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The Old Protestant Obsession With End-Times Myths
TRANSCRIPT
With the civilization in its death throes, many people start scrambling around looking for what we guess you could call "the easy out."
As a point of reference, when the Roman Empire was breathing its last, and the barbarians were swarming over the walls and marauding down the streets, the citizenry thought it was the end of the world.
And remember, when all that was going on, most of the empire had already been either directly converted to Catholicism or at least understood it was the State religion (and had been at that point for over a century). So we aren't exactly talking about a bunch of pagans here worshiping false gods.
The faithful belong to the city of God.
In fact, so horrified and end-of-the-world crazy were they that St. Augustine sat down and penned his tremendous work The City of God, still one of the giant classics of Western civilization and, dare we say, human history. In that opus, he drew the sharp distinction between the city of God and the city of man.
The faithful belong to the city of God and simply dwell temporarily in the city of man. We are citizens of the heavenly city, and what happens in the earthly city should not be considered paramount, his counsel went. Empires and civilizations come and go, but the city of God remains.
Well, approximately 15 centuries later, with various empires having risen and fallen over those centuries, here we are again. And right on cue, the end-of-the-world crazies are at it again. In the Catholic world, it takes the form of almost gnostic prophecies from centuries earlier shoehorned into our contemporary days, and little-known apparitions and isolated mystics and so forth.
But one that never seems to die the death it so richly deserves is the absolute nutty Protestant crap about "the rapture."
For those unfamiliar with it, or only in passing, in short, the rapture is the anti-biblical belief that before the end of the world, all those who have believed in Jesus will be sucked up from the earth and taken up to Heaven, and then all those "left behind" will have to deal with the calamity.
The idea has been around for a couple hundred years in Protestant circles, but because it has no basis in Scripture, unless you go to great pains to twist and distort Scripture, there are multiple contradictory beliefs within Protestantism about the rapture and what flows from it.
For example, there are huge discussions raging right now in more fundamentalist and some evangelical circles about how should a believer live his life based on which version of the rapture and millennialism and the tribulation is correct. And no, we aren't kidding you.
The question on my mind at this point is which eschatological position is correct. The answer to this question impacts everything about how a Christian ought to live his life in these wicked days. I'll explain. If post-millenialism is correct, the New World Order itself is a psyop. The elites are likely using the book of Revelation as a playbook to psyop the masses into hopelessness, and we both can and should overcome this evil.
If pre-millennialism is correct, then the next question I have is whether the rapture is pre-trib, mid-trib or post-trib. Each possibility carries significant implications for how a Christian should live his life in these final days.
Pre-tribulation or mid-tribulation rapture means our time is best spent witnessing the gospel to as many people as humanly possible right now (literally nothing else matters, in my opinion). Post-tribulation rapture would mean our time would be best spent witnessing the gospel, but also preparing to be cut off from the global economy and to have war waged against us. Big implications for parents, especially.
Which eschatological position is correct? Important to pray for clarity on this.
OK, did you get all that? Seriously, a large group of Protestants actually is consumed with all this nonsense. The last point, that it is important to pray for clarity on which eschatological position is correct, that is true, but it's already been answered.
None of that is correct.
It's all based on faulty and bad personal interpretations of Scripture — thank you, Martin Luther (who unleashed the ghouls from this Pandora's box). There's a reason that for 1,700 years or so, no one who called himself "Christian" ever even thought of all this, much less broke down into multiple contradictory positions about it.
Because it's not true. None of it is correct. The underlying assumption is itself wrong. Once again, we see the fault lines in the Protestant heresy — that there is no final authority when it comes to Scripture interpretation, and so this nonsense is the logical conclusion of that.
Luther blew up Scriptures and created an environment where any ramblings from any nutjob with a persuasive personality could be considered "learned" or "authoritative." Take the one point of the rapture, for example.
St. Paul uses the term as it related to a specific practice common in the ancient world: When a king, emperor, great general, or whatever, was returning to the city after a triumphal military campaign, some of the citizens would leave the city and go out to meet him and his army and escort them back into the city where the celebration would break out.
That movement out of the city to greet the victor and the return to the city was called, loosely translated, the "rapture."
We did an entire episode on this topic back in the day in our One True Faith series, which is normally a Premium show, but for this Vortex, we are offering it for free, by just clicking on the provided link.
Don't be taken in by all this theo-hysteria and chasing about for signs and wonders.
We have to be honest and say there is a "flavor" of this approach in some Catholic circles as well, although it's not specifically about the rapture. But these notions and concepts surround various prophecies and apparitions (some even unapproved) by folks who don't do a lot of critical thinking, meaning they don't "discern the spirits" very well.
Such is the byproduct, one of the many, of a crumbling civilization. Be sure not to be taken in by all this theo-hysteria and chasing about for signs and wonders. The best approach is always the authentically Catholic approach, as St. Augustine laid out.
And one last major point — perhaps the most important point — is pretty simple: Who cares if it's the end of the world or not? If it is, then it is, and there's nothing you or I can do about it. If it isn't, well, your world is going to end.
One way or the other, we are each going to be going to our judgment. That's what you should be concentrating on, not crazy anti-biblical ideas that have no power to save, because they are totally wrong.
