{"id":25792,"date":"2014-12-09T22:40:34","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T03:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=25792"},"modified":"2014-12-09T22:40:34","modified_gmt":"2014-12-10T03:40:34","slug":"nra-rebuilding-the-post-rapture-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/12\/09\/nra-rebuilding-the-post-rapture-church\/","title":{"rendered":"NRA: Rebuilding the post-Rapture church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist;<\/em> pp. 287-292<\/strong><\/p>\n

In hole in the ground lived a rabbi \u2026<\/p>\n

Wait, I\u2019m getting ahead of myself there. Before we follow Buck Williams in these pages on his tour of the super-secret underground shelter Bruce Barnes constructed beneath his suburban church, we should first consider what this holy hidey hole is for. The idea, Bruce said, was to provide a safe place where Christians could flee when the Antichrist begins persecuting the church.<\/p>\n

Now, there are some rather big, um, holes in Bruce\u2019s plan here \u2014 some significant, potentially lethal, oversights in his dig-a-hole-and-hide strategy. But before we deal with the logical holes in Bruce\u2019s planned response to the Antichrist\u2019s persecution of the church, we first need to discuss the logical hole at work in the tenet of \u201cBible prophecy\u201d that \u201cprophesies\u201d that, in the Last Days, the Antichrist will persecute the church.<\/p>\n

This is one of the many places in which the Bible doesn\u2019t readily\u00a0cooperate with Tim LaHaye\u2019s \u201cBible prophecy\u201d scheme. LaHaye insists he reads the Bible \u201cliterally,\u201d but his literal interpretation always takes a lot of work because it\u2019s a literal reading of the text in support of an idea that literally can\u2019t be found within its pages \u2014 the idea that it\u2019s mainly about a series of events that won\u2019t take place until 2,000+ years later.<\/p>\n

Consider, for example, Tim LaHaye\u2019s idea that the future Antichrist will desecrate and then destroy the Temple in Jerusalem. That\u2019s a problem because there hasn\u2019t been a Temple in Jerusalem for more than 1,900 years. So in order to \u201cliterally\u201d interpret every biblical reference to the destruction of the Temple as a prediction of the distant future, LaHaye has to add something the Bible itself doesn\u2019t say. He has to look between the lines to find, or to invent, an implicit, hidden prophecy that the Temple in Jerusalem will one day in the future be rebuilt in order that a coming Antichrist will, one day in the future, have the opportunity to desecrate and destroy it all over again.<\/p>\n

This is all based on a bunch of passages that refer to the destruction of the Temple. Those passages \u2014 wrested\u00a0mainly from Daniel and from the Gospels\u00a0\u2014 seem to refer to the actual desecration and destruction of the actual Temple, a literal event that has already literally occurred, twice<\/em>, in actual history.<\/p>\n

Outside the confines of Tim LaHaye\u2019s \u201cBible prophecy\u201d mystery cult, there\u2019s a fascinating argument about those biblical passages. Some argue that they were \u201cprophetic\u201d in the modern, predictive sense of the word \u2014 meaning that they were written before<\/em> the destruction of the first and second temples by inspired writers who foresaw and foretold the events that thereafter came to pass. Others, a bit more convincingly, argue that these passages were written after<\/em> those events in an effort to discern the theological meaning of those calamities.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Arch of Titus in Rome commemorates the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. (Creative Commons photo by Dnalor 01)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That\u2019s why 70 CE is such an important date in biblical studies. That was the year in which Roman soldiers under Emperor Titus destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple \u2014 an overwhelming, world-changing event for first-century Jews and Christians. The earliest New Testament texts, the epistles of Paul, were written before that event and don\u2019t mention it at all. But later texts, such as the Gospel of Matthew, include many references to the Temple\u2019s destruction. That leads most scholars to argue that Matthew was written some time after<\/em> 70 CE, while some others argue that it was written earlier and that its references to the events of 70 CE were \u201cprophetic\u201d predictions<\/em> of the horrors that were about to occur.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re into that kind of thing, that dispute really is fascinating, but my main point here is that both<\/em> sides of that argument disagree with the odd belief taught here in the Left Behind books, which is that the actual destruction of the actual Temple in Jerusalem that actually happened in 70 CE has nothing to do with<\/em> the Gospel texts that allude to the Temple\u2019s destruction. Those texts, Tim LaHaye says, aren\u2019t about the Temple that Jesus walked in and that Titus\u2019 troops destroyed. Those texts are, instead, about a future Temple, one that hadn\u2019t even been built yet and that, today, in 2014, still has not yet been built. For LaHaye, when Jesus spoke of the Temple, he didn\u2019t mean the actual Temple there in Jerusalem in whose actual shadow he was actually standing. He meant some future Temple that would be built on the same site 2,000 or so years in the future.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a pretty wild assertion, and it only gets wilder when LaHaye attempts to justify it as a \u201cliteral\u201d reading of the text.<\/p>\n

