Rapture

The death of a Rapture preacher is doubly awkward. Because for Rapture preachers like Tim LaHaye, those passages have nothing to do with death, or with the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

For LaHaye, et. al., those passages are all reinterpreted as the reassurance that Christians will escape death — that death will not apply in our case. Those verses, in their view, are not about death at all, but about the Rapture — about “Jesus coming back to get us before we die.”

To die before the Rapture, then, is to be consigned to the ash-heap along with all the other generations of Christians who weren’t special enough for Jesus to come back and get them. It means not making the cut as one of the special snowflake generation of Last Days Christians — the only generation who will live to see "Bible prophecy" fulfilled, and thus the only generation for whom most of the Bible has any real meaning or application.

It means joining the dispensation of the dead. And it means doing so after a lifetime spent insisting that this would somehow never happen in your own special case.

The Rapture is an event in the eschatology of some strains of Protestantism accompanying the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. First, all dead True Christians™ are to be resurrected. Then all living True Christians™ are transformed into immortal bodies, and both groups are beamed up rise up into the air to meet Jesus and watch the fireworks which are about to happen on the Earth below. Non-Christians and Christians who aren't True Christians™ (such as Roman Catholics and liberal Methodists like Hillary Clinton) must suffer the horrible plagues of the seven-year Great Tribulation (described in the Book of Revelation) as punishment.

An urban legend states that airlines won't allow a True Christian™ pilot to fly with True Christian™ co-pilot (in case NOBODY IS LEFT TO FLY THE PLANE AAAH), but instead require a non-Rapturable co-pilot.

Although originally invented in Europe, its modern popularity is an American phenomenon. It is absent from other strains of Protestantism, such as Anglicanism, Lutheranism or Calvinism, and likewise unknown outside Protestanism, such as in Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. The Rapture features prominently in several works of fiction, including the Left Behind series (which also features the idiotic pilot scenario described above), and films including A Thief in the Night and The Remaining.

Invention
With the deadly heresies entertained and taught by the Plymouth Brethren, in relation to some of the most momentous of all the doctrines of the gospel, and to which I have adverted at some length, I feel assured that my readers will not be surprised at any other views, however unscriptual and pernicious they may be, which the Darbyites have embraced and zealously seek to propagate.

While there were in early Christianity, the seeds for the notion of a rapture were planted back in 1590 by the Catholic Jesuit, who suggested most the events described in the Book of Revelation would happen in the future (Futurism), and expanded later in Puritan circles this doctrine was invented by  (a big cheese among the original  and the founder of the ) and was popularised as dispensationalism.

Darby really, really wanted the sadistic plot devices in the Book of Revelation to be true, but preferably without the bit where "the righteous" suffer as well, so he seized upon this verse as ass cover his justification.

Backing in scripture
The whole thing is based on a tiny snippet from First Thessalonians, 4:16-17:

16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

That's literally the entirety of biblical justification behind all this. You're welcome.

Variations
As the notes, most Evangelicals are "Premillennialists", believing the Bible describes an actual millennium between the resurrection of the dead and Jesus' Second Coming, and within them there're the following variants: "Pre-trib" (which means they believe the Rapture is the very next event on the prophetic calendar, and they will be raptured out to miss the entire Tribulation), "Mid-Trib" (spoused by a minority of them, which means they have to suffer the first three and one-half years of the Tribulation, but all those plagues will be man-made (Democratic US President, worldwide economic downturn, gun control, socialist health care, taxes raised to 39% on top earners, etc.) and they are mild compared to the divine wrath of the last three and one-half years), "Pre-wrath" (more numerous than the former, and meaning they'll have to endure some more time here before being beamed up), and finally others ("Partial pre-trib") believe that they'll be scooped up in groups, including to be brought back to life to that, depending of either when they converted or how much of a True Believer™ they were and are. A few Evangelicals are "Post-trib" who believe will have to endure Tribulation with us, filthy heathens, but they aren't True Christians™ so they won't actually get beamed out.

Finally, alternate and raptureless views include "Postmillennialism", which assumes the Great Tribulation has already happened and took place when Rome destroyed the Second Temple and Jerusalem back in 70 AD/CE, and "Amillennianism", hold by the Catholic Church, the Anglicans, the Orthodox, and mainline Protestant denominations as Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians among others who see the millennium as an indeterminate amount of time and not an actual millennium with the Rapture being at best some sort of mystical union with Jesus.

Previous Raptures

 * See also: List of predictions of the end of the world

...what I'm trying to say is, who has time to go round picking people out and popping them in the air to sneer at the people dying of radiation sickness on the parched and burning earth below them? If that's your idea of a morally acceptable time, I might add. According to varying Christian sects, the Rapture should have already happened about ten times in the last two hundred years.


