July 06, 2025

Throwback: Scary Things

29 minutes

We get a lot of questions about hell, the rapture, and end times. So awhile back, we did a series on Scary Things. For this week, we have another throw back episode from this series. For this one, we’ll focus on the Rapture and the End of the World.

We’re talking all about end times, the rapture, and other “scary” things from the Bible. We are certain that no matter the religion or faith you were brought up in, you’ve probably heard something or another about the end of the world and in this episode, Brian and Fr. Shay talk about what they were taught, whether they believe in the rapture, and a hilarious (twisted?) rapture-themed practical joke from Shay’s childhood.

Resources:.

Listen to all the Scary Things episodes: https://www.queertheology.com/podcast/424/

Join our online community at Sanctuary Collective Community

If you want to support the Patreon and help keep the podcast up and running, you can learn more and pledge your support at patreon.com/queertheology

This transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors or omissions.

(9s):

Welcome to the Queer Theology Podcast. I’m Brian G Murphy. And I’m father Shannon, T l Kearns. We’re the co-founders of Queer Theology dot com and your hosts from Genesis, revelation. The Bible declares good news to LGBTQ plus people and we want to show you how Tuning in each week on Sunday for conversations about Christianity, queerness and transness, and how they can enrich one another. We’re glad you’re here. Hello, hello. Hello. As you can tell from the title of this episode, we are coming to you today with another Throwback episode. There’s just so many gems that we want to share some more of them with you. And this one in particular we picked because it touches upon some themes that we’ve been seeing a lot of inside of the sanctuary community and the discussions that folks have been having, the questions that they’ve been asking, the ways in which they’ve been responding to stuff that’s going on in the world and in their lives, as well as some of the comments we’ve gotten on our Instagram, some emails that we’ve received recently that this sort of like idea of hell or disappointing God or being punished because of something we’ve done wrong looms large over many of us.

(1m 13s):

And that is true for folks that even into intellectually don’t believe that there’s a hell or intellectually don’t believe that God is punishing them. Still, we are finding that sometimes there’s like some lingering fear going on, or just like not sure how to respond to people. If there’s a well-meaning parent or friend or uncle who is like really concerned about the fate of your eternal soul that can sort of like question of like, is God mad at me? Is God gonna punish me now or after I die? Is something that like looms large for folks? And so we wanted to highlight this series that we did a few years ago called like Scary Things that You may have Learned in Church. It’s a four part series. We’re going to air the first episode for you right now as a Throwback.

(1m 54s):

If you would like to listen to the remainder of that series, you can go to Queer Theology dot com slash Scary Things and we’ll have them all linked in one place for you. There. Also, inside of our Learning Community hub, we have an A place to discuss the podcast. I mean, these episodes also live in there. That’s in the free for all area. So if you would like to discuss this episode of the one other ones that you listen to with us, with other folks who are also listening to it, going over to my greati com and create a free account while you’re there, you can also sign up for Spiritual Study Hall and or Sanctuary Collective if you want to get access to the community or get access to sort of our like OnDemand library resources. It’s sort of like a masterclass for spiritual nerdery and sacred storytelling and things like that.

(2m 36s):

So, and it also obviously supports this work. So without further ado, here is the first episode in the Scary Things series. We are entering another special series and this is about Scary Things that you might have been taught in church. We’re gonna cover four parts over the next four episodes, the Rapture and End Times Satan Hell and Eternal Damnation. And it’s, yeah, it’s a little bit inspired by the format is gonna be a little bit inspired by the, you’re wrong about podcasts if you’ve ever heard that. And so for each episode, either Shea or I will be sort of like lead me the other through the various Scary Things we and you at home might have been taught at church.

(3m 20s):

And so today we’re gonna start with the rapture in the end times. Shay, this is your episode, so take it away. Oh, I’m so excited. I feel like anyone who has listened to this podcast for more than a hot second knows that I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about the rapture. And so, but I would love to hear from you, like I grew up in a very specific tradition. Brian, you grew up in a, an evangelical Presbyterian church, so a a bit of a more mainline tradition. And so I would love to know like what were you taught about the rapture? Like is, was that even a thing for your church growing up? Yeah, I don’t think that the rapture was super a thing that was taught from the pulpit or in Sunday school.

(4m 4s):

It definitely like wasn’t emphasized in like official church channels. Right? But I was also like, I was evangelical Presbyterian, so it was kind of this like, how are you both right? It was like double predestination, but also you have to go tell all of your friends about Jesus. And so, but the rapture was kind of like something that like generally was floating around in the ether. And at some like the end times or the left behind books or something that I never read, we definitely didn’t read as like a group, but that, that I had heard of, knew about people talked about.