But LaHaye encounters an even bigger problem when it comes to the topic we read about here in Chapter 14 of Nicolae.<\/em> In this set of pages, Buck Williams returns to New Hope Village Church to inspect Bruce\u2019s\u00a0secret underground shelter. This hidden sub-basement is where Buck hopes to hide his friend Tsion Ben-Judah. There Tsion will be safe from the Antichrist\u2019s anti-Christian police force while using the shelter\u2019s untraceable Internet connection to preach the gospel to the entire world (or, at least, to the entire World Wide Web).<\/p>\n

This is all in accordance with what Tim LaHaye says the Bible prophesies in the book of Revelation. That book, he says, foretells spectacular growth for the church while, at the same time, predicting that the church will face harsh persecution and martyrdom at the hands of the Antichrist.<\/p>\n

And that, again, is a bit of a problem for LaHaye\u2019s \u201cBible prophecy\u201d scheme. In his \u201cprophetic\u201d timeline, the \u201cRise of the Antichrist\u201d occurs only now, at the beginning of\u00a0what he calls the Great Tribulation. That seven-year period of divine wrath and judgment begins after<\/em> the Rapture of the church.<\/p>\n

You see the problem here? Let\u2019s spell it out more clearly. Here\u2019s the sequence of events in LaHaye\u2019s prophecy:<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> The Rapture of the church. The entire church is whisked off\u00a0to Heaven.<\/p>\n

2.<\/strong> The Rise of the Antichrist.<\/p>\n

3.<\/strong> The persecution of the church by the Antichrist.<\/p>\n

Hmm<\/em>. The only way for Prophesied Future Event No. 3 to follow after PFE No. 1 is to insert something else \u2014 Prophesied Future Event No. 2a, the rebuilding of the church from scratch. In Tim LaHaye\u2019s scheme the church, like the Temple, will need to be hastily rebuilt and reconstructed in the Last Days, just so that it can subsequently be persecuted\/torn-down all over again by a future Antichrist. Just as the \u201cTemple\u201d spoken of in Matthew\u2019s Gospel wasn\u2019t a reference to the Temple that Jesus, and Matthew, and everyone that the author of Matthew was writing for would have thought of as the Temple, so too the \u201cchurch\u201d and the \u201cchurches\u201d that John of Patmos wrote about in Revelation had nothing to do, according to LaHaye, with the actual church and churches that John and all of the people he was writing to would have in mind when they saw that word \u201cchurch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sure, yes, shortly before the Gospel of Matthew was written (or, perhaps, shortly after), the Temple and the city of Jerusalem were destroyed. But according to Tim LaHaye, that\u2019s not what those bits in Matthew about the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem were really<\/em> about. They were really<\/em> about the future destruction, thousands of years later, of another Temple \u2014 one that still does not yet exist. The actual destruction of the actual Temple in the first century was just foreshadowing of the future destruction of the as-yet-unbuilt future Temple.<\/p>\n

And sure, yes, before and during and after the time that John of Patmos wrote the book of Revelation, the church suffered from persecution at the hands of the empire. But according to LaHaye, that church, persecution and empire weren\u2019t really<\/em> what Revelation was talking about when it mentions the persecution of the church by the empire. Those passages are really<\/em> about a different persecution of a different church by a different empire \u2014 none of which would exist until thousands of years later in the distant future. The actual persecution of the actual church by the actual empire was merely foreshadowing of the future persecution of the reconstituted post-Rapture church by the future empire of the future Antichrist.<\/p>\n

This is, again, what Tim LaHaye means when he says he reads the Bible \u201cliterally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like all his fellow \u201cBible prophecy\u201d scholars, LaHaye insists that the Rapture is imminent. At any second now, the entire church will be snatched away to Heaven in the twinkling of an eye, leaving behind a world with neither church nor Temple.<\/p>\n

This puts the Antichrist on a very tight schedule. He has a strict list of prophecies that are going to need fulfilling and that timeline is non-negotiable. Within three and a half years of the Rapture, the Antichrist is going to need to be persecuting a global church and he\u2019s going to need to be desecrating a Temple in Jerusalem. And there, on Day One of the Great Tribulation, the morning after the Rapture, neither a global church nor a Temple will exist.<\/p>\n

