[kepha]

Rapture fits into the escape from suffering scenario: "suffering is of the devil, and has no redemptive aspects to it." so it goes.

Does“Pick up your cross, and follow Me…” mean to wear a piece of jewelry, and take a short-cut to the resurrection? Sorry, but that is not Christianity, and neither is the novel rapture theory that all of Christiandom somehow overlooked until 200 years ago.

Matt.10:38- and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

Jesus defines discipleship as one's willingness to suffer with Him. Being a disciple of Jesus not only means having faith in Him, but offering our sufferings to the Father as He did.

Mark 8:34- And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Jesus wants us to empty ourselves so that God can fill us. When we suffer, we can choose to seek consolation in God and become closer to Jesus.

Rapture theory is the opposite of this.

John 12:24- Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

The Passion movie teaches about the suffering of Christ. Catholicism gives meaning and value to our personal suffering and teaches us to unite our sufferings with Christ's sufferings, we participate in Christ’s redemption. Rapture theory teaches that God Himself with save the Church from participating in Christ’s suffering, contrary to biblical, historical and present day realities.

1 Cor. 1:23- Paul preaches a Christ crucified, not just risen. Catholic spirituality focuses on the sacrifice of Christ which is the only means to the resurrection. This is why Catholic churches have crucifixes with the corpus of Jesus affixed to them. Many Protestant churches no longer display the corpus of Jesus (only an empty cross).

Phil. 1:29 - for the sake of Christ we are not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for His sake. Growing in holiness requires more than having faith in God and accepting Jesus as personal Lord and Savior. We must also willfully embrace the suffering that befalls us as part of God's plan. Thus, Christ does not want our faith alone, but our faith in action which includes faith in suffering.

Rapturism is the opposite of all this.

Holy Scripture states that the Lord shortened the Great Tribulation for the sake of the elect. Why would this be necessary if they had been raptured away?

The prophetic texts (e.g. the book of Revelation) state that during the Tribulation the Church will be persecuted to a greater extent than at any other time in history. How could this be if the Church had been raptured away?

Once again, the Apostolic Fathers of the Church (who were trained by the Apostles while being scattered over the then-known world and without modern methods of communication) and the Doctors of the Church are unanimous in their writings that the Church will experience part or all of the Great Tribulation. They make NO mention of any Pre-Tribulational rapture. Stated differently, in order for there to be a Pre-Tribulational rapture,
(1) Holy Scripture would have to be erroneous,
(2) the Fathers and Doctors of the Church would have to be wrong,
(3) all of the theologians for the last 2,000 years would have to be mistaken,
(4) all of the Ecumenical Councils would have to have missed it,
(5) all of the Popes would have had to erred, AND
(6) all of the Marian apparitions such as Fatima (where the miracle of the sun was witnessed by 70,000 Catholics, Protestants, Atheists, etc.) would have to be farces.

Rapture amounts to a re-worded hidden second coming before the end of history that Jesus warned us to ignore.

And finally, the rapture theory is propagated because it tickles people’s ears, sells millions of books, TV evangelists like it because it boosts their ratings, and course, there are the fear based “us against them” movies. Rapturism cannot withstand any honest scholarly scrutiny. They don't even have public debates on the topic, because it has no basis in the bible, history or truth, and I don't think any Protestant apologist has the nerve to publically defend it. At least, I haven’t seen any debates on-line.

If the internet is any indication, just which church is being dragged through a tribulation?

kepha

A very good article on the rapture:
http://www.envoymagazine.com/backissues/5.3/rapture.htm

[Robbi]

I had a look at the link you posted...that was funny when I read that.
I started reding the Left Behind series, got hooked, and ended up buying the whole collection...14 books all up I think?

After all that reading, though it was fictious, it raised a few thoughts about revelations for myself, and probably did fall into the rapture trap!

But I always had in the back of my mind a feeling that LaHaye and Jenkins main influence was a money driven series....each book didnt have that many pages and large fonts compared to your regular novels. Therefore in my opinion they were trying to get out as many books as possible!

[goldenchild]

Yeah, be careful it's craziness, those books.

[Nate]

I've got my Rapture Hatch™, so I'll be alright whatever happens.

[kepha]

I gotta re-hash the same link, I think it is important since so many good Christians have been deceived by all this rapture hype.

http://www.envoymagazine.com/backissues/5.3/rapture.htm

The strong bias against Catholicism is obvious in LaHaye and Jenkins’ Are We Living in The End Times? (Tyndale, 1999), written as a companion volume to the Left Behind books. This “non-fiction” book is dedicated to “the millions of readers of the Left Behind books with the prayer that this book will help them gain a clearer understanding of end-time Bible prophecy.” It contains several pages of tried-and-not-so-true attacks on the Catholic Church.

Claiming that the Roman emperor Constantine’s “profession of faith” was a sham, LaHaye and Jenkins detail the kinds of “corruption” that eventually entered the once-pure early Church: “prayers for the dead, making the sign of the cross, worship of saints and angels, instituting the mass, and worship of Mary — which in the church of Rome was followed by prayers directed to Mary, leading to the 1950 doctrine of her assumption into heaven and in 1965 to the proclamation that Mary was ‘the Mother of the Church.’”

(Just a side note: to those revisionists who claim the Catholic Church started with Constantine's Edict of Milan in 313AD, how can they explain the fact that the closest Church council held at that time was 325AD? (Nicae) In other words, there was no council held at the time of the Edict of Milan. There is no historical evidence whatsoever of this ridiculous claim.)

