Via Christianity Today: The Rapture Keeps Coming Back | Christianity Today
Key sentences: “…the original resonance of the dispensational Rapture among Christians had more to do with the anxious effects of modernity than with its theological merit. “Signs of the times” is a common trope in Rapture narratives, but in a profound sense, the Rapture’s popularity is itself a “sign of the times,” a byproduct and manifestation of larger societal unease.”
Points:
- “Who would have predicted that in the most secular age in human history—an age in which events are thought to have no ultimate or eternal meaning—a constant sense of apocalyptic dread would loom large?”
- “…21st-century society is oriented around the present moment.”
- “…a byproduct of the focus on the present moment is the rise of what Rushkoff calls “Apocalypto”—a fascination with disaster, doomsday, and zombies.”
- “Living in a flattened timescape, we long for moments to take us out of the profane and everyday.”
- “Christians of all people need not buy into the prevailing culture’s preoccupation with doomsday. Let the world have its apocalyptic versions of the Rapture—Christians have something better. Surely there are movies to be made about not destruction, but resurrection.”