Five Myths About the Rapture

Crisis Magazine ^ | November 2003 | Carl E. Olson

[Heartbreak of Psoriasis]

Olson's book is available here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0898709504/qid=1071827107//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i0_xgl14/002-1745116-8828006?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[Ff--150]

Many of these Fundamentalists—including "non-denominational" Christians, "Bible-believing" Christians, "born-again" Christians, Baptists, and Assembly of God members—are antagonistic toward the Catholic Church and her teachings, and a majority of them believe in some form of dispensationalism

As you no doubt have observed conservative values have been attacked viscously. Christians values are going to be attacked likewise.

These are a few code-names they are using, along with fundies, PreMillennial Dispensationalism, and evangelicals.

You suspected this was coming, maybe it's here...

[Gil4]

Article is long on promises, short on biblical, historical, and theological evidence.

[IGNATIUS]

I can understand the appeal of "rapture" teachings. One is just whisked away and avoids Tribulation persecution,no physical death,and since "once saved always saved"----there's no future Judgement.Sounds pretty cool!

But such is not the teaching of historical Christianity.Neither Romans,Eastern Orthodox,nor early Protestant Reformers believed any such thing.EO's consider such belief dangerous and presumptious because it dilutes one's focus upon Repentance, Judgement, and seeking God's Mercy.

[new cruelty]

my head hurts.

[GirlShortstop]

...LaHaye said, "We've [himself and Jenkins] created a series of books about the greatest cosmic event that will happen in the history of the world."  What is that "greatest cosmic event"?  The Incarnation?  The Cross?  The Resurrection?  No, the Rapture -- a modern, man-made belief based on a distorted Christology and an anemic ecclesiology.

Notable bump.

[jboot]

Hmmm, I'm one of those "Evangelical Non-Denominational Bible-Believing Born-Again" folks and I don't hold to pre-trib or pre-mil. For that matter, I'm not fully sold on Dispensationalism either. I guess the labels need better glue.

At any rate, the premise of the article seems to be "these people are dangerous to the Catholic Church" but it fails to prove any such thing. Does it matter what they believe, since they are not part of the RCC? Or is the real concern that the Catholic laity may begin to accept these doctrines? If that is the case, I'd worry a lot more about the "DaVinci Code", with 7 million copies sold and growing fast. At least "Left Behind" is free of any Gnostic heresy.

[Conservative til I die]

Myth #1: The Rapture actually exists.

These dispensationalist, "end times" books represent the worst of gutter theology.

[Conservative til I die]

Many evangelicals *are* anatgonistic towards Catholics.

Stick around the Religion forum for a month or two and you'll see (unless you're one of the said antagonistic Evangelicals, of course).

[Conservative til I die]

Or is the real concern that the Catholic laity may begin to accept these doctrines?

Of course that's the concern. It's not like it's some sort of secret that we view opposing, yet popular doctrines to be a danger to the Church. The Catholic Church doesn't exist in a vaccuum, and we are exposed everyday to gutter theology like the Rapture, the Prayer of Jabez, etc.

[redgolum]

Both my father and I have read many of the Left Behind books. After my dad finished the first one, he called me up to talk about it. We both thought it was an OK story, but HORRIBLE theology.

The biggest temptation when reading end times literature is to adopt a "Holy Huddle" mentality. "The end of the world is coming! Don't worry, we will be raptured out!"

I have read Darby and other advocates of the rapture. As a dyed in the wool LCMS guy, I tend to get a little skeptical when someone comes up with a brand new revelation by twisting around the words in Revelation and Daniel. In short, the rapture is a fairy tale. Yes, Jesus is coming again, and there will be much suffering before hand. No, we do not get a ticket out of the trouble before hand. Those who hold to this, need to look at the origins in the 18th century.

[Heartbreak of Psoriasis]

This is a great discussion.

The thing that concerns me about the Rapture theology is not so much that it threatens Catholics like me with a new "heresy virus" (any Catholic with even the rudiments of the Faith dismisses such enormous departures from Holy Tradition out of hand), but rather that millions of Americans are willing to base very concrete and vital questions of American foreign policy on something as tenuous and speculative as the Rapture narrative.

This is exceedingly dangerous. I believe that the world's only superpower should proceed from a more sober assessment of the world situation than that.

I understand that Protestants reject absolutely the authority of Holy Tradition in favor of Sola Scriptura, and so I accept that an appeal to Tradition is by definition uavailing to them.

Referring only to Scripture, then, I gently ask my Dispensationalist brothers and sisters in Christ how this endless (and very remunerative) speculation on the Eschaton squares with St. Peter's admonition (2 Peter 1:19-20)not to engage in the private interpretation of prophecy:

We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: 20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

I ask this in all respect and from a sincere desire to understand.

[jboot]

I think Catholics (especially American Catholics) are being exposed to many things more dangerous than "gutter theology" (wow, could you possibly come up with a more abrasive and condescending term?) After all, most of these doctrines are not even truly heterodox, much less heretical.

[jboot]

"...Then the rapture happens..."

Not to be picayune, but what specific verse in Chapter 4 implies that the "Rapture" happens?

[Heartbreak of Psoriasis]

Please tell me how you reconcile specultations on prophecy with St. Peter's direct order against it.

We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: 20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

I repeat that I say this with all respect and out of a genuine desire to understand your position.

[jboot]

The churches who were addressed continuously throughout the first four chapters are no longer mentioned, I believe, because they are no longer on earth.

Precisely true. They no longer exist, but the Rapture was not the cause. None of those churches survived the persecutions and natural disasters of the first millennium A.D.