 * 1843, March 21st - Baptist preacher William Miller predicted Christ would return on this date for a year, before revising his well-researched Rapture theory to 1844, October 22nd. When Jesus didn't appear on that day, several people were bitterly disappointed.
 * 1981 - a prediction from pastor Chuck Smith in Future Survival, 1978.
 * 1988, September 11th-13th - a prediction from the late Evangelical Edgar C. Whisenant in 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988, 1987.
 * 1989 - another prediction from Edgar C. Whisenant in The Final Shout: Rapture Report 1989. Upset that the world didn't end when he first (or second) predicted, Whisenant continued to predict the end of the world in 1992 and 1995, among other years.
 * 1992, October 28th - prediction from Korean group Mission for the Coming Days.
 * 1993 - multiple predictions put 1993 as the Rapture date as seven years before the millennium to allow for the seven years of Tribulation before the Second Coming in 2000.
 * 1994, June 9th - a prediction from Christ Church pastor John Hinkle.
 * 1994, September 6th - a prediction from radio evangelist Harold Camping. 1994 was apparently not a good year for Rapture believers.
 * 1996 - The Church of the SubGenius states that the Rapture occured in 1996, but that the only person in the USA who made the cut was one old beet farmer in Iowa, and nobody even noticed he was missing for three months.
 * 2011, May 21st - a prediction again from radio evangelist Harold Camping after reviewing his botched former prediction.
 * 2011, October 21st - Harold Camping again. Nothing happened, as with the previous two times, and he still won't suck it up and admit he was wrong.

At the time of writing, the Rapture has not yet occurred.

Note that the past predictions of Jehovah's Witnesses are not here, since those refer to the Armageddon. JWs do not believe in the Rapture.

aside that is conveniently ignored by all those of above, it's also worth of note people who try to predict when the Rapture will happen is not liked at all by other Fundamentalist Christians who have often considered they'll be among those who will have to endure the seven years of the Great Tribulation. Besides that verse, one also guesses it's easier to control the sheeps when you instillate into them the thinking that the Rapture may happen at any moment, not at any given date, and if you're not ready you're FUBAR.

Rapture services
It's the Rapture! Quick, get Bart out of the house before God comes!

For the convenience of those who have been Raptured, the website You've Been Left Behind once offered document storage and email sending services back on Earth after their disappearance to Heaven. "Imagine how taken back [sic] [your friends and relatives] will be by the millions of missing Christians and devastation at the Rapture. They will know it was true and that they have blown it." The friends and relatives who are left to cope with Beelzebub and the Fires of Hades will be even more taken aback to receive emails, good wishes and instructions for the distribution of estates, etc. from those Beyond. All this for the princely sum of $40 a year, which is a paltry price to pay for confirmation of one's Utter Stupidity.

Pets will not be retrieved by that Rapture either, and as such, confirmed atheists will need to handle your pets once the rapture comes. These services can be handled by Eternal Earthbound Pets in the US or Post Rapture Pet Care in the UK. Appplying for such care before the rapture occurs will ensure that you are less bound to earthly events and will make sure that you can be accepted into heaven more quickly. See, those pesky atheists do have a use!

An often overlooked consequence of the Rapture would be the instantaneous orphaning of possibly millions of babies, infants, and children. Despite what Christians believe about an "age of accountability", the concept is not in the Bible. All babies are atheist, and there is now a service that promises to rescue these babies in the event of Rapture. Services offered include using whatever force necessary to rescue such children, prevent them from receiving any sort of Mark of the Beast, and of course ensuring their spiritual salvation, too. This business is also run by pesky atheists.

Seriously
Redeem the time you have here and make the most of it, don't just waste it awaiting a Rapture that will never come.

Some fundamentalist Christians believe that the rapture will actually happen, literally, and all good Christians will be taken to Heaven while the heavens rejoice. The rest will be left behind to face the Devil and his tribulations. The bad people will remain on Earth because only Christians are good and good Christians will be guess where, in Heaven. See Revelation for more religious fear tactics.

So what's the fuckin' holdup? People have been talking about this on and off for nigh on two millennia. Let's go already. Or did it happen already and nobody made the cut?

Those who absolutely cannot wait for the Rapture, and want to escape right now, are cordially invited to Go Galt.

Rapture anxiety
Many present and former rapture believers suffer from "rapture anxiety", a religious trauma that manifests itself as depression, paranoia, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. In some cases, former believers experience conditions similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.