You almost have to feel sorry for Nicolae Carpathia when you consider everything he\u2019s got on his plate. He has to build a one-world government with a single currency, language and religion. He has to rebuild the ruins of Babylon into a global capital and plan the worldwide implementation of the Mark of the Beast. And at the same time, he\u2019s going to have to ensure that the Temple in Jerusalem is rebuilt and that a brand new global Christian church is created from scratch.<\/p>\n

Frankly, he\u2019s swamped.<\/p>\n

I suppose the physical reconstruction of the structure of the Temple is probably the easy part \u2014 particularly compared to the challenge of turning a desert wasteland into New Babylon, a global capital city complete with hangars and headquarters for the entire global arsenal. Nicolae, after all, has the advantage of having, literally, all the money in the world at his disposal to ensure those projects are built on time. (Plus, it doesn\u2019t really matter if the contractors cut corners a bit because neither New Babylon nor the new Temple needs to stand for more than a few years anyway.) The greater challenge with the Temple will be trying to re-spool nearly 2,000 years of Jewish tradition in order to go back to the priestly religion of the Second Temple period.<\/p>\n

For those keeping score, that\u2019s three<\/em> major religions that Nicolae is going to need to reinvent, from the ground up, in just a few short months after the Rapture. All while simultaneously stamping out every last trace of Islam, Hinduism and all the other religions that didn\u2019t disappear in the Rapture. (One would think that would require the Antichrist to persecute Muslims and Hindus with the same vigor as he does the hastily reconstituted Christian church \u2014 another massive task on his plate, even if it doesn\u2019t specifically appear on the authors\u2019 official prophecy check list. I suppose the authors would say he\u2019ll accomplish this via his magical mind-control powers, which would work on adherents of those other religions because they don\u2019t have access to the sectarian Christian counter-spell.)<\/p>\n

Nicolae is probably grateful that he hasn\u2019t been tasked with rebuilding the global church that he will soon need to start persecuting and martyring. That task falls, instead, to Tsion Ben-Judah and his army of 144,000\u00a0Jews for Vengeance-Jesus. (The passage in Revelation that LaHaye cites for this army of Jewish converts also says that these 144,000 will be virgins and that they will sing. I remain heartily disappointed that the authors\u2019 \u201cliteral\u201d reading of this passage disregards those aspects of this \u201cprophecy.\u201d We were promised\u00a0an army of singing virgins and I want to see it.)<\/p>\n

Surely, though, Nicolae is aware that it is<\/em> his prophetic responsibility to persecute the reconstituted, post-Rapture church. And he can\u2019t very well check that item off of his infernal to-do list unless Tsion et. al.<\/em> first accomplish their<\/em> job of rebuilding a global church. Again, time is an issue here. There are deadlines. And it seems to me that Nicolae Carpathia can\u2019t afford to just sit around idly, hoping and trusting that Tsion will succeed in producing enough converts for him to be able to begin persecuting and martyring them according to schedule.<\/p>\n

What would you do if you<\/em> were in his situation? You need a global church and you need it fast<\/em>. And unlike this fugitive ex-rabbi, you\u2019ve got the resources and the global infrastructure to make this happen. Wouldn\u2019t it make sense for you to, perhaps, facilitate<\/em> the process a bit? It makes sense, right? I mean, Nicolae doesn\u2019t just wait around for the Jews to rebuild their own Temple \u2014 he needs<\/em> that thing done within three and a half years so he can hop on his giant pig and get it desecrated on schedule. The authors are convinced that the Antichrist himself is going to rebuild the post-Rapture Temple, so why shouldn\u2019t he also help to rebuild the post-Rapture church?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This puts the Antichrist on a very tight schedule. He has a strict list of prophecies that are going to need fulfilling and that timeline is non-negotiable. Within three and a half years of the Rapture, the Antichrist is going to need to be persecuting a global church and he’s going to need to be desecrating a Temple in Jerusalem. And there, on Day One of the Great Tribulation, the morning after the Rapture, neither a global church nor a Temple will exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[238],"class_list":["post-25792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-left-behind","tag-left-behind"],"yoast_head":"\nNRA: Rebuilding the post-Rapture church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This puts the Antichrist on a very tight schedule. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"NRA: Rebuilding the post-Rapture church","description":"This puts the Antichrist on a very tight schedule. He has a strict list of prophecies that are going to need fulfilling and that timeline is non-negotiable. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}