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By Church Militant
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TRANSCRIPT
With the civilization in its death throes, many people start scrambling around looking for what we guess you could call "the easy out."
As a point of reference, when the Roman Empire was breathing its last, and the barbarians were swarming over the walls and marauding down the streets, the citizenry thought it was the end of the world.
And remember, when all that was going on, most of the empire had already been either directly converted to Catholicism or at least understood it was the State religion (and had been at that point for over a century). So we aren't exactly talking about a bunch of pagans here worshiping false gods.
The faithful belong to the city of God.
In fact, so horrified and end-of-the-world crazy were they that St. Augustine sat down and penned his tremendous work The City of God, still one of the giant classics of Western civilization and, dare we say, human history. In that opus, he drew the sharp distinction between the city of God and the city of man.
The faithful belong to the city of God and simply dwell temporarily in the city of man. We are citizens of the heavenly city, and what happens in the earthly city should not be considered paramount, his counsel went. Empires and civilizations come and go, but the city of God remains.
Well, approximately 15 centuries later, with various empires having risen and fallen over those centuries, here we are again. And right on cue, the end-of-the-world crazies are at it again. In the Catholic world, it takes the form of almost gnostic prophecies from centuries earlier shoehorned into our contemporary days, and little-known apparitions and isolated mystics and so forth.
But one that never seems to die the death it so richly deserves is the absolute nutty Protestant crap about "the rapture."
For those unfamiliar with it, or only in passing, in short, the rapture is the anti-biblical belief that before the end of the world, all those who have believed in Jesus will be sucked up from the earth and taken up to Heaven, and then all those "left behind" will have to deal with the calamity.
The idea has been around for a couple hundred years in Protestant circles, but because it has no basis in Scripture, unless you go to great pains to twist and distort Scripture, there are multiple contradictory beliefs within Protestantism about the rapture and what flows from it.
For example, there are huge discussions raging right now in more fundamentalist and some evangelical circles about how should a believer live his life based on which version of the rapture and millennialism and the tribulation is correct. And no, we aren't kidding you.
The question on my mind at this point is which eschatological position is correct. The answer to this question impacts everything about how a Christian ought to live his life in these wicked days. I'll explain. If post-millenialism is correct, the New World Order itself is a psyop. The elites are likely using the book of Revelation as a playbook to psyop the masses into hopelessness, and we both can and should overcome this evil.
If pre-millennialism is correct, then the next question I have is whether the rapture is pre-trib, mid-trib or post-trib. Each possibility carries significant implications for how a Christian should live his life in these final days.
Pre-tribulation or mid-tribulation rapture means our time is best spent witnessing the gospel to as many people as humanly possible right now (literally nothing else matters, in my opinion). Post-tribulation rapture would mean our time would be best spent witnessing the gospel, but also preparing to be cut off from the global economy and to have war waged against us. Big implications for parents, especially.
Which eschatological position is correct? Important to pray for clarity on this.
OK, did you get all that? Seriously, a large group of Protestants actually is consumed with all this nonsense. The last point, that it is important to pray for clarity on which eschatological position is correct, that is true, but it's already been answered.
None of that is correct.
It's all based on faulty and bad personal interpretations of Scripture — thank you, Martin Luther (who unleashed the ghouls from this Pandora's box). There's a reason that for 1,700 years or so, no one who called himself "Christian" ever even thought of all this, much less broke down into multiple contradictory positions about it.
Because it's not true. None of it is correct. The underlying assumption is itself wrong. Once again, we see the fault lines in the Protestant heresy — that there is no final authority when it comes to Scripture interpretation, and so this nonsense is the logical conclusion of that.
Luther blew up Scriptures and created an environment where any ramblings from any nutjob with a persuasive personality could be considered "learned" or "authoritative." Take the one point of the rapture, for example.
St. Paul uses the term as it related to a specific practice common in the ancient world: When a king, emperor, great general, or whatever, was returning to the city after a triumphal military campaign, some of the citizens would leave the city and go out to meet him and his army and escort them back into the city where the celebration would break out.
That movement out of the city to greet the victor and the return to the city was called, loosely translated, the "rapture."
We did an entire episode on this topic back in the day in our One True Faith series, which is normally a Premium show, but for this Vortex, we are offering it for free, by just clicking on the provided link.
Don't be taken in by all this theo-hysteria and chasing about for signs and wonders.
We have to be honest and say there is a "flavor" of this approach in some Catholic circles as well, although it's not specifically about the rapture. But these notions and concepts surround various prophecies and apparitions (some even unapproved) by folks who don't do a lot of critical thinking, meaning they don't "discern the spirits" very well.
Such is the byproduct, one of the many, of a crumbling civilization. Be sure not to be taken in by all this theo-hysteria and chasing about for signs and wonders. The best approach is always the authentically Catholic approach, as St. Augustine laid out.
And one last major point — perhaps the most important point — is pretty simple: Who cares if it's the end of the world or not? If it is, then it is, and there's nothing you or I can do about it. If it isn't, well, your world is going to end.
One way or the other, we are each going to be going to our judgment. That's what you should be concentrating on, not crazy anti-biblical ideas that have no power to save, because they are totally wrong.