If you haven’t figured it out by now, the rapture did not occur on May 21st 2011 as predicted by Harold Camping. There were those who took him seriously. They gave up their jobs, savings, and euthanized their pets. Camping’s ministry Family Radio put millions of dollars into a campaign to bring awareness of the rapture worldwide. There were those who didn’t believe him and most of us—myself included—spent our supposed pre-rapture days joking about it. Even the most serious media attention was covered with an undercurrent of comedic disbelief. Aside from a very good article by my friend Jeff, almost no one has actually given the event any serious attention.

The truth is that the Christians who believe in the rapture are a very loud minority. It would have been great if other believers had utilized this media attention to actually talk about what we really believe about eschatology (the study of the end times). I want to discuss eschatology and how it relates to the behavior of Christians.

I have met a lot of Christians obsessed with the end times and what bothers me most is how divisive they are about it. They are repeating history. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus completely blindsided the Jewish community at the time. The Jewish leaders had very strong opinions about how the Messiah would come about and none of them were even close in spite of it being right in front of their faces. It was obvious and they still got it wrong. Yet we seem to think that we can get it right. So before I get too ambitious I want to take a step back and admit that there’s a good chance we’re all wrong about this whole deal. But I also think my take on eschatology leaves a lot of room for error while also centering on what is the Gospel.

As I said, eschatology is the study of end times or—literally—last things. Christians believe that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus—God incarnate—made the way for them to be right with God. Jesus also claimed he would come again. The details are primarily outlined in Revelation, a book that is written in the form of traditional apocalyptic literature making it a little difficult for the 21st century reader. The interpretation of this and other eschatological Biblical texts is very divided. Some believe in the rapture—primarily based on a I Thessalonians 4 verse—an idea that somewhere in the future Christ will return and some or all of the believers will be lifted to Heaven to be with him.

I could spend pages discussing why this belief is categorically false. Other, better studied writers have expounded elsewhere and I think it best to leave it to them. What I’d rather talk about is why we can’t predict the Second Coming and why predicting it doesn’t matter.

The favorite passage to dispel any prophecy about the Second Coming is Mark 13:32-33: “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come.” This could be interpreted that Jesus was only speaking about his present time, that when he said this no one knew, but now in the 21st century we can know. I think that’s stretching the truth and of all the Bible passages to debate, this one seems pretty concrete. But it is the other part of this verse that interests me.

Let us say that the rapture does exist and that we can predict it. For some people who believed Camping it meant giving up money, jobs, school, work, family. For Camping it meant $100 million dollar ad campaign to raise awareness about the rapture. Yet they believed in the Second Coming before they thought they knew when it would be and here is Jesus in Mark 13 telling them to always be ready. “Be on guard! Be alert!” Given this, how does knowing the date make a difference? Shouldn’t we be living as if Jesus could come back at any moment? Yet we still take on our jobs, pets, savings, and normal lives. Are they all made meaningless if Jesus comes back? If Camping was right, shouldn’t all Christians everywhere have done like Camping’s followers all along? There’s an even bigger problem that interest me.

Most evangelicals, Camping included, would agree that to be saved one must believe that Jesus died and was resurrected for their sins. And that someone who believed that but didn’t know about the Second Coming could still saved. Yet, Camping spent his time raising awareness about the supposed rapture. What good is knowing about the rapture if you don’t know who it’s really about? I would much rather someone believe in Jesus than know the date of the rapture. The money and efforts were a waste and that’s a greater sin than getting the date wrong.

What happens in the end times and what should we do about it? As I said, there’s a lot of debate and about the only thing Christians agree on is that there will be a second coming. Some views of the end times suggest that God will destroy the world. So, what’s the point of anything? Tell everyone about Jesus and don’t worry about climate change, world hunger, having a job, or obeying Matthew 25. Other views think that Jesus is going to come back one day and just fix everything. Again, what’s the point? Some believe that since the Resurrection everything is improving all of the time. Thanks to some recent natural disasters and wars that’s a dying theology.

When do the end times start and when do things get better? Well, kind of now and kind of not yet. Here’s the conventional Gospel story: Christ died for your sins. It’s true, but it’s not the whole story. The whole story is that God created a good and perfect world. That world became imperfect when humans first sinned. This sin allowed death and decay into a world that really wasn’t meant for those things. It was meant for good. God answered this pain and suffering in the most unimaginable way possible. He became one of us and endured the same pain and suffering. He lived a perfect life and dealt with the pain and suffering in this world by enduring the worst part of it: Death. He died and three days later he returned from the dead, resurrected. Through this act, sinners who believe this story are now made right with God.

