You might say that this series has been over 30 years in the making. Like many, Revelation captured my attention and fascinated me as a young child. Its bizarre imagery didn't make a lot of sense, but there was something captivating and enthralling about it. At the age of about 12, my mom took me to a small little Presbyterian church in a town near our home to watch a series of videos regarding the "end times." This was the early 1980's so books like Left Behind had not hit mainstream yet, but these films were making the rounds of many churches. It was a three part series (which I have since found out there were more of these movies made, but these three were the only ones I knew about), the first one was called "A Thief in the Night." It was about a woman who had been "left behind" after almost everyone she knew and loved had been raptured. Now she was left to navigate her way through the Great Tribulation, being pursued and persecuted by those who wanted her to take the Mark of the Beast. This movie was followed up with the sequels, "A Distant Thunder" and "Image of the Beast."
At 12, I'll be honest... these movies TERRIFIED me. I was so afraid that I was going to be "left behind." Was my faith not strong enough? Was I not good enough? Was I not believing the right things? At night, I would sometimes sneak downstairs and make sure my parents were still there (because if the rapture happened, I was fairly certain they would go). You can imagine my horror one night when I peeked around the corner into the family room and the lights were on, the television was on, but neither one of my parents were sitting in their recliners like usual.
I screamed. Because it had finally happened. They'd been raptured. I'd been left.
(Turned out, they were sitting on the deck because it was a nice evening out.)
For the next probably fifteen years of my life, I lived with this understanding - expecting any day the "rapture" would occur and I would be left to fend for myself. All the "but you believe, you'll be taken" assurances I received from my mother I could not fully believe in my heart. I simply knew I was not a "good enough" person to be worthy of that. I would be left to suffer. Alone. Frightened. Wondering if tortured enough, would I be able to resist taking the mark? Was I going to be damned to hell for all eternity if I did?
Then "Left Behind" came out. A friend of mine and I began reading them and they were pretty much just a re-hashing of the movies I had seen years earlier - just updated a bit. They still scared me. I spent all kinds of time poring over passages like Daniel 7 trying to figure out the whole "weeks" thing. I read other books, like "Prophecies of the End Times" by David Haggith, and "A Woman Rides the Beast" by Dave Hunt... everything I could find on end times prophecies. I was almost obsessed with it. Ok, not almost. I was. It was all interesting reading, and every single one of them upheld this idea of the rapture.
Now I remember this quite vividly. I made it as far as "Desecration" (the 9th book in the series I believe) when in the midst of reading it one day, I suddenly had this strange "voice" that kept saying "this isn't right." The question that kept popping up for me was, "Why on earth would God remove all the faithful at a time when they were needed in the world the most?" This question continued to niggle at me until I finally set the book down and did something weird. I actually picked up the Bible instead.
So, I pulled out my Bible and re-read Revelation. And I re-read it again. I found no rapture. I found nowhere in its pages that even hinted or suggested that there was going to be some sort of snatching up of the faithful prior to this seven year tribulation period.
It was like a thunderbolt - that moment of clarity. That moment of realizing the one thing that had terrified me the most about my relationship with God was suddenly gone. I began scouring the internet (by this time I was about 28, so around 2001) trying to find anything I could on the rapture not actually being in Revelation. There wasn't a lot out there at that time, but I was certain I was not crazy. The only "explanation" I could find about where the rapture occurred in Revelation was Hal Lindsey's interpretation, that when the angel says "Come up here!" to John, he actually is saying that to all the faithful because the word "church" is never mentioned again in Revelation. No, but saints were. I found his explanation flimsy at best, and just downright twisted at worst.
Then one day I ran across an audio series by this guy named Craig Koester from Luther Seminary. I ordered it immediately and listened to it non-stop until I'd finished the entire lecture series. I discovered to my delight - someone else had come to the same conclusion I had. There was no rapture. At least, not the way in which it was imagined in premillennial dispensationalist theology.
Once that element fell apart, so did a lot of other elements. I mean, lets face it... when you suddenly realize all that stuff that happens is not going to something anyone gets "snatched away from," it will shift your view of it completely. Because now all of those judgments are being poured out on the world - both the faithful and the unfaithful. So what does that mean? People may find it strange that I find comfort in the fact that we won't be "raptured" away to avoid difficult times. But somehow, I feel that facing difficult times is not as hard when you have a community around you that supports and uplifts you. It made me feel less... alone.
But it started raising other questions. If the rapture was wrong... what else had I been misunderstanding? So I spent several more years, and much of my time at seminary once I finally went there, re-learning how I viewed this book. How I understood its message.
Initially - I really didn't talk much about my new-found understanding. What did it matter anyway? It was just personal opinion.
It took me a while to finally start realizing - what I thought about and how I interpreted Revelation actually DID matter. It mattered a lot, because we had presidents saying things like they felt the nation-state of Israel played a role in the "end times" and that was why we had to support them pretty much no matter what they did.
This set off some warning signals in my brain. No matter what? Really? Is that what we were called to do as Christians? How do the Israelis feel about the fact that the only reason we support them is because many of us believe that they're all going to convert to our religion one day? Now don't get me wrong - I'm a strong supporter of a Jewish state. After what happened in World War 2, who would blame the Jewish people for wanting their own country? In that regard, yes, I'm a Zionist. I think Israel has a right to exist and defend itself, etc. etc. But... just because they call themselves "Israel" doesn't mean they should get a blanket seal approval on all their actions. So I began looking more deeply at the issues that surrounded the Middle East strife and discovered issues and realities that shifted my stance. I won't get into all that right now, but suffice it to say, the situation is far more complicated than I ever imagined. My heart breaks for all involved, but my stance is that when we live in fear instead of hope, when we try to make prophecy happen the way we think it should we wind up doing the exact opposite of what Revelation's message is calling us out of. We become part of oppressive systems and we violate many of our own ideals of helping our neighbor, the poor, and the oppressed. For when the oppressed turn around and become the oppressors, we have not changed anything. We have merely exchanged one evil for another evil. One beast simply devours another beast.
