The Rapture was a bust, but it still feels like doomsday.
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BRITTANY LUSE, HOST:
Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luse and you're listening to it IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR, show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
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LUSE: OK. So this is my top-top No. 1 question. Do you think we are living in the end times, yes or no?
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BOB SMIETANA: What? OK, yeah, so how can I say - I'm going to say yes because we're all going to die, so it's always the end times for us.
LUSE: Oh, OK. That's true. Whoever's living now, it is the end times.
SMIETANA: Whoever's living now. It's going to - we're going to reach the end. So there we go.
LUSE: I like that. That's philosophical. I like that. What about you, Joshua? What do you think?
JOSHUA RIVERA: I'm going to be philosophical from the opposite end and I'm going to say no, because whatever happens to us, the Earth is still going to be here.
LUSE: That's fair.
RIVERA: You know (laughter)?
LUSE: So the world's not ending?
RIVERA: Yes.
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LUSE: Hello. Is anyone out there? If you can hear me, I am sorry to report you may have been left behind. But you're not alone. Culture writer and critic Joshua Rivera and Bob Smietana, national writer for Religion News Service are here with me.
SMIETANA: Glad to be here.
RIVERA: Yeah. Thanks for having us.
LUSE: OK. So this week, there were a lot of people talking about the end of the world. Specifically, they were talking about the Christian rapture. It's hard to say who believed this was going to happen and who was joking. But the rapture blew up on TikTok.
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UNIDENTIFIED TIKTOKKER #1: You guys already know. I truly believe with all my heart we will be raptured during Feast of Trumpets this year.
UNIDENTIFIED TIKTOKKER #2: You know, it's like I'm ready to go, but I have this - I have a longing for the people that are going to be left behind.
UNIDENTIFIED TIKTOKKER #3: I just want to encourage anyone who does believe in the rapture and you believe that it's going to happen soon to just be more bold about your faith.
LUSE: I know I was watching those videos, but when did each of you first become aware that the rapture was trending this week?
SMIETANA: I saw someone talked about it on Twitter. I think one of my colleagues said, look, it's the rapture. And all I could think is that there was this book when I was in college called, "88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be In '88" (ph), and I'm thinking, here we go again.
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RIVERA: I found out secondhand through Twitter, and then I looked, and I was like, oh, yeah, that sure is happening again, you know.
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LUSE: OK. So you both had the reaction of, like, OK, we've been here before. This was not new to either of you. But in case any of this is new to any of you listening, here's why the Christian rapture was trending this week.
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LUSE: The South African evangelical pastor Joshua Mhlakela posted a YouTube video three months ago. In it, he claimed that Jesus told him in a dream that the rapture would begin early this week.
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JOSHUA MHLAKELA: He says to me, on the 23 and the 24 of September, I will come to take my church.
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LUSE: This prediction kind of blew up over last weekend and people really went with it. And to my knowledge - to my knowledge - no rapture came.
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UNIDENTIFIED TIKTOKKER #4: I will be the first to admit I was 100% completely wrong, 100% completely wrong about the rapture. I hope that you accept my apology in love.
LUSE: Now, I'm not trying to say any variation of I told you so to the people who believed it was coming. What I want to understand, though, is how this fits into a larger history of rapture prediction, what it means for many Christians and why some seem excited for it to happen. Plus, why this strain of doomerism trickles out into larger non-Christian culture.
OK. So first of all, what do people think the rapture would actually look like? I know not everyone has the same interpretation.
RIVERA: Yeah, it's a very hard thing to sort of, you know, wrap in a nutshell. But the easiest way of putting it is just that, like, the true believers are going to disappear at some point, and the rest of us are going to be left behind.
LUSE: Like, poof into thin air?
RIVERA: Yeah, into thin air. And the rest of us are going to be here for a bad time.
LUSE: Wait, wait. When you say a bad time, could you be a little more specific about what you mean when you say the rest of us are going to be left behind for a bad time?
RIVERA: (Laughter) Yeah. And it's called the Great Tribulation, right?
LUSE: Bob, I see you nodding. Please jump in.
