" (WARNING--contains exceptionally mixed messages.)
• THE RAPTURE and START of WORLD WAR III – BY: February 1st 2011! This website originally expected the rapture in 2008, then revised their predictions when that didn't happen (to the 21st of September 2009), then revised their prediction again when the new date didn't pan out, then revised it a third time to September 2010, then a fourth to October 2010. They settled on December 2010 for a while, but now that that date has passed they've revised it yet again to the end of January 2011. Hey, say what you will about this guy, he's certainly determined. Oh, wait, now he's revised it yet another time - now it's supposedly going to be the end of Rosh Hashanah, 2011 (which has since come and gone). Holy crap, man, why can't you just pick a date and stick with it? Somewhat humorously, he appears to be either too lazy to update the rest of the site or simply does not realize that he has not updated it, and virtually all of the site's arguments are still constructed around the original 2008 prediction, with several sections of the site still giving the original prediction in its entirety despite the fact that, by the original prediction, over half of the 'Tribulation' would already be over by now. (The site ceased to exist in 2011 when AT&T stopped hosting old Prodigy pages.)

Notes

1. Which is quite ironic, knowing how so much hated is the Catholic Church among Protestant Fundies.
2. Closed in 2012 due to lack of interest.

References

1. ‘One will be taken, and one will be left behind’ Slacktivist 25 July 2016
2. Christian Pilots and the Rapture Snopes 12 May 2005
3. Grant, James (1875). The Plymouth Brethren: Their History and Heresies. London: William Macintosh. p. 60.
4. by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, for those who like humor with their apocalypses.
5. See the Great Disappointment on Wikipedia.
6. Smith, Chuck (1978). Future Survival. The Word for Today. p. 17
7. "The World Did Not End Yesterday". Boston Globe (Associated Press). 29 October 1992.
8. "We Are Almost There" by Harold Camping.
9. Watchtower Online Library: Rapture
10. Web archive page: www.rapture-orphan-rescue.com/