Today, while the Flaming Bag of Poo called 'work' flamed on, I enjoyed a brief email exchange with friends:
Friend -
I have an interview on Monday and am looking for volunteers to practice with me...it's been ten years. Any takers?
Okay, while I know neither of you are conservative Christian right wing republicans I was hoping you may know how long I (who am I kidding - "we") will have to wait for the second coming?
This is the order, right? WWIII, then a Jesus party, then suffering on earth, then the second Jesus party? So how long is that suffering part? I just think I need to plan...
Ding -
Though I'm no longer a fundamentalist, I know exactly this timeline - I even took a class in it.
Rapture Agenda:
1. Trumpet
2. Jesus in the clouds
3. Rapture
4. Worldwide confusion
5. Anti-christ (also heralded by rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem and the resumption of sacrifices)
6. Tribulation of remaining folks, most likely Lutherans, UCC, Episcopalians and Presbyterians (approx 40 years or so, during which we get that dreaded 'mark' or die)
7. Jesus again
8. Judgment
9. Fiery ball of destruction
I think steps 8/9 are interchangeable. So I think you've got some time, there.
Work is kicking my ass all over the place but I'm willing to ask questions like 'where do you see yourself in ten years'? That won't be depressing at all.
Friend -
Thanks for the detailed timeline...now I can actually answer the ten year question with 'rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem.'
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17 comments:
well, in the order of events, either one could follow the other.
it could go judgment/BOOM! or it could go BOOM!/judgment. y'know?
YES!
What other classes did you take? Ooh, tell us about the 'why Catholics are going to hell' class! hee hee!--jpv
Wow. I never quite understood the rapture-mania, nor was I ever that deeply indoctrinated. (And that included growing up in a Southern Baptist church in the bible belt in TX.)
I knew it had something to do with Jesus returns, yadda yadda Jersusalem, yadda yadda judgement and then "every knee shall bow ..." But you know the deets and the order. This makes me SO glad my family left the Southern Baptists when they did.
well, there was the Angelology class that was boring; the Eschatology class; the Basics of the Faith class (where I learned the TULIP); the Hermeneutics/Exegesis class (which I had to drop close to the end b/c the guys in the class resented me being the only girl who actually knew how to write and get up in front of people without freaking out); then there was just the normal, everyday bible classes, where we learned things like perhaps the moon landing was faked.
see? totally normal baptist childhood.
In other news, apparently only white people won't be raptured.
it's all that colonialism that went around.
bad western europeans, bad!
oh, and i forgot one important step between steps 7-9:
the salvation of israel
apparently, the whole rapture narrative is to point to this culmination - the repatration of israel to god.
who says i wasn't a good sunday school student?
This is the best thing I've read lately. It gives me hope for the church.
Those fundamentalists are a hoot.
i particularly like how, in this rapture narrative, we're not even the whole point. we're the ugly stepchildren used just to get the favorite child back home.
heh. kinda pokes a big hole in that 'God likes us best' thing we americans got going on.
Why did you change from being a fundamentalist?
eh, i moved away from home, from my dad's house.
They can't wait.
The unfortunate upshot of all this, is that they want the rapture to occur so desperately, that they are in danger of making it a self-fulfilling prophesy.
The most important question is: ~
After the rapture, can I have your car? :)
if only i had a car!
alas, only the cta bus or my roomie's jetta will know i'm gone.
today, after church, i was walking down michigan avenue and, in a weekly ritual, the pro-israel and pro-palestine were peacefully protesting each other on the corner of michigan and ... where the borders is. before i crossed the street the pro-israel folks gave me some info and when i crossed the pro-palestine folks gave me theirs.
the pro-israel folks had martin luther king jr. on their flyer, saying he endorsed them; the pro-palestine had malcolm x. the absurdity made me laugh.
Which side gets Spider-man? That's the team I want to be on.
hm. hard to say. which side deserves an unmasked vigilante? seems like he's already playing on our team.
how funny, including the whole conversation here that has followed.
and ode to the dreaded mark.
--RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com
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