(4m 45s):

And so a lot of the sort of my exposure to end times teaching was much more sort of like speculative amongst my peers rather than something that was drilled in from the church leadership. And I remember, but I must have internalized it because I remember talking to my parents who converted to evangelicalism as teenagers And I was like, listen, I just have a, I have a feeling on my heart, God has put it on my heart that Jesus is gonna come back before any of the four of us die. So we don’t have to worry about death and dying and being separated because like, I just know, I just really believe that Jesus is gonna come back and we’re all gonna get to go straight to heaven and skip the dying part.

(5m 28s):

And so, I dunno, like I think that I more so than being like magically suped up, I think I was maybe more along the lines of that like Jesus would come down first. Hmm. And like what, what if anything were you taught about either how the world would end, what would happen when Jesus came back? Like what was kind of in the, in the zeitgeist about that? Yeah, we didn’t talk about it that much. I mean, I think that like something about Jesus coming down, like I have like vivid imageries, like maybe he would be riding a horse or a chariot or I like a unicorn.

(6m 12s):

I do know that like when I was a kid, I used to see like when I would like, you know how sometimes like rays of light will sort of like poke through the clouds and like there’s enoughness that you can actually see the sun beam. I’d be like, oh, do you think? Like, do you think Jesus is about to come down over there? But I, so it wasn’t like volcanoes exploding or mass wart. It was like, oh, I think I’ll just sort of likes descend. And I, I do know that I think, I think it Christian, like this type of Christian talk often points to images from Revelation. I have this idea that that’s where a lot of this end times and or rapture imagery comes from. And so like there’s like something about the mark of the beast, something about 6, 6 6, like maybe something about like war, but it wasn’t like, I didn’t have like one specific cohesive narrative.

(7m 6s):

And then I also was like, they were like, there was, I think it was Carmen like Carmen song being the champion, like the is also sort of like part of that whole sort of like zeitgeist. We are gonna put a link to the champion music video in the show notes because if you did not grow up with Carmen, there is no adequate way for us to explain this man to you nor to explain his, and I’m using air quotes music to, to you. So I would just like go watch video. I would Have your mind, I would blast the champion And I would just kind of like, not dance, but just sort of like, you can’t see me.

(7m 48s):

I like, like I was a fighter, right? Like sort of like bouncing around the room, like imagining like Satan in the ring gonna get killed by Jesus the warrior. Yes. My church youth group of course led by me did a human video to the champion and many others of course. So, you know, I grew up very much in a rapture tradition, which is interesting and we will talk more about that in a moment. You know, I very much believe that the rapture was coming, that at some point the, so the idea was like at some point Jesus would like come partially back to earth and that anyone who was the right type of Christian would rise to meet Jesus in the air.

(8m 35s):

So Jesus would only, he would be like floating. Yes. Okay. Basically. And we would rise to meet him and that like whatever you were doing, you would just like be taken up. And so if you were driving a car, like a car would crash, if you were washing dishes, the sink would be on. And so I, I don’t know if this was a thing where you or Brian, but like there would, there were the, these bumper stickers that said in case of rapture, this car will be unmanned that were like super, super popular. Oh wow. People would put them on their cars. Right. And so like this is something, the thing that I remember so vividly as a kid is that I was taught that like whatever was earthly would be left behind.

(9m 19s):

So not only would we like meet Jesus in the air, But we would meet Jesus in the air naked, which was like terrifying to me as a small trans child who was like, yeah, super uncomfortable in my body. And like nervous about that is very specific. Yeah. I was like, I don’t think I, I, I don’t know if I want this, but I also remember as a kid, like this vivid fear of if I couldn’t find my mother because she was like, I don’t know, outside or like wandered off in the grocery store, I was like, oh shit, I’ve been left behind my family. Did I have to tell this story because it’s so my family and so fucked up. We decided one year my grandfather was like a super, super prankster.

(10m 3s):

He loved practical jokes. He took April Fools very, very seriously. And so one year the entire family decided to prank him and to make him think he’d been left behind. It was an elaborate prank. So I lived right next door to my grandparents. So we set it up. We knew that every Sunday night he would get home from church and then he would go out and feed the pets. And so we set it up the both of our houses we like dropped closed where they were left the fridge door open, left the sink running. We told everyone in his church and all of the family to not answer the phone if he called. Like this was an elaborate whoa like multi-family friend.

