Rapture Reconsidered

Yesterday at our Interfaith Breakfast, my friend the local Imam shared a story of a recent visit to one of the local high schools. He was part of a panel with a rabbi and a Calvary Chapel pastor. While he and the rabbi were in agreement that a peaceful settlement needed to be found in Israel/Palestine, the CC pastor was not in agreement. The Imam was a bit mystified as to why the CC pastor found didn't support a settlement of these issues. I told him it had to do with the Second Coming -- and the need to hurry things up. He replied, we believe in the second coming of Jesus, but we're not trying to hurry things up. But such is the message of the Late Great Planet Earth and the Left Behind books.

Becky Garrison of the Wittenburg Door and author of Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church, shares her thoughts in a God's Politics blog on a presentation by Barbara Rossing at the Trinity Institute on the Rapture and why it's important now. Rossing is the author of the important -- Rapture Exposed.

If you're a died in the wool dispensationalist, all of these events in Israel and Iraq and Iran, hey they're great news -- the end is near. But is that good theology or good biblical interpretation? I don't think so!
So consider:

According to Rossing, the term prophecy doesn't mean prediction. Rather, prophetic books such as the Book of Revelation serve as a wake-up call of what will transpire if humanity remains oblivious to the telltale signs from God that something is amiss in our world.

So what is in God's plan for this world that he created? Quoting a Jewish scholar, Rossing asks, “did God so love the world that he sent World War III?" Or did God so love the world that he sent his only son, Jesus as the lamb of God to die and be resurrected into new life so that all should have everlasting life?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Pastor Bob,

On Al-Jazeera Arabic TV I've often heard men whose understanding of Chrsitianity is minimal explain that Bush attacked Iraq because he and his neo-con fundamentalist Christian cohorts want to destroy the world so Jesus can come back.

It's one thing to hear this nonsense spouted on Al-Jazeera TV. It's quite another to hear it espoused by a Christian pastor.

I grew up in the IFCA (Independent Fundamental Churches of America), graduated from a fundamentalish Bible College in the sixties, and spent a few years with an aggressive evangelistic missionary organization. I think I can say that I "know fundamentalism". Our motive, whether selling Christian books door-to-door in France or distributing thousands of tracts on the streets of Bombay was to "fulfill the great Commission" and "reach the world for Christ as quickly as possible." It's a giant leap to go from there to saying that we wanted the world to go to hell so that Jesus would come back quicker. Dispensationalists and fundamentalists such as Hal Lindsay, the "Left Behind" authors, Pastor John Hagee, and all the others interpret the Bible as teaching the world will get worse and then Jesus will come back. That's a lot different than saying they "want" it to get worse.

Rather than snugggling up to your Imam friend to criticize a fellow pastor, another approach would have been to call the Calvery Chapel pastor and say, "Hey Bro, the Imam says you said yesterday you don't want peace between Palestine and Israel. Is that true?" Chances are you would learn that the Imam misinterpreted or miscommunicated the position of the CC pastor. As a matter of fact, I'd put money on it.
Robert Cornwall said…
Ed,

Yes, these folks do interpret the Bible as teaching that things will get worse and not better. The problem is with the way we respond to this message. If, as these folks believe, that this is fate and we can't do anything about it, then there is no incentive to work to make things better. If you listen to these folks, or read their books, there is almost a sense of glee at what's happening. So, whether it was misinterpreted or not -- and I don't snuggle up to my Imam friend -- there is enough of this out there to give credence to what he heard.
Anonymous said…
What bothers me about this is taking the comment of the Imam to malign (or at best possible represent) a fellow pastor, making him and the movement he represents come across as the village idiots, rather than checking to see what he really said at the local high school meeting. All it takes is a phone call.

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