Letter: A perspective on the Rapture

Letter: A perspective on the Rapture

A dozen years ago, Harold Camping, an elderly Christian broadcaster, stirred up a small controversy. After 70 years of studying End Times passages from Scripture and looking at the state of the world, he claimed God revealed to him the Rapture was near. He even named the date.

Given his prominence in broadcasting, his prediction did not go unnoticed. He became fodder for late-night comedians. He also caused a good deal of anxiety for believers, at least those unaware of Mark 13:32.

The fateful day came … and went. Camping awoke to find himself and his followers still here on Earth. To his credit, he apologized for his false prediction. A few months later, he died.

What if he was right, though? What if Jesus did rapture his church, but so few Americans qualified that we just didn’t miss them?

It strikes me that all those I’ve heard, read or seen predicting the Rapture assume they’ll be among those taken. Perhaps that’s a false assumption. Jesus did not say, “Let the well-fed Americans come to me,” or “the properly instructed evangelicals,” or anything remotely like that.

He said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14).

If Jesus started rapturing people today, who would he take? My bet would be on infants and children used as human shields or blown apart by missiles and bombs, children in war zones, hungry children, abandoned children.

I don’t believe most of us would be handed “Get-Out-of-Jail-Free” cards. He’d leave us here, perhaps with the hope we’d finally live out our creed and build a world that, like him, puts children first. Come to think of it, nothing’s stopping us from doing that right now.

John Cunyus
Dallas, Texas