SMIETANA: Yeah, yeah. So there's a couple of things. So first of all, in the Christian faith, there's this real tension. So Jesus dies, is resurrected, then he ascends and disappears, with a promise to come back.
LUSE: Right.
SMIETANA: And then there's been this long delay. So there's always been this tension of, like, when is Jesus coming back? And the second tension is, no one's supposed to know when it's going to happen, but they're supposed to see the signs of the times.
LUSE: That's what they say. They say, no man will know the day or the hour. Yeah.
SMIETANA: But you're supposed to pay attention. So this is a long history of tension. So there's the second - what's called the second advent, second coming. But that has different parts. That has this rapture, this - based on a biblical verse where people are taken out in the air, they disappear. There's this tribulation, which is kind of wars and death and destruction and the whole nine yards, which you don't want to be around for.
LUSE: Sure.
SMIETANA: There's what's called the millennial kingdom, which is a thousand years of Jesus reigning. So some people say that happens before the rapture. Some people says it happens after. Then you have a final battle between Jesus and the devil, and then you have a new heaven, new earth. Different groups have different parts, but there's this long history of saying Jesus is going to come back. Everything is going to get better, and we're going to disagree about how we would know that's happening and why it's happening.
LUSE: OK. OK. So the other thing I want to make sure we mentioned here is that, like, not all sects of Christianity, and not all Christians are rapture-focused. I mean, I grew up Christian. I went to church at least once a week, every week. And the rapture never came up. Like, my parents didn't talk to me about it. That word wasn't used or thrown around or anything like that. I learned about the rapture from the "Left Behind" YA book series. I say all this to say, like, I grew up Christian, and the rapture was just not in the picture. But it's a huge aspect of Christianity for other people. Who is really invested in the rapture? And why?
SMIETANA: So that's a good question. So to be clear, almost all the Christian groups believe in a second coming, right? It's part of the Apostles' Creed. You know, the second coming...
LUSE: Yeah. Like, Jesus is coming back.
SMIETANA: But the rapture is a particular thing. It really started in the 1800s where this guy named John Nelson Darby had this whole plan called apocalyptic futures. Like, he's got charts and the whole nine yards. And so that became real popular. Dwight L. Moody, who's a famous preacher, took this up. And so that word - rapture - became part of the vocabulary. And this really took off when Israel comes back because no one thought...
LUSE: Oh.
SMIETANA: None of the Christian groups thought that Israel was going to be around anymore 'cause there's - some of the end-times stuff happens in Israel and the narrative...
LUSE: Oh, so Israel hadn't been a state up until that point. So then it's a state in the 1940s, and that changes things for Christians who believe in the rapture.
SMIETANA: That changes the clock. So there are groups like the Seventh-day Adventists who have always thought that there's going to be a second coming. But this kind of - it got put on steroids after Israel comes back because all of a sudden, wait, oh, what's going to happen?
LUSE: Right.
SMIETANA: Part of this is it's just a great story - right? - people disappearing. And it's also a way to make sense of the future. If you think life is bad and there's a plan and God's going to make it better, then you feel great about it, right? And nobody wants to be left behind. They don't want you to be left behind, and they want you to feel better about it. There's three things. One, it's an escape from trouble, so that's exciting. Two, it's meaning that, oh, the world makes sense. And then, three, it's just a great big puzzle. Like, when is this going to happen?
RIVERA: But also, I do think that when we talk about this stuff at a high level, we tend to focus on, like, the institutions and powers. And what this offers to people is hope for those, like, far removed from those, like, centers of power, right? I went to a church full of, like - full of immigrants, you know, people who struggle with poverty. And it is sort of like a reassurance that - to a people who know that the world is stacked against them, and all that hostility is going to have an end. You are going to be rewarded for your perseverance, and you might even get to not die, you know, which is kind of like the ultimate win, right?
LUSE: Oh, you mean, like, bypass death, essentially?
RIVERA: Yeah. Bypass death, essentially, because, like, if we are in the end times and if it is going to happen soon, then maybe there is a chance that you'll get to live to see this amazing thing and miss out on the one thing that everybody's scared of.
