Deeper understandings End-times
Jesus was clear on speculations about ‘that day and hour’
Editor’s note: This series is intended to be a public conversa- tion among teaching theologians of the ELCA on various themes of our faith and the challenging issues of our day. It invites readers to engage in dialogue by posting comments online at the end of each article at
www.thelutheran.org. The series is edited by Philip
D.W. Krey, president of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadel- phia, on behalf of the presidents of the eight ELCA seminaries.
By Barbara Rossing I
f a pollster asked you about the likelihood that Jesus Christ will return to earth in the next 40 years, how would you answer?
According to a 2010 survey by the Pew Research Center on “Life in 2050,” a majority of American Protestants believe Jesus will “defi- nitely” or “probably” return to earth by that year. One-eighth (15 percent) responded that they “don’t know”— even though that is the answer most in accord with Jesus’ own teaching.
Rossing
Rossing is professor of New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. She is author of The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation (Basic Books, 2005), a critique of fundamentalist “Left Behind” theology, and the Bible study “Jour- neys Through Revelation:
Apocalyptic Hope for Today” available from Pres- byterian Women. A longer version of this article first appeared in the May 2013 issue of Gather magazine.
18 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
Recent end-time billboards and predictions—whether radio preacher Harold Camping’s May 19, 2010, prediction of the rapture or the sup- posed Mayan apocalypse for Dec. 21, 2012—heighten people’s fascination with the end of the world. A proph- ecy industry of video games, comic books, websites, television and nov- els capitalizes on our culture’s desire to figure out how and when the world will end.
But the Bible teaches we can’t know the timetable of Jesus’ return.
The rapture exposed
The return of Jesus is a central teach- ing in the New Testament and is foundational for Lutherans and other Christians. But this isn’t the same as the rapture, a word that isn’t in the Bible.
I first heard about the so-called rapture in college when fundamen- talist Christian students tried to convince me that if I did not embrace the theology of Hal Lindsey’s 1970 book The Late Great Planet Earth (Zondervan) I would be “left behind” when Jesus returned.
Similar fears about Jesus’ second coming have been instilled in young people more recently by the “Left Behind” novels, a fictional series set during the supposed seven-year period around Jesus’ coming in the so-called rapture.
The entire rapture notion is antithetical to traditional Christian theology. While proponents claim the rapture is based on a literal inter- pretation of the Bible, they employ a highly selective pick-and-choose lit- eralism. This theology was invented
less than 200 years ago, but it has gained prominence in American cul- ture through televangelists and radio preachers. Rapture theology raises questions about the Bible’s view of prophecy, violence and even Middle East policy. This theology should be challenged and replaced with a more biblical understanding of Christian hope for the future of the world and of Jesus’ coming again.
The notion of the rapture, or a sud- den snatching of Christians up into the air, was invented in the 1830s by British preacher John Nelson Darby, founder of the Plymouth Brethren. Darby took the traditional under- standing of Jesus’ second coming and divided it into two parts: first the so-called rapture, when he said Jesus would hover above the earth and snatch born-again Christians up to heaven for seven years. Then, accord- ing to Darby, after the rapture God would inflict seven years of tribula- tion upon the earth while Christians watch from heaven.
At the end of that seven-year period of death and destruction, rap- ture proponents believe Jesus will return to earth again for the third time to fight the battle of Armageddon and set up an earthly kingdom. Proponents come up with their rapture chronology by cobbling together a reference in the Latin translation of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, with three verses in Daniel and a verse from Revelation.
Jesus will come again Such pieced-together timelines aren’t biblical. The New Testament describes Jesus’ coming in a great
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