April 3, 2005

Rev. Henry Ticknor
Unitarian Universalist Church of the Shenandoah Valley

Waiting for the Rapture

Imagine, you are walking down the aisles of your local super market when you begin to notice several full shopping carts left unattended. Next to each cart is a neat pile of clothing, some carts still have purses and shopping lists resting in the top baskets. Surely, you think, folks can’t be so careless as to leave their wallets out in plain sight. You begin to notice that here are other shoppers starting to take notice of the unattended carts and one person points to the white apron and clothing that had been worn just moments before by the person working in the produce section. And what’s with the clothing, you ask yourself? Who would leave their dry cleaning in a pile on the floor of the grocery store? Then you notice that it’s not just dry-cleaning; it’s everything the person had been wearing. What’s going on you wonder aloud. "It must be the rapture," answers another, "and we have been left behind!"

The rapture? What in the world is going on here?

In case you listen to NPR only or read only liberal magazines, talk of the rapture, or the end of time as some would call it, has been quite prominent in the past few years due to the extraordinary success of two collaborators Tim LaHaye, a fundamentalist preacher, and Jerry Jenkins, a professional writer. Together they have sold over 40 million copies of the 13 books in their Left Behind series. A Left Behind comic book series is also planned.

According to one reviewer, "In case you have been left behind by all the hoopla, here is what you need to know--skipping for the moment, the elements of eschatological soap opera, the romances, births, murders, and nuclear explosions, the first nine books of the Left Behind series entail: millions of born-again Christians and all children, from early teens to those in utero, disappeared. Even their clothes lie around sidewalks and storeswherever their occupants happened to be standing."

To give you a sense of how LaHaye and Jenkins present this material here is a passage from the first book in the series, Left Behind. It is a conversation between two airline pilots flying over the Atlantic Ocean:

"What’s happening, Concorde?"
"I’ve got a situation here I don’t want to talk about."
"Hey, friend, it’s happening all over the world, you know?"
"Negative I don’t know, " Rayford said. "Talk to me."
"You’re missing passengers right, right?"
"Roger. More than a hundred."
"Whoa! We lost nearly fifty!"
"What do you make of it Concorde?"
"First thing I thought of was spontaneous combustion, but there would have been smoke, residue. These people materially disappeared. Only thing I can compare it to is the old Star Trek shows where people got dematerialized and rematerialized, beamed all over the place."
"I sure wish I could tell my people their loved ones were going to reappear just as quickly as they disappeared," Rayford said.
"That’s not the worst of it. People everywhere have disappeared. Orly lost air- traffic controllers and ground controllers. Some planes have lost flight crews. Where it’s daylight there are car pileups, chaos everywhere. Planes down all over and at every major airport."
"So this was a spontaneous thing?"
"Everywhere at once, just a little under an hour ago."
"What are you going to tell your passengers?"
"The truth, I guess."
The terrifying truth was that he knew all too well. The Captain, and, most of his passengers, had been left behind.

It hardly needs to be said that this series leaves itself open to mockery and satire. But the truth is that they highlight many of the beliefs of the Christian right.

According to one author, Barbara Rossing, writing in her recent book The Rapture Exposed, the notion of the rapture had its origins in the nineteenth century. John Nelson Darby, an English Evangelical, promoted the idea of dispensationalism. According to this view, God had divided all of human history into seven distinct dispensations, or ages, and during each time God has dealt with humanity according to a specific set of rules for each age.

Rossing adds that an important tool for popularizing Darby’s system was the Scofield Reference Bible. Rossing calls this book "Perhaps the most important single document in all fundamentalist literature." To which she adds:

Rossing concludes her comments on Scofield by adding, "People are attracted to Darby’s dispensationalist system with its rapture theology because it is so comprehensive and rational--almost science-like--a feature that made it especially appealing during the1920s and 1930s. With the ascendancy of Darwin and sweeping scientific claims in the nineteenth century, many people responded to a biblical ‘system’ that could compete with science in its rationality and approach to history."

Dispensationalists believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible that purports to outline a detailed chronology of the end of the world.

