Eschatology

How Being Rapture-Minded Made the American Church No Earthly Good

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The Rapture--Comic book styleI started to write a clever post today on eschatology, with a setup piece of fiction about a U-Boat sinking a merchant marine ship in WWII and the merchant marine ship’s  first mate running around deck yelling, “I’m going to be rescued now, I’ll get a new ship, and I’ll be made captain!” but I just ran out of steam. Perhaps I’m weary from the mentality a good chunk of the modern American Church displays on the End Times. (A decent PDF chart of the major eschatological views.)

The prevailing view of The End among most Christians in the United States is dispensationalism. If you’re familiar with the Left Behind series of books, movies, and licensed products, you know dispensationalism. You may also have heard of it through the book The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey, which popularized the view. (And let me add, that if you have read LGPE, you’re probably a geezer, just like yours truly.)

The key pieces of dispensationalism: two distinct histories for the Church and Israel, including post-Second Advent of Christ; a removal of the Church from the earth (the Rapture—see 1 Thessalonians 4) before seven years of horrific tribulation; the Second Advent and 1,000-year Reign of Christ; the Revolt of the Nations; and the Final Judgment.

I wrote a paper in college debunking dispensationalism, but of all the things that bothered me about that view, two stick out: its youth and its presumption.

Dispensationalism as a formal Christian eschatology had no real traction until the 19th century, and it was then popularized by one man. A Christian theology that doesn’t appear until the 19th century pretty much insist that everyone who lived before that era was a moron when it came to understanding The End. This includes the folks who built the early Church, because they didn’t hold to a dispensationalist view. Nor did the great Protestant Reformers.

And as I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog, when an idea starts with one man and no one else, it’s worth scrutinizing, since individuals have a strong penchant to get things wrong. And if we’re going to rejigger how the entire Church views The End, getting it wrong isn’t an option.

Part of that presumption that sticks most in my craw is the idea that the Church will be removed from the earth before the real craziness starts. Most eschatological views support the idea that the Church will be “caught up” to meet Jesus. When is the big distinction between theories, with How being secondary.

When I read the Bible, it seems clear to me that in all of human history, God never removed those who believe in Him from pain, persecution, and the fallout of a fallen world. Lot endured Sodom. Joseph lived through the famine. Joshua wandered the desert with his people. The righteous Jews went into captivity in Babylon. The faithful disciples and apostles were martyred. Time and again, the faithful went through the mess everyone else did.

Where they differed from the rest was in how they dealt with it. Faithfully. And with longsuffering.

And yet one of the hallmarks of dispensationalism is the idea that all the Christians will be removed from the planet before the real End Times suffering comes. That seems out of character with everything the Bible shows us about patient endurance in hard times.

Some Christians who follow a preterist eschatology will argue the genuine nastiness envisioned in the Bible happened in AD 70 already, and all this talk of future tribulation is a waste of time.

Maybe.

Regardless, dispensationalism is the predominant eschatology in today’s American Church, and it drives much of how we live.

We base our Christian theology on it.

We base our American politics on it.

We base our American foreign policy on it.

We base our American economy on it.

We base our American environmental policy on it.

We base our American lifestyles on it.

We base our Christian practice on it.

And the major mentality we espouse when we hold to a dispensational view of The End is…

It’s all going to burn,

And I’m out of here anyway.

When I look around at today’s Church in America, I see that mindset. There’s a sense that there’s no need to try to fix the Church and its problems because, hey, “It’s all going to burn, and I’m out of here anyway.”

Doesn’t matter what the issue is. Why steward the earth if God’s going to burn it up anyway? Why prepare our churches to help meet the needs of those caught up in persecution and tribulation if Christians won’t be here to do it? Why do anything that requires bold effort and genuine sacrifice if you’re just floating along before Jesus comes by with His Gospel Ship and you sail away together?

There’s a nihilism there. Can you see it? When we resign ourselves to checking out before the actual checkout, we miss whatever it is that happens before then. We forgo the opportunity to be useful.

As long as Christians have mentally checked out of the world as it is today, I think the Church will be ineffective with whatever time we have left. And it may be that instead of the 10 years some may think we have, we’re due for another 1,000 yet. How long doesn’t matter. A Church that has its Rapture bags already packed is just waiting around, killing time.

I don’t see how any of that is Biblical or even remotely Christian, though.

Onward, Christian Hermits?

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And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
—Acts 2:46-47 ESV

After church yesterday, a friend and I discussed the reality that for many people, their primary source of human contact is Facebook. Alone at duskIn truth, the discussion was more of a lament for what has been lost.

All the small groups my friend and I were a part of are defunct.

I’ll let that sentence stand by itself because it serves as a testament to where we are in our society today. Social media have been a boon for connecting people who are distant, but it seems to have become detrimental to relationships within driving distance. We no longer meet face to face but instead enjoy the distancing mechanisms of technology. Our high-tech gizmoes help us keep up with others to the level we feel comfortable, and they give us the ability to walk away on our time schedule without feeling bad about disconnecting.

Our time schedule.

The early Church decided that meeting together every day mattered. We envy their closeness to the Holy Spirit. I wonder if there is a connection. Hmm.

The Acts passage above said that the number saved grew rapidly. You wouldn’t think that hanging out together would be evangelistic, but some synergistic sharing of Christ happened nonetheless.

The Acts passage notes that people thought positively about the Church because of its strong emphasis on connecting with others and being obviously friendly and social. How different from the PR the Church in America “enjoys” today.