LUSE: Oh, wow. That's really appealing. I mean, I think when many people think about a good death, they think about being old and dying happily in their sleep. And, you know, when you think about it, the rapture - you know, being pulled up to heaven in an instant - that's about as close to a good death as you can get. I mean, you're completely - like you said, you're bypassing the fear, the pain, all of the questioning. I could definitely see how that would be appealing, especially if you are a part of a group of people that may not have the privilege or means or ability to live out the end of one's life the way that you might want to.
RIVERA: Yeah.
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LUSE: Coming up...
SMIETANA: I think there's also a feeling like, something's got to change 'cause things are bad. Think about climate change, right? Doom is coming unless you change.
LUSE: Stick around.
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LUSE: I want to talk about Americans more broadly. As of 2022, about 4 in 10 Americans believe we are living in the end times, according to Pew Research. I've heard a lot of secular people also echo that sentiment. Is this most recent rapture doomerism a product of all of the tumult in our culture and politics?
SMIETANA: That's a good question. I think some of it is. I mean, think of the books that our kids read - my kids read - "The Hunger Games," "Dystopia."
LUSE: Oh, yeah.
SMIETANA: The "Zombie Apocalypse." We love apocalypses. I think part of it is, you know, it gives you a chance to kind of wipe things clean, and what will I do during this time?
LUSE: It's clarifying.
SMIETANA: It's clarifying. We love the dystopian future. It's just a part of our culture that we love. So it's part of - in the air. But you've also had these great pop hits. So in 1970s, the bestselling book was "The Late Great Planet Earth," sold tens of millions of copies. You also had it with these "Left Behind" books.
LUSE: Huge.
SMIETANA: Then you had the series called "The Leftovers."
LUSE: Oh, on HBO. Right.
RIVERA: We're trying to make sense of the world.
SMIETANA: I think there's also a feeling like, something's got to change 'cause things are bad. And the way that we motivate people is through apocalyptic thinking. Think about climate change - not the facts about climate change, but how you tell that story. It can be apocalyptic, right? Doom is coming unless you change.
LUSE: Sure.
RIVERA: I generally think that evangelical Christianity mirrors, like, secular American culture more than we would like to admit (laughter) - you know, very bootstraps, very, frankly, anti-authority, very, you know, distrusting of institutions, right? And these are all sort of like attributes that are sort of endemic to people in this country, you know? What's interesting about this particular instance is that I think this is the first time it's spread over TikTok - right? - which...
LUSE: Yeah.
RIVERA: That's a mature media environment.
LUSE: What do you mean when you say mature media environment?
RIVERA: That it - like, it has established paradigms and standards of communication, right? It has a community of people who are sincere but also perform for it, people who know how the algorithm works, people who know how to be seen and how to go viral and people who don't necessarily do that earnestly - right? - in addition to people who do, right? Earnestness travels, and so does cynicism - equally well. And sometimes the cynical stuff does better than the sincere, earnest stuff. So you have, like, this really interesting thing happening with this particular wave where you're not quite sure if people are performing rapture hope or anxiety or if...
LUSE: Or if it's genuine.
RIVERA: Or if it's genuine. And it's sort of like, I think, to me, to my eye, it injects a layer of cynicism - right? - where it makes it harder to see what these people may be responding to, you know, their actual anxieties. I don't know. It's also happening concurrently with this sort of, like, rightward, like trad wife, cultural, you know, like, return to, like, this idea of a more conservative Christianity, a more fundamentalist Christianity, right?
LUSE: And also, like, the combination of TikTok and then a general sense of precarity and anxiety that many people feel nowadays. You know, you have the perfect storm of end times being in the air at the same time as, you know, a rapture prediction from a South African pastor going viral.
SMIETANA: I do think it's actually interesting it didn't start in the States because I think we are - I'm going to religion-nerd out for a second here.
LUSE: OK. Go for it.
SMIETANA: So most of the people - say, evangelicism (ph) now - they - if you ask them if you were - what's called a premillennialist - right? - that you think the rapture's happening before the millennial kingdom and that everything has to get worse, They would say yes, but they function like they're postmillennialists, which means they want to make the world all better so then Jesus can come.