(10m 43s):

And looking back on it, I feel like it was a little shady like that. That’s like a pretty cruel prank. He didn’t, he like saw someone slipping onto the back porch and it was ruined. But aw. Anyway, you know rapture, rapture thinking was really huge. And along with that, the end times, so what’s the real truth about the rapture? Like there are several different views about when the rapture will happen. There’s this kind of pre tribulation idea that like Jesus will come back, then everything will go to shit. There’s a post tribulation view that says like everything will go to shit birth and then Jesus will come back.

(11m 23s):

Hmm. So my tradition very much grew up with this pre tribulation view. Jesus would come back, he would snatch up the real Christians, hell would like rain on earth for a bunch of years and we would just get to skip it. I’ve heard something about a thousand years Is that, is that this or where does this a thousand years factor in? There is a thousand years. I think that this is the, like the tribulation will will last for a thousand years. Okay. That some people can get saved during that time, but that they are like still stuck. So it’s like really important that you get saved before the rapture happens so that you get to avoid all of the bad stuff.

(12m 5s):

And so that was really like the left behind series, right? Was that it started with a bunch of people getting taken away, but then all of these people were left to deal with the rise of the antichrist and, and the people that got saved who then were like fighting the antichrist, like still had to live through the tribulation, I guess is punishment for like not getting their act together sooner. Which also feels like dickish sketchy to me. Yeah. Antithetical to, anyway, so there’s like two main verses other than the whole of revelation, but two main verses that led people to think that there was going to be a rapture.

(12m 48s):

First Thessalonians four 15 through 17, which says according to the Lord’s word we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord certainly will certainly not proceed. Those who have fallen asleep for the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet call of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first after that we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. And then the other is from Matthew 24 37 through 40 and as were the days of Noah. So she’ll be the coming of the son of man for as in those days, which were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving a marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark.

(13m 33s):

And they knew not until the flood came and took them all away. So shall be the coming of the son of man then shall two men be in the field. One is taken, one is left. So it iss kind of like, you know, end times judgment is coming. Yeah. But the reality is that the guy who first proposed and made really popular, the rapture, the pre tribulation rapture in particular didn’t come up with that until 1827. And this is why I get mad. It’s like this is not something that was handed down from Jesus. This is a very, a relatively new understanding. His name was John Nelson Darby. He was a part of the Plymouth Brethren in England, which is why my church was so hooked on this.

(14m 18s):

’cause we were part of the, that Brethren movement we had broken off. But again, like ca coming from a tradition that didn’t actually teach me the history of my own tradition, I like didn’t know that this was a unique thing that the Plymouth brethren believed. I just thought it was like the truth. Right? Which is why I think it’s so important that we know our history and where we come from. This view was then kind of spread around even more. It became really popular through the Scofield reference Bible. I remember my grandfather having that Bible and and that’s really what, what pushed this view forward. Most mainline and Catholic traditions don’t have any view of the rapture either pre or post or mid right.

(15m 6s):

It’s just like not a thing for them. The all of the kind of tribulation rapture ideas are almost always evangelical traditions and, and Baptist traditions. And much of what we internalize about the rapture is really modern. And it comes more from pop culture, right. From that novel or that terrible film, A Thief in The Night, which I know many youth groups were forced to watch from how Lindsay’s late Great Planet Earth and of course from the left behind series. And I think that, like for me, the thing that like sticks out for me is that in many ways the rapture is really convenient, right?

(15m 46s):

Yeah. It’s this idea that like real Christians are in a secret club, they’re gonna be protected from all of the shit that goes down during the end times. And our sole mission is to get as many people saved as possible so that they get snatched up to, but also it pretty much lets them off the hook for having to do anything to care about the world. We don’t have to care about creation because it’s all gonna be destroyed anyway. Right? Like, so there’s this idea that we can do whatever we want as long as we get as many people saved because like God’s gonna come back. Jesus come back, take us. And that’s gonna be that. Yeah. And we’re gonna be protected.

(16m 27s):

It reminds me of billionaires trying to like build spaceships to get off the planet. Like Right. It’s exactly the same. Like Jesus is our billionaire spaceship. Yeah. Yeah. Some something that sticks out to me in these as in those passage us that you read, I can see how folks who support the rapture would like point to these passage us. But like when you actually read them, like they’re kind of a little wonky. Like I don’t really know what to do with them, but they don’t actually say what the Rapt people say. Like, and this one from First Thessalonians, it’s like, it’s not saying that like the Christians go up first and then the non-Christians get left behind. It’s like the dead people go up first and then the alive people go up after them.

(17m 12s):

Like Yeah. And there’s also, I mean I think that like there was all of these views both in the gospels and in Paul’s letters about the fact that like Jesus’s return was imminent. Yeah. They believed that he was gonna come back before any of them died. Yeah. And clearly that was incorrect. Yeah. And so I think that there’s also this sense of people trying to make sense of what they had been taught from Jesus, what they believed about, like what Jesus’ work was and what his resurrection accomplished. That was murky. And I think that in some cases we, they just got it wrong.

