Marjorie Taylor Greene has a new calling as a doom and gloom preacher. After a small earthquake struck New York and New Jersey on Friday, Greene sent a warning on X, formerly Twitter: “God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent,” she wrote. “Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens.”
Earthquakes and eclipses activate the hormones of end-time believers. There are from 2 – 5 solar eclipses each year in the world. Why does this one activate rapture thoughts? Is there a Pavlov’s “dog” syndrome among evangelicals? In 2024, there have been 3,583 earthquakes worldwide with a magnitude of 6.0 or higher. Why think a small earthquake in New York signals the return of Jesus, the end of the world, and the judgment of God?
If God were in the flamboyant judgment business, wouldn’t the catastrophe look more like those in the genre of catastrophe movies? A Hollywood director can make earthquakes a lot more ominous than the one in New York and New Jersey.
I cringe when politicians think they are preachers. Green follows Colonel Flynn, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and Senator Tom Cotton in pretending to be a preacher. Actual preachers, fully accredited and ordained preachers, make plenty of outrageous claims every Sunday. The last thing we need is a politician donning pulpit robes, grabbing a Bible, and preaching a sermon. The entire thing feels like a circus.
Photo by Timo
Somewhere in the background, Neil Diamond is singing:
“Hot August night and the leaves hanging down
And the grass on the ground smelling sweet
Move up the road to the outside of town
And the sound of that good gospel beat
Sits a ragged tent where there ain’t no trees
And that gospel group telling you and me
It’s love, Brother Love say
Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show (part of the party)
Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies
And everyone goes
‘Cause everyone knows Brother Love’s show.”
One X pundit suggested, “The epicenter was literally at Trump’s golf course. Maybe God is trying to tell y’all something.”
Maybe Greene needs her own pulpit with a tent and an organist. She can leave Congress and spend her times warning of the end of the world. There’s quite a tradition of this kind of preaching. And it can be lucrative.
I once totaled the potential royalties for a best-selling book on the Rapture and the end of the world, and the amount was so huge, I came up with a new definition for rapture: The feeling of exultation and joy felt by the author on the way to make the quarterly royalty payment.
Greene could ask Hal Lindsey for help. Since first publishing, The Late Great Planet Earth and Satan Is Alive and Well on Planet Earth, Lindsey has predicted the end of the world at least seven times. Having learned his lesson by being wrong seven times, he now has a new date for the end of the world along with a back-up date in case the first one fails. His first prediction was December 31, 1988.
Another preacher obsessed with the end of the world was Harold Egbert Camping. He made six false predictions. He is best known for being the only doom and gloom preacher ever to admit he was wrong. While he was making predictions and being wrong, his Family Radio pulled in millions of dollars of contributions. Once he admitted he had no idea when the end would come, the contributions dried up.
If one starts on the journey of predicting the end of the world, there can be no turning back. The faithful can swallow wrong predictions, but not an admission of being wrong to make predictions.
I counted 67 predictions for the end of the world since 1978. It seems an easy illusion to maintain among the faithful. Lindsey still has a television ministry raking in the contributions. He should be fined for making false claims on television. Jim Bakker was fined for selling his fake Covid cure, Silver Solution. He was ordered by a Missouri state court to pay $156,000 in fines.
Greene has entered a crowded field. The most popular of the end-time narratives has been the Left Behind series by the late Tim LaHaye and coauthor Jerry B. Jenkins. The sixteen books in the series have sold over 80 million copies according to publisher Tyndale House.
At www.raptureready.com, there’s a Rapture Index. The index doesn’t predict the date of the Rapture but serves as an indicator of the events which may suggest the appearance of Jesus. The editors at Rapture Ready explain, “You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we’re moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture.”
Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger offered his own zinger for Greene: “Fun fact. There are about 3 solar eclipses worldwide per year, and many earthquakes. Both events were predetermined at the creation of the universe. The solar eclipse is not a sign. It’s just a really cool show, if the clouds cooperate.” I’m not sure where he inherited his Calvinism which made him bold enough to say earthquakes and solar eclipses were predetermined. I’m sure seismologists have a different view, but at least Kinzinger questions why Greene is a member of Congress.
The current leader of the end of the world pack is Rev. Robert Jeffress at First Baptist Church Dallas, Texas. Jeffress is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary, the epicenter of dispensational, rapture, end of the world teaching. He has written at least two books on the coming end of the world: Countdown to the Apocalypse and Twilight’s Last Gleaming: How America’s Last Days Can Be Your Best Days.
The combing of the idea of the end of the world with best days seems like a marketing stroke of genius. It’s like saying, “The end is coming,” but in case it doesn’t come or before it comes, “Here’s a chance to really make some big bucks.”
Jeffress, with a bit more subtlety than his predecessors in the rapture con business, insists he doesn’t know the precise time of the end of the world. He does, however, believe it will occur in his lifetime. Jeffress is 68 years old and if he lives to be 100, his range for the end of the earth stretches for another 32 years.
Ms. Greene, in her preaching, has made a false connection between earthquakes and the judgment of God. She has quite a reputation for making false cause arguments in Congress. She is known for her comments suggesting space lasers may have caused the November 2018 California wildfire.
There’s a solar eclipse scheduled for next Monday. I’m getting popcorn and a Coke, turning on Fox News, and waiting for the next end of the world declaration of the Rev. Marjorie Taylor Greene. I think she is less dangerous as a preacher and encourage her to find a church and become a pastor. I bet Paula White could help her start a ministry in Georgia.
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