What’s different about this version? The Resurrection. It’s a very important part and it is often forgotten or ignored. But it’s important. The Resurrection means the end times are now: God’s Kingdom has come. Jesus coming back to life means that all of creation is no longer under the rule of death and decay but now given the chance of new life. It’s in the Lord’s Prayer “Thy Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven.” And it is prophesied in Revelation 21 where the new heavens and earth collide and God says “See, I make all things new.”

Jesus is resurrected, which is the first glimpse of what is here and what is coming. But people still die and bad things still happen. God’s Kingdom is here and now, but not yet. How is that? Paul makes sense of this in Romans 8. He talks about how all of Creation is redeemed in Christ. It has been conceived but it’s not yet born. We are in between the pregnancy and the birth. Yes, new life is coming but we are in the labor pains. It is exciting. Scary. Thought provoking.

Religion makes people do things so that they can be saved. It is a means to an end and that end is ultimately ourselves. Christianity can be made into a religion, but the message of Christ is not religious. If you are asking “How can I not go to hell?” you are asking the wrong question. Christianity is about a gift. It’s about God giving us a redeemed life. You don’t have to believe anything about the end times or rapture. You certainly don’t have to (and can’t) be a good person. You just have to want relationship with God.

“Love that will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you
It will set you free
To be more like the man
You were made to be”

Mumford and Sons “Sigh No More”

We have meaning. Our jobs, environment, life, stuff: it all matters. I’ve outlined how God is redeeming Creation. Now for what it signifies to us. Before Christ, God’s presence on earth dwelled in a very sacred part of the Jewish temple. Humans are sinners and God cannot be among sin because he is perfect. After Jesus, those who believed could now be viewed as clean by God. So, what did God do? I Corinthians 6 says that our bodies are the new temple (this happens in the events of Acts 2).

So, God is redeeming Creation and God dwells in believers. Therefore, God is redeeming Creation through believers. It’s not to say that he needs believers to redeem Creation. It is a gift to us.

The message of the Gospel is Jesus and the implication is that all things are made new. Christians are to carry this message and live out the implication. We are to make all things new. What does that look like? Love your neighbor (everyone, particularly the people you come into contact with) and love God and show it. Love your enemy. Leave things better than you found them: your relationships, your environment, your life, the lives of others. Be nice to the barista even if they don’t deserve it, pick up trash on the sidewalk, excel at your job (that you may not like), play great music, paint a picture. Read Matthew 25. It says to help the least fortunate people. Take what is broken and make it new. Create and restore.

“There’ll be no shelter here
The front lines are everywhere.”

Rage Against the Machine “No Shelter”

I doubt Rage Against the Machine had Christianity in mind, but it’s quite applicable to evangelism. The mission field is wherever you go. It’s not about knocking on doors or running up to strangers and telling them about Jesus. It’s not about bombarding our friends with tracts and Bible verses. It’s about no-strings-attached relationships with people. Jesus loves you, you love Jesus, you love your friends.

Most of my friends are non-Christians. I have found that it’s almost impossible for me to have an in-depth conversation without talking about Jesus. Sometimes they get uncomfortable and I evaluate whether I’m being insensitive or if they are actually too sensitive. I want to push boundaries, but I certainly don’t want to create them. If my non-Christian friends never converted to Christianity I would still love them and treat them the same. It’s no-strings-attached friendship, yet I desperately want them to know Jesus.


The End Times aren’t about the rapture. They aren’t about Postmillennialism or Premillennialism. They are about the Gospel. The Resurrection of the Jesus means new life for everything. It means that when done right things like art, sex, nature, and life are God’s Kingdom breaking through. They are celebration of Christ and when that is realized it truly fulfills us and gives us freedom.

*For the purposes of brevity my point is ultimately watered down, however much of it is expounded on in N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope.

As the New Atheism movement gains momentum, philosophers and public intellectuals are making known their strong feelings against religion. No longer passive or content to tolerate religion, the likes of Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, et al have launched some of the most venomous attacks against religion. They are quite warranted in their cynical skepticism as many of the modern tragedies are inspired by faith and religion. Furthermore, statistics show that many of the most educated and wealthy nations have a relatively high percentage of atheists and agnostics and this would seem to confirm the Sam Harris notion that utopia is absent of religion. It would also seem that the irreligious groups have cornered the believers, drawing the correlation between religion and destruction. After all, ask one person to name atrocities in the name of religion and seldom is he or she pressed to remember the Crusades, 9/11 terrorists attacks, and other holocaustic examples. Ask the same individual to recall acts of violence—big or small—in the name of atheism and it would seem surprising if they could think of anything at all.