(17m 54s):

Yeah. Like Paul definitely thought, he like says explicitly in his letters that are in the Bible that like, he’s not gonna die. ’cause he says it’s gonna come back before Paul dies. And like he was just wrong. Right. And I think that like part of the impulse of evangelicals is that they can’t actually admit that, right? Yeah. Because then they would have to say, well, there are errors in the Bible and they can’t do that. So it becomes this like, we have to then create this other thing that makes sense of this thing that we’re reading and then it just like spirals out from There. Yeah. And I think that like there’s, there is though then this other sense of like, okay, well if the rapture isn’t real, like if that was made up or that was a misguided notion, yeah.

(18m 38s):

There is still this sense of like, but there are going to be the end times, right? Like there’s, God’s still gonna come back and judge everyone. The world is still gonna be destroyed. Like there’s still gonna be, I don’t know, you brought up Revelation, like, so Brian, what else were you taught about the end times or the book of Revelation? Yeah, I Guess like the, this whatever sort of like thousand years things was not necessarily like maybe, or maybe not what like was connected to the rapture, like could or cannot be, but it was sort of a, you could believe that separately that there was like something about like an antichrist I guess. Like, and it was, I guess like not clear was the antichrist like a demon that was going to like, that we would be able to like see as a demon, like look sort of non-human or would it be a politician like with Brooklyn, the Antichrist or Obama, the Antichrist, like, and like insert any, you know, liberal ish politician.

(19m 41s):

I also know that like in my church, this was probably like less in like the main service and more just sort of like in youth group stuff. Like where it was a little bit less, you know, controlled. They were like, there was like this whole thing about Hebrew and Hebrew letters corresponding to numbers and like looking for secret messages in the Bible. And if you like, put all of these numbers together, like, or these wor like secret, there’s like sort of like there was this something about like secret messages in the Hebrew Bible that would like tell us about the future.

(20m 21s):

And so like end times mark of the beast 6, 6, 6, we’re all sort of floating around. But I don’t think I had a specific vision of like the world would end or like what that would look like. I do know that at some point after I left that tradition, someone was telling me that like in their tradition it was about how Earth got like restored and, but Earth became paradise. And I was like, oh, that’s not, I didn’t, I didn’t learn that. I didn’t learn that. But I’m aware That that is something that some folks believe. Yeah. I re I remember that like ATM cards were yeah. People who were worried about ATM cards being the mark of the beast for a while, right?

(21m 1s):

’cause you couldn’t, you couldn’t buy or sell. Right? Yeah. That was part of it that without the market of the beast, you couldn’t buy or sell. And people were anxious about ATM cards. Now everyone’s got the fricking a m cards. But now I think some people are like, oh, well the vaccine cards are the mark of the beast because unvaccinated people are being discriminated against, which is just ridiculous. Anyway. Yeah. So I I I mean, I think almost all of our views of the end times come from really poor readings of the book of Revelation. We have to understand that like the book of Revelation was written under Empire and under occupation by a person who had been exiled to an island and left on his own for already like, for sedition.

(21m 43s):

So of course he can’t come out and write a street against Rome and the Emperor without getting himself killed. And so of course he like writes about this vision that he has. And so everything in the book of Revelation is not this like wonky ridiculous prophecy of some future where there’s gonna be dragons and four horsemen and the horror of Babylon, right? Yeah. It’s all like coded language for what he was already experiencing, what they were already experiencing. And when you imagine being from an oppressed and marginalized community and you look around and you’re like, yeah, we’re like already in the end times.

(22m 25s):

Yeah. The world is already ending. I’ve been hearing a lot of like indigenous activists talking about like, the apocalypse has already come. Like we are in it. We’ve been living in it. And the ways that the, the world is being treated, creation is being treated is like part of the end times part of this narrative. And that makes a lot of sense to me. I too did not grow up with a tradition that said like the earth was gonna be restored. Like no, it was, it was the, the earth doesn’t matter. The earth is gonna burn. So like we can do whatever we want to it. We can pillage and destroy and carbon emissions, et cetera, because God’s gonna destroy the earth.

(23m 8s):

But what we actually see, if you really read Revelation, even if you do read it as more of a future thinking prophetic book, and in Paul’s letters too, we actually get this sense of restoration, right? That, that it’s not that earth is gonna be destroyed and that we’re gonna go to heaven. That actually the, the idea is that we’re going to get a new, potentially a new earth, but that like earth is still in existence. We don’t actually, our, our eternal dwelling is in this restored earth, not in some heaven far away.