St. Augustine is glibly described as a “Greek humanist” whose introduction of “man’s wisdom” further “pav[ed] the way for more pagan thought and practice.” Furthermore, St. Augustine’s “spiritualizing of Scripture eventually removed the Bible as the sole source of authority for correct doctrine. At the same time, the Scriptures were locked up in monasteries and museums, leaving Christians defenseless against the invasion of pagan and humanistic thought and practices. Consequently, the Dark Ages prevailed, and the Church of Rome became more pagan than Christian.”

Such a view of history does raise a couple of questions: Can anyone name the top five museums of the fifth century? And do people really believe this trash? Yes, they certainly do, which is exactly what the authors are counting on.

The fundamentalist history lesson continues with a description of Catholicism as “Satan’s Babylonian mysticism” and an obligatory reference to the “pagan practices” of “selling indulgences, teaching the doctrine of purgatory, and praying to Mary.” What? No mention of the blasphemous lighting of candles and singing of Ave Maria? No, instead it’s on to the Jimmy Swaggart-inspired fable of the “40 million persons” — all true Christians — killed by the Catholic Church. And so it goes, a veritable cornucopia of the Top Twenty Anti-Catholic Clichés, conveniently lacking only footnotes and documentation.

Catholics in the Left Behind Books
A Catholic recently told me he was bothered by my criticism of the Left Behind books. “You know,” he said, “they actually have the pope raptured. So they can’t be anti-Catholic.” I encouraged him to read the books more closely since the passage in question, found in Tribulation Force (Tyndale, 1996), is actually an example of how the Catholic faith suffers from cheap shots in the Left Behind series:
A lot of Catholics were confused, because while many remained, some had disappeared — including the new pope, who had been installed just a few months before the vanishings. He had stirred up controversy in the church with a new doctrine that seemed to coincide more with the “heresy” of Martin Luther than with the historic orthodoxy they were used to.

Some folks might miss it, but the intent of the passage is obvious to this former Catholic-bashing fundamentalist: The new pope was secretly raptured despite being Catholic because he had embraced the views of Martin Luther and had, by virtue of this fact, renounced Catholic teaching. So those Catholics who reject the Catholic faith can be “saved” and raptured, with the logical conclusion being that Catholics who are loyal to the Church are not “saved,” are not true Christians, and will not be raptured.

and further on...
Other examples abound. Tribulation Force depicts the leading Catholic character, the American Cardinal Matthews, as a greedy, power-hungry, biblically illiterate egomaniac, whose devious actions apparently are the result of the fact that he holds to “normal” Catholic beliefs and practices. He later becomes the new pope and then the head of an evil, one-world religion called Enigma One World Faith. He is called Pontifex Maximus Peter, and he declares war on anyone believing in the Bible. His anger is especially directed toward “true believers” who meet in small home churches.

For those familiar with fundamentalist-speak, this is a not-so-subtle way of saying that non-denominational “Bible churches” are full of true Christians, while the Catholic Church is evil, anti-Christian, and fully corrupt. Jenkins has insisted in interviews and on the Internet that since the focus of the books is mostly on Protestants, it’s unfair to call the books anti-Catholic. However, I think it’s more correct to say that the books condemn most everyone who denies belief in the rapture, whether Protestant or Catholic, but reserve special scorn for Catholics and the Catholic Church.

http://www.envoymagazine.com/backissues/5.3/rapture.htm

kepha

[cptncatholic]

"In case of rapture ... can I have your car?"

[harryj89]

Kepha,
you really know alot about catholocism and its good to know that there is someone out there who can put up a fight against all the Catholic- bashing protestant jibberish




Amen, Amen I say to you.



note: and catholics are NOT cannibals

[goldenchild]

Originally Posted by harryj89

note: and catholics are NOT cannibals

You don't say!

[harryj89]

Originally Posted by goldenchild

You don't say!

sorry, I just wanted to say that becase I hear thatt alot from protestants.



Harry

[goldenchild]

I know Just an interesting place to put it is all. Good to say, but caught me off guard.

[UrMyOnlyDesire7]

Explain to me how u think that that compleatly does away with the rapture. Im only 14 but i have read a part in the bible i dont exactly rember where i will get that information Tommoro but Jesus specificly tells us to pray that he will come to get us before the end times that we may not have to go through suffering. And who would i be to go against that? Listen to this all of the verses u gave me did not directly tell me anything but here you go Revelation 3:10 "Because you have obeyed my command to persevere, I will protect you from the great time of testing that will come upon the whole world to test those who belong to this world". I will get the rest of the information tommoro froum my Youth Pastor and i will post again as soon as i get it. Goodnight people.

[UrMyOnlyDesire7]

I found one of the verses i was looking for in another forum here you go and thanks to the guy who posted it.

1 Thess 4:14-18
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

And if i rember correctly the word Rapture came from a word that means called up. I dont know for sure but i think so.

[goldenchild]

I have a good book that I believe clears the passages up very nicely. If somebody else doesn't get to it first, then I'll help ya out with it tommorrow. We do believe that Jesus will take us up, but we need to know that there is only one "rapture". This is at the end of the world, when all will be taken up. But I'll answer these later.

[UrMyOnlyDesire7]

Sorry you guys i didnt get the info because i was spending time with my dad....bad mistake but i will try again tommoro

[ICTHUS]

Originally Posted by goldenchild

I have a good book that I believe clears the passages up very nicely. If somebody else doesn't get to it first, then I'll help ya out with it tommorrow. We do believe that Jesus will take us up, but we need to know that there is only one "rapture". This is at the end of the world, when all will be taken up. But I'll answer these later.

Hey Colin! I AGREE WITH YOU ON SOMETHING!

The idea of a pre-trib rapture is stupid, and is present nowhere in the Church's historical eschatology. It's just plain stupid.