At 12, I'll be honest... these movies TERRIFIED me. I was so afraid that I was going to be "left behind." Was my faith not strong enough? Was I not good enough? Was I not believing the right things? At night, I would sometimes sneak downstairs and make sure my parents were still there (because if the rapture happened, I was fairly certain they would go). You can imagine my horror one night when I peeked around the corner into the family room and the lights were on, the television was on, but neither one of my parents were sitting in their recliners like usual.
I screamed. Because it had finally happened. They'd been raptured. I'd been left.
(Turned out, they were sitting on the deck because it was a nice evening out.)
For the next probably fifteen years of my life, I lived with this understanding - expecting any day the "rapture" would occur and I would be left to fend for myself. All the "but you believe, you'll be taken" assurances I received from my mother I could not fully believe in my heart. I simply knew I was not a "good enough" person to be worthy of that. I would be left to suffer. Alone. Frightened. Wondering if tortured enough, would I be able to resist taking the mark? Was I going to be damned to hell for all eternity if I did?
Then "Left Behind" came out. A friend of mine and I began reading them and they were pretty much just a re-hashing of the movies I had seen years earlier - just updated a bit. They still scared me. I spent all kinds of time poring over passages like Daniel 7 trying to figure out the whole "weeks" thing. I read other books, like "Prophecies of the End Times" by David Haggith, and "A Woman Rides the Beast" by Dave Hunt... everything I could find on end times prophecies. I was almost obsessed with it. Ok, not almost. I was. It was all interesting reading, and every single one of them upheld this idea of the rapture.
Now I remember this quite vividly. I made it as far as "Desecration" (the 9th book in the series I believe) when in the midst of reading it one day, I suddenly had this strange "voice" that kept saying "this isn't right." The question that kept popping up for me was, "Why on earth would God remove all the faithful at a time when they were needed in the world the most?" This question continued to niggle at me until I finally set the book down and did something weird. I actually picked up the Bible instead.
So, I pulled out my Bible and re-read Revelation. And I re-read it again. I found no rapture. I found nowhere in its pages that even hinted or suggested that there was going to be some sort of snatching up of the faithful prior to this seven year tribulation period.
It was like a thunderbolt - that moment of clarity. That moment of realizing the one thing that had terrified me the most about my relationship with God was suddenly gone. I began scouring the internet (by this time I was about 28, so around 2001) trying to find anything I could on the rapture not actually being in Revelation. There wasn't a lot out there at that time, but I was certain I was not crazy. The only "explanation" I could find about where the rapture occurred in Revelation was Hal Lindsey's interpretation, that when the angel says "Come up here!" to John, he actually is saying that to all the faithful because the word "church" is never mentioned again in Revelation. No, but saints were. I found his explanation flimsy at best, and just downright twisted at worst.
Then one day I ran across an audio series by this guy named Craig Koester from Luther Seminary. I ordered it immediately and listened to it non-stop until I'd finished the entire lecture series. I discovered to my delight - someone else had come to the same conclusion I had. There was no rapture. At least, not the way in which it was imagined in premillennial dispensationalist theology.
Once that element fell apart, so did a lot of other elements. I mean, lets face it... when you suddenly realize all that stuff that happens is not going to something anyone gets "snatched away from," it will shift your view of it completely. Because now all of those judgments are being poured out on the world - both the faithful and the unfaithful. So what does that mean? People may find it strange that I find comfort in the fact that we won't be "raptured" away to avoid difficult times. But somehow, I feel that facing difficult times is not as hard when you have a community around you that supports and uplifts you. It made me feel less... alone.
But it started raising other questions. If the rapture was wrong... what else had I been misunderstanding? So I spent several more years, and much of my time at seminary once I finally went there, re-learning how I viewed this book. How I understood its message.
Initially - I really didn't talk much about my new-found understanding. What did it matter anyway? It was just personal opinion.
It took me a while to finally start realizing - what I thought about and how I interpreted Revelation actually DID matter. It mattered a lot, because we had presidents saying things like they felt the nation-state of Israel played a role in the "end times" and that was why we had to support them pretty much no matter what they did.
This set off some warning signals in my brain. No matter what? Really? Is that what we were called to do as Christians? How do the Israelis feel about the fact that the only reason we support them is because many of us believe that they're all going to convert to our religion one day? Now don't get me wrong - I'm a strong supporter of a Jewish state. After what happened in World War 2, who would blame the Jewish people for wanting their own country? In that regard, yes, I'm a Zionist. I think Israel has a right to exist and defend itself, etc. etc. But... just because they call themselves "Israel" doesn't mean they should get a blanket seal approval on all their actions. So I began looking more deeply at the issues that surrounded the Middle East strife and discovered issues and realities that shifted my stance. I won't get into all that right now, but suffice it to say, the situation is far more complicated than I ever imagined. My heart breaks for all involved, but my stance is that when we live in fear instead of hope, when we try to make prophecy happen the way we think it should we wind up doing the exact opposite of what Revelation's message is calling us out of. We become part of oppressive systems and we violate many of our own ideals of helping our neighbor, the poor, and the oppressed. For when the oppressed turn around and become the oppressors, we have not changed anything. We have merely exchanged one evil for another evil. One beast simply devours another beast.
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