Neil Johnson wrote:
>
> On Monday 24 March 2003 06:32 pm, Tim May wrote:
>
> > can be destroyed, ushering in the the Rapture and Christ's Dominion on
>
> This whole "rapture" bit always amused me.
>
> Rapture isn't even mentioned in the Bible. It's all based on TWO
> (count'em TWO) verses in the New Testament.
Actually, the pre-millenialist rapture ideas have been going out of
fashion amongst so-called fundamentalist Christians for a while. The
peak of them was probably the 1970s. For the last 30 years a lot of the
"new" churches (keywords "charismatic" "Toronto Experience"
"restoration" "vineyard" etc) have reverted to the older position that
the rule of the saints can be established on Earth by everybody being
converted - which sounds just as heavy, but does mean that they think
that things can get better, so it is worth getting involved in the
world.
The rapture ideas came in as part of "dispensationalism" in the 19th
century (Google for "Scofield Reference Bible") and, even in the United
States, has probably never been the majority view amongst Christians
though it might have got pretty near it in the 60s/70s/80s ("Eve of
Destruction" (Barry McGuire became a Christian evangelist IIRC)
Ken Brown (evil lefty Christian wimp)
"Rumsfeld, Blix Barada Nikto!"