The Christian lens views atheists as malicious and vulgar. This is in-part due to scriptural interpretations that supposedly depict nonbelievers as violent nihilists. It is also due to the philosophical belief that without a god that is good and true that there is no basis for morality or reality. The former is a falsehood as a closer look at the Bible teaches that the human condition in general is violent and nihilist. Their god’s supposed wrath against nonbelievers actually extends to all of humanity (“for all have sinned…”). Of course, it is a debate between the various denominations on how one is made right with God. The latter perception—whether true or false—believes all atheists to be evil. This is obviously hypocritical as religion has been quite the destructive force over space and time. In fact, Sam Harris flips the philosophy on its head and “argues that, unless we renounce faith, religious violence will soon bring civilization to an end.”

Statistics show that nation with a higher concentration of atheists tend to be more educated and wealthy. According to Phil Zuckerman in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Japan are in the top five of the countries with the highest level of atheism. They are also known to be remarkably well off in economy and academics. Sam Harris fantasizes of a utopia with “a religion of reason” in which “We would have realized the rational means to maximize human happiness. We may all agree that we want to have a Sabbath that we take really seriously. [I]t would be a rational decision…We would be able to invoke the power of poetry and ritual and silent contemplation and all the variables of happiness so that we could exploit them…[W]e would have prayer without bullshit.”

Upon taking a closer look at the Contemporary Numbers and Patterns in the Cambridge Companion one finds a rather interesting phenomenon. While Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Japan are in the top five countries with the highest percentage of nonbelievers the number two country is Vietnam. Vietnam remains a peripheral country, so obviously there is a difference. To explain this Zuckerman separates atheism into two categories: “coercive atheism” and “organic atheism”. In coercive atheism, the belief is forced. All such countries— Vietnam, North Korea, Soviet Union, et al—are/were “marked by all that comes with totalitarianism: poor economic development, censorship, corruption, depression, and so on.” In organic atheist states, “nonbelief has emerged on its own… [and] are among the healthiest, wealthiest, best educated, and freest societies on earth.”

Once atheism is institutionalized the violence begins. Just the mention of North Korea brings to mind imprisoned or murdered Christian martyrs, not to mention the nonreligious oppression. Atheism as an institution isn’t so harmless anymore. Though Sam Harris might argue that he wouldn’t intend to institutionalize atheism, it does give one pause to his terminology “the religion of reason.” And even if all of the irreligious public intellectuals fought against the institutionalization of atheism, it has already begun with atheist churches and the so-called New Atheism.

Obviously Hitchens, Harris, and Dawkins—no matter how bitter they may be—are physically harmless. As are most Christians. It is the institutionalization of such beliefs—atheism, Judeo-Christian religions, and others—that leads to radicalism and violence, not the beliefs themselves.

It may be argued that there’s a difference: That violence is mandated by scriptures, where as Reason has intrinsic accountability. In some cases this is true. Various religions, including Judaism (and Old Testament Christianity), have supposedly involved God-mandated war and slaughter. I would argue that there is no modern call to violence on part of Jewish or Christian scriptures. Reason has been known to be flawed given a chance. The failure of the Communist system attests to humanity’s tendency to abuse a good thing, and it may even be argued that Russia’s trial in Communism was a natural experiment in Harris’ fantasy. A world without religion, where reason was God, that ended in disaster. Believers and nonbelievers alike engage in irrational criminal behavior sometimes out of desperation, passion, or blatant disregard for the greater good. Sam Harris’ “religion of reason” cannot save humanity.

It is further arguable that reason alone is not anymore self-sustaining than faith. Reason is required to prove that reason exists, and therefore is presuppositional. Of course, it might be argued that I just used reason to prove reason does not exist, but I have not said reason doesn’t exist, only that it is presuppositional. Not all that is presuppositional is unreasonable.

It is not unfair to call Christians to a moral obligation to deinstitutionalize (to one degree or another). The church community is valuable, but the dogma and superstition is rightfully attacked by New Atheists. Right belief in the Bible, God, and Jesus should be no more harmful or unreasonable than the unbelief in those things. Harris and others are legitimate in their call to reason. Blind faith is no longer fair game and Christian evidentialism has failed, but with the rise of New Atheism and the widespread public intellectualism technology has afforded humanity, it is time everyone on both sides came to the table with educated opinions, critical thought, and sharp minds.

References
Phil Zuckerman, The Cambridge Companion to Atheism.
Romans 3:23
Gary Wolf, “Battle for the New Atheism”. - Quite a bit referenced this fantastic article on Richard Dawkins website by Gary Wolf.
http://richarddawkins.net/article,228,Battle-of-the-New-Atheism,Gary-Wolf--Wiredcom