LUSE: OK, wait. Just to make sure that I understand. So premillennialists think that the world has to get awful for Jesus to come back.
SMIETANA: Yeah.
LUSE: But postmillennialists, they're like, OK, we've got to make the world better...
SMIETANA: Yes.
LUSE: So then Jesus will come back.
SMIETANA: So - and in the 1900s, there was this whole progressive push where people were trying to make the world better. All these mainline denominations they'd go, schools, and they'd press for better work laws. And the idea that we're going to progress, progress, progress. Then we'll create the millennial kingdom for Jesus to come back. But it's this idea if Christians are in charge, we'll make the world better, and then we'll create the door for Jesus to come back. There's not an escapism right now in a lot of American evangelicalism as much there is a arising, we're going to take control and take it back.
LUSE: Some of that kind of reminds me a little bit of, like, the Make America Great Again movement.
SMIETANA: Yeah.
LUSE: There's a little bit of MAGA element to that.
SMIETANA: It's make the world great again. And that is - it's kind of an unseen or underreported part of what's happened in the way evangelicalism has changed in the last decade or so. We have two trends. We have the kind of decline of religion in America, which we've seen, right? Fewer people are religious. Fewer people go to church. And then now there's this movement of, nope, that white Christian America is not over and evangelical America's not over, and it's going to have a revival - if not a revival, the end of the retreat. And part of this is a belief that if God is in control, if God's people are in control, then human beings will flourish. And so that kind of fuels people to action.
LUSE: I wonder. I mean, it's interesting. There are these ways in which, like, parts of Christian doctrine are kind of coloring the way that many people - even non-Christians - are perceiving world events right now, whether it's the doomerism around climate change, to preppers all over the political spectrum, preparing for nuclear wars or natural disasters, to evangelicals bracing for the rapture. What does it mean that so many people believe the end is near?
SMIETANA: So the society we live in, the world we live in, is enormously interconnected. And I think we're all aware of how much we depend on other people, from what we eat to having the power on. Like, we are all interdependent, and if we weren't interdependent, we can't survive. So I think we're aware of how much we depend on and trust other people, and I think we sometimes are starting to say, wait, wait. Can I trust other people? If we can't trust each other, the trust that makes human civilization possible declines. If you can't trust other people, that makes it much harder because you can't doom prep your way out of living in a modern civilization. I mean, there's the fantasies about that.
LUSE: Yeah.
SMIETANA: That's why all the apocalyptic stuff is real popular, but you can't doom your way out of this. You have to rely on other people. And I think people - this is a way of expressing the anxieties that we all feel of, like, wait, what if I can't make it? What would I do? And I have this stuff in my gut I can't maybe say out loud.
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LUSE: I tell you what. I mean, it's been a real week, I tell you what. It has really been a real week. And I imagine that after listening to this conversation, I think that there's going to be a lot of people who have found some clarity and some comfort in your words. So, Joshua, Bob, thank you both so much. This was great.
SMIETANA: So great to be here.
RIVERA: Yeah. This was great. Nice meeting you, Bob, too.
SMIETANA: Nice meeting you, Josh. It was wonderful.
LUSE: That was culture writer and critic Joshua Rivera and national writer for Religion News Service Bob Smietana. And, y'all, I want to share some exciting news with you. Apple Podcasts has named me a Creator We Love. It's a distinction awarded by Apple to leaders and trailblazers in podcasting. And it came with a super-cute photo shoot, if I do say so myself. You can check it out on Apple Podcasts or on my Instagram. OK, I hate bragging, so enough about me. This episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE was produced by...
BARTON GIRDWOOD, BYLINE: Barton Girdwood.
LIAM MCBAIN, BYLINE: Liam McBain.
LUSE: This episode was edited by...
NEENA PATHAK, BYLINE: Neena Pathak.
LUSE: Our executive producer is...
VERALYN WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Veralyn Williams.
LUSE: Our VP of programming is...
YOLANDA SANGWENI, BYLINE: Yolanda Sangweni.
LUSE: All right. That's all for this episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR. I'm Brittany Luse. Talk soon.
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