(23m 50s):

Which was mind blowing to me when I learned that and read that as an adult. Hmm. I will say, I know people have a lot of feelings about NT Wright. I think that some of his scholarship is not great, but his book surprised my hope is actually really, really brilliantly beautiful. And I, I wanna share some things from that book because I, it, it has really impacted my view of what happens at the end. And so one of the things that he says is we need to remind ourselves that throughout the Bible, not least in the Psalms, God’s coming judgment is a good thing. It’s something to be celebrated and long for yearned over. It causes people to shout for joy and the trees at the field to clap their hands.

(24m 32s):

Because in a world of systemic injustice, bullying, violence, arrogance and oppression, the thought that there might come a day when the wicked are firmly put in their place and the poor and weak are given their due is the best news there can be faced with a world in rebellion, a world full of exploitation and wickedness. A good God must be a god of judgment. Hmm. And I’m like, ugh. Right. Yeah. Like this is, this is it. Right. And I think that again, this is a reminder that the Bible is written by oppressed and marginalized people living in context of oppression. And so when we’re talking about judgment, we are talking about those things. It’s, it’s not for like rich, white, politically powerful Republican evangelicals to be like, those gays are gonna get theirs.

(25m 19s):

It’s about no, actually the people that are like squandering the earth and are being oppressive are gonna get theirs. And like that’s a good thing. The other thing that, that NT Wright talks about a lot And I think is, is really evidenced in the writings of Paul, is that part of the, part of the responsibility of being a Christian, being a follower of Jesus, of believing in the restoration of all things, is that it puts a responsibility on us to be a part of that restoration and a part of that restoration as far as like climate change goes a part of that restoration as far as like art and beauty goes a part of that restoration as far as justice and political systems and, and making things right that like a responsibility isn’t to get a bunch of other people saved.

(26m 15s):

So we get taken away in the great snatch, it’s actually to like do the work of being a restorative person. And that when we do that work, like we should be the most art filled and beauty filled and joy filled. Because that’s, that’s the, that’s the work, right? That we’re making something beautiful and and amazing. And that, like, one of the things that he also says is like part of getting used to living in the post Easter world, part of getting used to letting Easter change your life, your attitudes, your thinking, your behavior is getting used to the cosmology that is now unveiled. Heaven and earth are made for each other and at certain points they intersect and interlock.

(26m 60s):

Jesus is the ultimate such point. We as Christians are meant to be such points derived from him. The spirit, the sacraments and the scriptures are given. So the double life of Jesus, both heavenly and earthly can become ours as well already in the present. His idea is that like heaven and earth now are already acting upon one another. They’re interlocked that the work is overlapping. That sometimes we can see it and sometimes we can’t, but like we’re already living in this end times because of Jesus’s resurrection. That to me is a really beautiful thing. I know that that’s maybe a little wooey for you, Brian. Yeah, But my jaw’s dropped. It’s so beautiful.

(27m 40s):

Like, I, it’s a little right, like, I don’t know. I don’t know. Like, I don’t know. But I, there is something really that speaks to me about that. And I think to me like this then makes the idea of the end times the rapture, God’s judgment. Like none of that is scary anymore. It’s actually beautiful and hopeful and empowering and impactful and like, helps me to navigate the world in a different way, in a, in a more joy-filled way, but also a, I think a more engaged way. And that to me is, is really, really exciting. I love It. I love it. So next week we’re gonna turn our attention to Satan and get ready y’all.

(28m 21s):

’cause I have 14 pages of notes. We are gonna go on a journey. I can’t wait to do that with you. That is all for this week’s episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Remember, if you would like to listen to the whole series, you can go to Queer Theology dot com slash Scary Things and we’ll compile all those in one place. Also, a reminder that we can only do this show and the other work that we do at Queer Theology dot com because of support from folks just like you. So if you would be interested in supporting this work to help it be sustainable for us, we would cherish that support. We notice each and every dollar, you can go to Queer Theology dot com slash community to join the community. That’s one way to support.

(29m 1s):

Or if you just wanna kick us some bucks, go to patreon.com/ Queer Theology. Thanks again and we will see you next week. So we’ll talk to you very soon. The Queer Theology podcast is just one of many things that we do at Queer Theology dot com, which provides resources, community, and inspiration for L-G-B-T-Q Christians and straight cisgender supporters. To dive into more of the action, visit us at Queer Theology dot com. You can also connect with us online on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. We’ll see you next week.

The post Throwback: Scary Things appeared first on Queer Theology.

...more