The unbiblical, recently-fabricated understanding of The Rapture invites us to escape this world: the last thing that Jesus would have ever taught! “On earth as in heaven” is what he said, not “in heaven away from the earth!” Our world’s future is hopeful. Let’s tell that story and not the escapist narratives that many of us grew up with (and that the Left Behind franchise continues to perpetuate).
I grew up in American church culture, which taught that this “world is not my home, I’m just a passin’ through.” This mentality was reinforced by a wide-range of Bookstore McChristianity kitsch; from movies to books, music to posters, bumper stickers to t-shirts.
World and physicality = bad.
Jesus and spiritual bliss in a distant heaven = goal of the game.
This distinction came with a subset of beliefs about the destiny of God’s world. Eventually this planet would be destroyed and we Christians would “fly away” to heaven at the rapture of the church.
The church of my youth probably had the rapture all wrong. You see, the Bible flows from Creation (Gen 1-2) to Renewed Creation (Rev 21-22). This is the narrative of Scripture. Nothing in the text (if read in its proper context) alludes to the actual complete destruction of the planet. Christ will return to resurrect, to purge, to heal, and to establish the eternal kingdom of God on this earth. Heaven and earth will unite like a bride and husband – for all eternity. That’s it.
This world’s worth to the Creator runs deep and because of this, the world as a whole ought to be intrinsically valuable to us. Physical/earthly realities such as social injustice, violence, hunger, preventable sickness, and the destruction of nature are invitations to the church of Jesus to get our hands dirty and proclaim that this world matters (even in its broken state)!
The unbiblical, recently-fabricated understanding of The Rapture invites us to escape this world: the last thing that Jesus would have ever taught! “On earth as in heaven” is what he said, not “in heaven away from the earth!” Our world’s future is hopeful. Let’s tell that story and not the escapist narratives that many of us grew up with (and that the Left Behind franchise continues to perpetuate).
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