The basic theology of dispensationalists is this: First, a "secret rapture" causes the instant disappearance of all true Christians, who are suddenly caught up from Earth to heaven. This is followed by a seven-year period of tribulation that overtakes all who are "left behind." An inwardly evil man--who looks like Mr. Nice Guy, but who is really Mr. Sin, that is, the Antichrist--quickly rises to bring order out of chaos. As the saga continues, a group of new believers who accept Jesus Christ after the Rapture see through Antichrist's disguise and thus become the Tribulation Force against the Man From Hell. The sinister Antichrist--called Nicolae Carpathia in the novels and movies--then turns his weapons of warfare against the Jews, who are still considered to be God's chosen people. At the end of the tribulation, as the climax of the drama, Jesus returns visibly to conquer Carpathia and his global network of supporters, save the Tribulation Force, and deliver the Jews at Armageddon.

Although the Left Behind series is clearly fiction, the word rapture does not appear in the Bible ever, its core ideas are now embraced by many Christians the world over, having been exposed to them over the media, in magazines, books, seminars, seminaries, and on the Internet.

The "core ideas" may be summarized as follows:

• A secret rapture, which removes God's church from Earth to heaven.
• A seven-year tribulation for all who are left behind.
• The rise of Antichrist, who takes over the world.
• A final battle between Antichrist and the Jews, who are delivered at Armageddon.

Beyond some faulty theology that would make for an entire sermon series, there is something more troublesome about this kind of fundamentalist thinking. And it’s import to insert that not all those whom we would call either evangelicals or fundamentalists believe in this end-time scenario. However, today of the estimated 100 million evangelicals living in the United States, approximately half believe in some kind of end-time theology. Tune in to any of America’s 2,000 Christian radio stations or 250 Christian TV stations and you’re likely to get a heavy dose of end-time theology.

This theology might not be a concern if it was something held in private by those who choose to believe such things. What is of concern, I believe, is how these ideas are beginning to have an impact on matters of public policy in the United States.

According to Glenn Sherer, writing in Grist magazine, "forty-five senators and 186 representatives in 2003 earned 80-to100-percent approval ratings from the nation’s three most influential Christian right advocacy groups--the Christian Coalition, Eagle Forum, and Family Resource Council." The two areas of national policy most directly affected by this kind of fundamentalist thinking are the environment and U.S. foreign policy--especially our foreign policy as it effects Israel.

Sherer goes on to say that, "Many Christian fundamentalists feel that concern for our planet is irrelevant because it has no future. They believe we are living in the End Time, when the Son of God will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire. They may also believe, along with millions of other Christian Fundamentalists, that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded, but actually welcomed--even hastened--as a sign of the coming apocalypse."

Barbara Rossing relates a now disputed comment from former Reagan-era Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, who told a Senate sub-committee that we are living at the brink of the end-times and implied that this justified clearcutting the nations forests and destroying other sensitive environmental areas. When he was asked about preserving the environment for future generations he reportedly told his Senate confirmation hearing, "I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns." This "use it or loose it" approach to environmental issues can be seen in the current administrations desire to open up a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil exploration.

According this thinking why care about the environment? Why care about the earth when the droughts, hurricanes, famines are all signs of the coming apocalypse? Why care about environmental warming when you will be safely living in the clouds polishing stars in heaven? Why bother to consider alternative fuels? Why bother to reduce our nations gluttonous demand for foreign oil? Why bother to care for our dear space-ship earth as it hurdles into the flaming fireball of Armageddon? After all, scripture tells us that God intended for mankind to have dominion over the land and all the animals and all the plants.

Beyond how this way of thinking impacts our environment, it also impacts how the U.S. sees itself in the world community. The writer George Monbiot, recently said in an article for the Manchester Guardian Newspaper, "So here we have a major political constituency - representing much of the current president's core vote - in the most powerful nation on earth, which is actively seeking to provoke a new world war. Its members see the invasion of Iraq as a warm-up act, as Revelations (9:14-15) maintains that four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates" will be released "to slay the third part of men." They batter down the doors of the White House as soon as its support for Israel wavers: when Bush asked Ariel Sharon to pull his tanks out of Jenin in 2002, he received 100,000 angry emails from Christian fundamentalists, and never mentioned the matter again.

