Photo by Bruce Christianson on Unsplash
By now, we’ve all heard about the Christian theory that the Rapture was supposed to happen Tuesday. According to fundies, this was the time that people would just disappear into thin air or get slurped up by God — right into heaven.
TikTok was rife with people talking about how they were preparing. Some Christian influencers were offering tips on how to break away from this earth safely and seamlessly. Others were offering seemingly heartfelt farewells.
This craze all started after South African priest Joshua Mkhaleka started to discuss it, saying that God came to him in a dream to reveal the date. His preaching started to spread like wildfire, especially among America’s more extreme Evangelical side.
Problem: The Rapture didn’t happen.
TikTok is great for finding a new cult to belong to, isn’t it?
Well, the Rapture was supposed to happen and it didn’t — to most people’s (non)shock.The Evangelicals who thought the Rapture was going to happen ended up wth a lot of egg on their face.
What makes this wild is that many Evangelicals on TikTok were posting some really wild stuff they were doing:
Some offered farewell messages for their viewers or even taped themselves saying goodbye to loved ones. Yes, some mothers even posted their goodbyes to their kids because…apparently they thought their kids were too evil to be saved?
A handful apparently gave away most of their worldly possessions in a bid to do right at the end of the world. While I haven’t been able to fully confirm any of these claims, I’ve seen some people claim they sold their cars or gave away their homes as a result of this prophecy. One definitely did sell her house, though.
Others warned people not to look up when people start floating off into the sky. Apparently, this was part etiquette, part worry that the heathens will get smited by god.
Others discussed their anxiety at the idea of being raptured. Uh, yeah, I can understand this if it were actually part of Christian doctrine.
At least one woman tipped two waitresses over $1000 each. She came back after the rumored Rapture to ask for the money back. This has apparently happened befoe with other Rapture “scares.”
The irony here is that the Rapture isn’t an official part of the Christian doctrine.
I don’t think it’s in the gnostic texts, either. The concept of the Rapture, where people fly up to Heaven because God says so at a random time, was actually first started as a concept from theologian John Nelson Darby in the 1830s.
The entire idea of being raptured by God was never expressly mentioned by the Bible. In fact, there’s reason to believe that most of the passages linked to this idea actually mention that the rapture would only happen to DEAD Christians — as in, Christians that already passed away.
What Pastor Google AI had to say about it.
So, while it was alluded to (in theory), the truth is that the Bible never discussed it. So, people are actually making stuff up to believe in. Despite all this, it was a major thing — one big enough to make people pull crazy moves.
It’s worth noting that Doomsday prophecies tend to become increasingly common during times of international distress.
I have to hand it to these fundies, they have a lot of nerve.
I mean, let’s say that they do believe that God will grab a bunch of faithful humans up to heaven some day. Okay, I won’t knock that. I worship cats, after all. However, the whole idea of the Rapture as they say it is is all about the most faithful, Christ-like people.
I can’t help but notice a couple of things that aren’t very Christlike about a large swath of the people who were 1000 percent sure that the Rapture would take them:
A lot of them have political beliefs that rail against the Bible’s teachings. The ones who hate their neighbors because they’re from a different country or who hate gay people really come to mind on this.
Most of them do not try to make the world a better place for the downtrodden. It’s no secret that Evangelicals often believe in “prosperity gospel,” which teaches you that God rewards faithful people with wealth. Wasn’t there a passage about it being harder for a rich man to get into heaven than a camel through a needle’s eye? Well, regardless, they view poverty as a sin and often take away the safety nets people who are in dire need rely on to survive.
Despite warnings against doing so in the Bible, they tend to act “holier than thou” and push Christianity onto others. That’s quite literally the opposite of what Jesus wanted. They act like the Pharisees.
They also seem to ignore the fact that the Bible says no man will know when the end is near. I guess they just decided to believe the randofrom South Africa instead.
And their judgment of others is alarming AF. One woman was recording herself saying bye to her kids and another allegedly decided to try to drop off kids at CPS because she thought she would be raptured but her kids weren’t.
So, uh, lemme get this straight, okay?
These people decided to make the world a worse place for everyone to live in because they wanted to keep their tax dollars while deporting brown people. Then, they pushed sexist crap into schools.
Then they ignored their own holy book’s teaching in favor of a rumored happening by a grifter…and they’re shocked that they’re not in heaven? Holy shit, man. If I was Jesus I would ask them what the hell they thought would happen!
Even if the Rapture was real, I doubt they’d be the ones going up. So uh, maybe they should start looking in the mirror and take this as a valuable lesson in cultivating one’s one relationship with the deities of their choice — without a random bubba telling them to sell their cars to heathens!
Signed,
A heathen
Psst…I have a new Beehiiv that allows you to pay what you want. No Substack involved!
Heathens gonna heathen.
