The Apocalypse is supposed to be a good thing, right?

(RNS) As “Left Behind” co-author Tim LaHaye sees it, the United States is inching ever closer to the Apocalypse, and he’s not shy about who’s to blame. “Our president doesn’t seem to get it,” LaHaye recently told talk show host (and former presidential candidate) Mike Huckabee. “He doesn’t understand that some of the things he’s […]

(RNS1-MARCH24) Book jacket for ``The Last Disciple'' by Hank Hanegraaff and Sigmund 
Brouwer. See RNS-END-TIMES, transmitted March 24, 2005.

(RNS1-MARCH24) Book jacket for “The Last Disciple” by Hank Hanegraaff and Sigmund
Brouwer. See RNS-END-TIMES, transmitted March 24, 2005.

(RNS) As “Left Behind” co-author Tim LaHaye sees it, the United States is inching ever closer to the Apocalypse, and he’s not shy about who’s to blame.

“Our president doesn’t seem to get it,” LaHaye recently told talk show host (and former presidential candidate) Mike Huckabee. “He doesn’t understand that some of the things he’s introducing … (are) going to work against our country and (bring) us closer to the Apocalypse.”


Asked if he thought America is living in the end times, LaHaye responded, “very definitely” and said the Rapture — the beginning of the tortuous end of the world and judgment of humanity — was imminent.

But if the Rapture also means Jesus’ Second Coming and the perfection of the world, isn’t that something that he and other Christians should look forward to, and do whatever they can to make it happen?

Yes and no, says LaHaye.

In a follow-up interview, LaHaye said Rapture theology sees the end of the world as divided into three parts:

The Rapture, in which Bible-believing Christians will be taken up into heaven and others will be left behind; a seven-year tribulation period known as the Apocalypse; and finally, the ultimate return of Jesus.

The scenario is grim for some, and relieving for others. And while the “glorious appearing” of Jesus is a good thing, LaHaye said the goal is to not stick around during the Apocalypse.

“I’m trying to get people not to get afraid of the tribulation but to accept (Jesus) Christ as their Lord and Savior so that they can be a part of the Rapture,” he said.


The good thing/bad thing dichotomy about the end of the world can be comforting for Christians and confusing for outsiders. As Jim Bradford, general secretary of the Assemblies of God, put it, “it depends on your spiritual condition.”

The website of the Assemblies of God, for instance, says “the end times will be full of frightening events.” However, “to the Christian who truly loves Jesus, the sudden appearance of Christ in the air will hold no fear, dread, or disappointment.”

Other scholars, however, say the idea of the Rapture is a historically novel and theologically tenuous belief. David Barr, professor of religion at Wright State University, said the word “Rapture” does not show up in Christian writing until the late 19th century, and the biblical imagery popular among Rapture enthusiasts is incorrectly interpreted.

“I would emphasize the amount of imagination that goes into the creation of these scenarios from a biblical interpreter,” he said. Tales of the Rapture “are not part of the biblical text itself.”

Barbara Rossing, professor of New Testament at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and author of “The Rapture Exposed,” agreed.

“The Second Coming of Christ is in the Bible, but not the Rapture,” she said. “That seven year tribulation is new … and it’s incorrect.”


LaHaye and others who subscribe to Rapture theology practice a kind of biblical prophecy that analyses current events in light of the biblical text, especially the Book of Revelation with its flaming angels and horned beasts and Armageddon imagery.

Everything from Obama politics to the creation of the state of Israel can all be found in the Bible, he said. “You’ll have to excuse Christians for pointing out that the Bible predicted (today’s news) 2,500 years ago,” LaHaye said.

And by that standard, LaHaye and others say current events show that the Rapture is imminent.

“There’s no prophecy that I know of — and I’m familiar with most of the end-time prophecies — that needs to be fulfilled before Jesus comes,” LaHaye said. “We have more signs that Christ could come in our lifetime than any other generation in the past 2,000 years.”

Rossing, however, was skeptical of LaHaye’s prophecy, saying there is a difference between biblical prophecy and LaHaye’s “predictions.”

“This idea of prophecy as a script of history written in advance — that is not the biblical definition of prophecy,” said Rossing.


Either way, LaHaye has built his life — and the 63 million “Left Behind” books he and Jerry Jenkins have sold — on the conviction that all signs point in one direction: the Rapture is coming, and it’s getting closer.

People who see that as a good thing just need to be patient, LaHaye and others say. And those who don’t? Well, there’s something in it for them, too, if they can survive the Apocalypse.

“The Second Coming of Christ marks the end of suffering, death, martyrdom,” said Bradford. “It’s also a hope because … evil is defeated, and the other side of that coin is that Christ rules.”

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