The electoral calculation, crazy as it appears, works like this. Governments stand or fall on domestic issues. For 85% of the US electorate, the Middle East is a foreign issue, and therefore of secondary interest when they enter the polling booth. For 15% of the electorate, the Middle East is not just a domestic matter, it's a personal one: if the president fails to start a conflagration there, his core voters don't get to sit at the right hand of God. Bush, in other words, stands to lose fewer votes by encouraging Israeli aggression than he stands to lose by restraining it…."

Today's rapture advocates spotlight the Middle East and the rise of a New World Order led by their own "axis of evil": the United Nations and other international bodies; global media conglomerates; and multinational corporations, trading alliances, and financial institutions. This interlocking system, they preach, is laying the groundwork for the Antichrist's prophesied dictatorship"

For many believers in biblical prophecy, the Bush administration's go-it-alone foreign policy, hands-off attitude toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the war in Iraq are not simply actions in the national self-interest or an extension of the war on terrorism, but part of an unfolding divine plan.

Kinda scary isn’t it? Bill Moyers recently commented that, "One is foolish to think that their bizarre ideas do not matter. I have no idea what President Bush thinks of the fundamentalists’ fantastical theology, but he would not be president without them. He suffuses his language with images and metaphors the appreciate, and they were bound to say amen when Bob Woodward reported that the President was, "casting his vision, and that of the country, in the grand vision of God’s master plan."

I suppose it is easy for religious liberals to be very cautious and skeptical about this rapture stuff and yet I think we need to be more than just skeptical. We need to advance our understanding of humanities place in the cosmos by being as outspoken as those on the religious right. After all, it is the squeaky wheel that gets the oil. And we need to be comfortable drawing on our Unitarian Universalist principles and Purpose to guide us.

We must be tireless advocates for our environment. We must not give sway to the notion that our beloved blue-green planet is just a prop in some divine scheme. We must continue to advance the causes of good stewardship of all our natural resourses.

We must speak out for human rights for all people--for Iraqis, for Palestinians, for Congolese, and for the starving citizens right here at home. We must speak out for the causes of liberty, equality and justice.

Though we are very few, we are a denomination of approximately 200,000 active Unitarian Universalists in the US and Canada, we have a disproportionate access to liberal causes and liberal voices. We cannot give up at a time when our voice is needed more than ever.

I never used to write to my elected officials; now I do so all the time. When Congress was debating the bill to ask the federal courts to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case I fired off a bunch of emails at midnight. So much for my input! But I am always reminded of a wonderful bit of wisdom once shared by Gloria Steinem, "The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off."

So friends, we who so dearly hold to our liberal faith tradition have much to do if we are to protect our right to believe as we do. Abortion, same-sex marriage, stem cell research, a just lasting peace wherever genocide and tribal warfare keep men and women oppressed, these our issues and if we do not address them clearly and loudly, then indeed we may be left behind in spite of our best efforts.

Finally, No less a radio evangelist than Garrison Keillor gives us blessed assurance that all will be well. In a skit depicting life immediately following the rapture he calls several prominent individuals--President Bush, Billy Graham, the Pope and they all answer their phones seemingly unaware of what has happened. However, when he calls a Unitarian Universalist church he gets a recording; "Thank you for calling the Unitarian Universalist Church of America. Nobody is here to take your call so please leave a message and we will return your call as soon as possible. If you are signing up for the committee on housing and urban ministry, press…(one hears the sounds of a trumpet call) Oh, my gosh, all my clothes just fell off and I’m going up in the air…"

Keillor responds, "Unitarian, gone? Let me turn on the radio…"

Radio Announcer, "Meanwhile in Boston, hundreds of men and women who were protesting the war in Iraq suddenly disappeared, according to eyewitnesses, leaving their clothing lying in the street, all of which was made from natural materials by native people and had their political slogans written on it, as well as native American jewelry."

Keillor interrupts the announcer, "The Unitarian have been raptured. Why? They don’t want salvation, they want closure. If a Unitarian ascends to heaven and no one is around to see it, did it actually happen?

We’ll all find out in the by and by.

Amen and Blessed be