We observe the following:
- The index currently stands at 156, which falls under the "fasten your seat belts" designation. We're not sure how effective seat belts will as protection in case of "rapture."
- The all-time low of 57 (well within the "slow prophetic activity" range) was December 12, 1993. We conclude that Clinton was more effective than anyone had imagined.
- The all-time high of 182 was September 24, 2001. We think we remember what brought that on.
So why do we boo this spiritual resource? Well, we think it's maybe mildly blasphemous to claim to do what Jesus said he couldn't. We admit that the author of the Rapture Index insists that he is in no way predicting the event. Rather, he says, his index indicates whether we are moving toward the end slowly or quickly. Well, we're not sure how that business of time moving fast or slowly actually works. So we're back to the conclusion that this thing offers at least a weak, relative prediction of the day and hour that Jesus says he himself doesn't know.
We'll leave it to others to repeat again all that is wrong exegetically and theologically with the dispensational eschatology that grips so many American evangelicals. But we will here assert our own Index of Jesus' Return.
Our scale runs from zero to one thousand. And it currently stands at one thousand. The world is a mess, what with wars, disasters, genocide, disease, crime, hatred, persecution and the designated-hitter rule. So the index is maxed out.
Actually, it's been stuck on one thousand for roughly a couple of millennia now, thanks to the perpetually messed-up state of things.
The God of Israel is fed up with the world. And he has been for a very long time. He won't tolerate it forever. All that keeps him from ending this mess now is his desire that all should turn to him.
"So when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates."
8 comments:
You realize, of course, that by dissing the designated-hitter rule you've opened up a whole new area of research for Rapture Index: whether Barry Bonds will move to an AL team next year for 666 at bats.
Every morning I pray that God will tarry, and every day he does. So you know who to thank; oh wait you don't.
Mr. Tim LaHaye has done an incredible diservice to the brethren. I can't count how many times I have heard people quote from the Left Behind series and proclaim it as "the way it's gonna happen". I hang my head in disappointment and try to explain the shear disappointment I have for that kind of theology.
In my very first ministry I had one man claim that I was not a Christian because I didn't adhere to a premillenial viewpoint. He asked "What are they teaching at that Bible College?" (Johnson) I told him that our profs taught mostly amillenial he got pretty upset and never spoke to me again.
What ticks me off the most is the continued marketing of this theology. The Left Behind series now contains 14 books. Some are even prequels! There is a line between writing theology to educate and writing theology to make a few million bucks.
Long-time historian Dave MacPherson has found more damning evidence of inexcusable sloppiness and deliberate dishonesty (including massive plagiarism) in the pretrib rapture's short existence than anyone else. His web article "The Rapture Index (Mad Theology)" on Google, Yahoo etc. is worth reading. And the sentence in it summarizing the basic deviousness in the "Rapture Index" is worth repeating:
"The Rapture Index 'precursors' (including 'Antichrist') are on earth even AFTER the point in time for a 'pre-trib' rapture, are fulfilled DURING the seven-year tribulation, and actually point to ONLY the (post-tribulation) Second Coming to earth and not to any sort of 'pre-tribulation' coming - a concept that NO church before 1830 ever taught!" B.R.
No sentence with that many verbs, appositives and prepositional phrases is worth repeating, no matter how much I might agree with it.
Judgment will begin with the household of God.
But I expect my overly long, stringy sentences to be confusing. It's part of the self-depreciating humor.
I find it a little crazy to be evaluating the rate at which the apocalypse is approaching when the fastest it could possibly be is one day at a time. This "data" has no possible meaning outside a postulative date for the rapture. The same could be said about estimating the rate at which one approaches his death, even if he is falling off of a cliff the rate is still one second at a time.
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