The End of the World Doctrine (And Why It Matters)

If Facebook keeps records of its most frequently “de-friended” people, I would probably rank pretty high. In the past twelve hours, I think I lost seven. There is no subject that embroils my passions more than discussions of the end of the world. Some of my friends privately asked me to explain some rather scathing remarks I made to a close friend in such a public forum. This is my attempt:

In almost every respect, my childhood was perfect. I had two parents who loved me, provided for me, educated me, and took time for me. I lived in a middle-class neighborhood where we never worried about crime. I really only had one worry. From my earliest memories, it was engrained in my mind that I would never reach adulthood. I was taught that I would probably not graduate from high school. I would not get married nor have kids of my own. Jesus was coming any day. And I had better be ready, or the consequences were dire.

I remember one horror-filled day when I was very young, probably around eight or so. My mother had taken me shopping at the Tri-County Mall Sears store. I wondered off while she looked through racks of dresses. When I returned, she was not in the same place and I panicked, sure that the rapture had taken place and I had been left. I broke into tears and went running through the store looking for my mother. I remember the relief of finally seeing her a few aisles from where she had been.

But this was not just one single experience. Many of my Pentecostal friends recall instances of fear that they had missed the rapture. I can recall making phone calls to a little old lady in our church, just to make sure she was still on earth. Our church provided almost no “assurance of salvation” as Calvinists might call it. We were taught about the cross and the blood of Jesus forgiving sin, but our behavior was the overriding factor in determining who went to heaven and who did not. Any deviating from the straight and narrow path put us in a position to be lost. This mentality became even more burdensome as we became teenage boys. Our hormones were raging and lust became the sin most likely to keep us earthbound in the event of the rapture.

These lyrics are from one of my favorite childhood songs:

Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon
Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound
All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the skies
Going where no one dies, heavenward bound

We sang a lot of songs in church about the end of the world. In hindsight, it seems that most of those songs combined warnings about our duty to make sure we were ready for Christ’s return. At least in our church, the word “righteous” above had very little to do with Jesus atoning work on the cross and a lot to do with our behavior. Here’s another of my favorites:

I’m getting ready to leave this world
I’m getting ready for the gates of pearl
Keeping my record bright, watching both day and night
I’m getting ready to leave this world

Looking back on my childhood, most people would say I was a pretty good kid. I rarely got in any serious trouble and did okay in school. But “keeping my record bright” was a constant concern. The Grace Movement had not yet infiltrated the Pentecostal church. We were bombarded with “prophetic messages” and the “interpretation of tongues” in which the speaker, claiming to speak directly from God, warned us that “his coming was nigh, even at the door”. The fear was enough to keep most of us from straying too far from the “path of righteousness”. A good sermon about the rapture was always sure to pack the altar with people wanting to make sure they were ready.

Hal Lindsey wrote a preposterous book in 1979 called “The 1980’s, Countdown to Armageddon”. I was a senior in high school and it had not yet occurred to me that it was possible our church could be wrong on this issue. At that time, the bad guys in the Biblical books of Daniel and Revelation were the Soviets. The Godless Commies had nukes and appeared to be the infamous “Bear from the North”. Radical Islam was not yet a threat, so the fear mongers among us were unable to make the connections that seem so “obvious” in 2011. Hal Lindsey, Jack VanImpe, and Tim LaHaye are still raking in millions of dollars in book sales as they change the characters in the same tired drama. And LaHaye’s work is the most egregious, because it targets children and teenagers with this message of fear.

And this brings us to the reason I care so much about this issue: I am in general, a live-and-let-live kind of guy. I almost never engage in religious arguments with friends or on public forums like Facebook. You are free to believe what you will and hopefully your religious tenets bring your life meaning and motivation. But I cannot back down from this issue, as ugly and contentious as the arguments get. I stand amazed that so many of my childhood friends are exposing their children to the same doctrine, continuing the cycle of abuse.

Yes, I said “abuse”. Teaching your young children that they will not live to adulthood can bring about serious psychological problems. It did for me. At a very minimum, they will not be as prepared to succeed as adults as they need to be in a competitive global economy. Why strive for academic excellence if you are convinced that Jesus is coming so quickly? I urge my friends who are so upset with me to consider the damage they are doing to their children. If you believe this doctrine, obviously you consider it a disservice to your children to not warn them. If this is the case, I urge you to offer your children the assurance of their right-standing with God, not by their works, but by the work of Christ on the cross. Allow them to feel the confidence that God loves them in spite of their weakness and frailty as humans. And when they reach adulthood, their faith will not be challenged because they were not taught fearful things that did not come to pass.

I am now 50 years old. The children I thought I’d never have are both in college. Yet the fear-mongering continues within the church, but it need not be that way. I urge my friends to consider Daniel’s prophecy of the “70 weeks of years” in light of the events of 70 AD, when Titus sacked Jerusalem with the Roman army. I urge you to read Matthew 24 in the context of Jesus’ day and his earlier teaching about his death signifying the destruction of the temple. As a believer, you are free to believe Jesus’ words in verse 34. “This generation shall not pass till all these things are fulfilled.” You need not take the giant leap in logic required to believe the “gap theory” or the idea that the “fig tree” represents the Israeli people and their formation of their nation in 1948. There are great resources available on the internet to counter the indoctrination you have on this issue.

Let me close with a disclaimer. There are proponents of a view of church history called Preterism. A few of these people tend to oppose Israel with a subtle anti-semitic viewpoint. I just want to preemptively distance myself from this position. I am a big supporter of the nation of Israel, but not because I believe in their divine right to this land. I support freedom, women’s rights, and democracy all of which are embodied in Israel’s existence. The Jewish people survived the holocaust and I fully support their right to a homeland. Israel stands as a beacon of light in the middle of a dark, Islamic world. My support for Israel is political and practical, not religiously or prophetically motivated.