Of course, there was also that “iron sharpens iron” thing. I guess the modern replacement is flaming each other in an online post’s comment thread. Less a sharpening and more a tempering, I guess. Temper, temper…

I think if you really pressed Christians today, few would be able to give a spiritual reasons why getting together daily is worthwhile. I think most see wisdom only in meeting once a week, twice at most. Wouldn’t want to overdo a good thing.

That reticence makes me wonder, though.

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
—2 Peter 1:5-8 ESV

If God is love, and love is the highest expression of a complete Christian life—as noted in the Peter passage above—how is it we can barely stand to be together once a week? What does it say about our effectiveness and fruitfulness in Jesus if meeting together once a week is all we can muster?

Perhaps for all our talk of community and brotherly love and affection, we don’t really like each other all that much. If we truly do, wouldn’t getting together more often be a priority?

More and more Christians think we are in the last days of The Last Days. A verse that speaks to that:

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
—Hebrews 10:24-25 ESV

How is it then, if the Final Day is indeed drawing near, that we seem to be getting together less often rather than more? Does our reticence to meet actually reflect a willful disobedience? Have we all secretly fallen under the spell of the “powerful delusion” the Bible warns of, with our lack of meeting a physical expression of our mental dissonance?

Talk of mental health issues have dominated the Godblogosphere in the wake of the suicide of the son of noted pastor Rick Warren. I wonder how many mental health cases could be healed without medicine by the simple act of people fellowshipping more regularly.

Can we admit that something is wrong with the way we interact today?

A different friend confessed to me a couple years ago that he felt a greater kinship to the people with whom he plays board games. That affinity group bore each other’s burdens better and dispensed more grace than the Christian small groups he had been part of. What a sad indictment!

I can think of no greater distinguishing mark of the Church than the idea that no collection of individuals exhibits deeper love for its members. So, is this the case?

We wonder why people are increasingly eschewing Church. Perhaps our community and fellowship issues are ground zero for revival.

A Powerful Delusion

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The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
—2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 ESV

After an evening of gaming at our friendly, local game store with my son and his friend, we did the mandatory munchies run. Unable to cope with the odd collection of rambunctious folks inhabiting the dining room of the nearby McDonald’s at 10 p.m., I decided we would eat in the bed of my pickup out in the parking lot. A fair, lovely, clear night…why not? Overhead, a half moon blazed brightly, but the night sky was a curiously empty canvas of unrelenting black.

Where were the stars?

From the corner of my eye, I could barely make out Mars, but Venus was nowhere to be seen. One expects those two planets to be visible, but the emptiness of the sky was still startling. I live in the countryside, and even though southwest Ohio is one of the worst spots in the nation for stargazing, I still get a decent view of the night sky at home, with the Milky Way band clearly visible.

Still, nothing here compares with the overhead view I witnessed in northern Ontario in the early ’80s. I was on a lake so remote, I think the human population density was about a dozen people per 10 square miles. The stars there? Well, you could read by them. They were that bright. And the reflection of that star-laden heavens in the lake surface was simply glorious. Wow.

But sitting in a McDonald’s parking lot 25 miles from my house, near a shopping mall flooded with unnatural light, the manmade daytime overwhelmed the celestial story intended by God to speak His praises.

The Holy Spirit nudged me then, and I could not escape the words of 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12.

If I had never been to northern Ontario, never lived in the country, if my home had always been somewhere near this shopping mall ablaze with electric light, I would have no idea that in that murky blackness overhead, billions of suns burned with fusion’s fire. The heavens that declare the glory of God would be silenced, a dark cloth stretched across the expanse of sky, save for the solitary punctuation of the moon.

How would anyone know that stars lay beyond the cloak of artificial darkness? Unless all the manmade lights were quenched, one never would.

How would you convince someone that anything bright existed in that unremitting blackness? Don’t the eyes alone reveal the truth?

A powerful delusion.

People in the grip of a powerful delusion do not know any better. They cannot understand anything beyond what that deception allows. It informs all parts of their personal experience.

“Pinpoints of light so widespread and bright that you can read a book by them? In the night sky? Nah!” And someone laughs at your stupidity and fanciful imaginings.

I offer some thoughts and questions following. Nothing fully formed. I’m not sure that all of them are worthwhile. I simply offer them.

I wonder sometimes if even “church folks,” people like you and me, are caught in the powerful delusion. I wonder if we are seeing clearly, if the figurative stars are visible, or whether we are creating our own unnatural light to compensate and making matters worse.

The star-filled nighttime sky in Ontario was more than bright enough for me to go about my business after dark. Reflected in the lake, it was even more powerful. The night was aglow.

Are our efforts to be light in this world manmade? Artificial? Unnatural? Are we reflecting the true, natural light? Or are we creating a fake alternative that only serves to wash out the true, natural light, effectively replacing the heavens that shout the glory of God with an empty canvas?

Are we contributing to the powerful delusion?

Should we partner with God to enhance the delusion He has sent? Or is our task to do what He asks and keep telling people that there is more to this life than they can see?

Can people caught in the delusion ever break free of it? Or are they doomed to an empty night sky, devoid of the praises of God?

What of “church folks” who receive perpetual doses of artificial light? Does it blind them to the natural light? Will they ever see the natural light amid the washout created by all the fake spotlights we throw up in an effort to draw attention to what we think is genuine, but which may not be?

What if you and I are caught in part of the delusion, even a bit? Would we know? The passage in 2 Thessalonians says the delusion will look remarkably like the genuine. Would we be wise enough to discern that there is more than what we are seeing? And that our own efforts to recreate the light may in fact be blinding us to the real thing?

Somewhere overhead, there are stars burning in the void. And their message is that of the angels. More than anything, God, please, help us to see and hear only that which is of you, and which persists eternally beautiful, filled with the One True Light.