Caught up in the clouds

By Tyler Tankersley

Once, I was walking in the Jackson City Park with some friends when suddenly, the sound of a trumpet filled the air.

I didn't want to give myself away, but my heart skipped a beat as I expected that my friends (who I supposedly assumed would not be raptured with me) would be left staring at my pile of clothes after my body had disappeared as I was being called up to heaven.

Instead, I realized, with no small amount of disappointment, that it was simply the Jackson Municipal Band practicing at the park's bandshell.

As I studied scripture in seminary, I was surprised to learn the concept of a "rapture" does not have much of a biblical basis.

The idea of a rapture stems from a recent theological concept known as dispensationalism. The origins of dispensationalism stem from a Scottish preacher named John Nelson Darby in the 1830s.

Darby's teachings were later adopted, modified and popularized as footnotes in a reference Bible published by a man named Cyrus Scofield.

One of the texts that is cited most often as evidence for a rapture is 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11, in which Paul tells the Christians in Thessaloniki, "Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air" (4:17).

Most New Testament scholars, however, believe Paul is not trying to describe a rapture, but instead is trying to provide comfort to those who worry their deceased loved ones have missed out on Christ's Second Coming (the Parousia).

Paul is using a metaphor of a victorious king coming back into his city, and Christians, both dead and alive, will serve as the greeting committee in the sky.

In this passage, we are not zapped up to heaven by God; we are welcoming Christ to Earth so he can reign over and redeem both heaven and earth.

I know wonderful Christians of goodwill who fervently believe in a literal rapture; however, if we are not careful, our belief in the rapture can make us into escapists who do not see the need to work for ecological, social, or political justice.

Instead, we are called to work for the Gospel in the present and not become too concerned with what the future may hold.

As Linda McKinnish Bridges writes in her commentary on 1-2 Thessalonians: "To wade through time with one's eyes longingly focused on the sky is to forfeit all reality. It is in the now that the future has life. It is in the future that the now has life" (143).

Rapture theology also can create a Gnostic set of beliefs in which Earth is a place inherently evil, while we pine to be forever in glorious heaven.

But, the Bible does not end in heaven; it ends here, on Earth.

God comes down to us to "wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more" (Revelation 21:4).

Now, that is something worth hoping for.