Reading notes

In the United States, several million people have succumbed to an extraordinary delusion. In the 19th century, two immigrant preachers cobbled together a series of unrelated passages from the Bible to create what appears to be a consistent narrative: Jesus will return to Earth when certain preconditions have been met …

What makes the story so appealing to Christian fundamentalists is that before the big battle begins, all “true believers” (ie those who believe what they believe) will be lifted out of their clothes and wafted up to heaven during an event called the Rapture. …

We can laugh at these people, but we should not dismiss them. That their beliefs are bonkers does not mean they are marginal. American pollsters believe that 15-18% of US voters belong to churches or movements which subscribe to these teachings. A survey in 1999 suggested that this figure included 33% of Republicans. … The people who believe all this don’t believe it just a little; for them it is a matter of life eternal and death. …

The electoral calculation, crazy as it appears, works like this. Governments stand or fall on domestic issues. For 85% of the US electorate, the Middle East is a foreign issue, and therefore of secondary interest when they enter the polling booth. For 15% of the electorate, the Middle East is not just a domestic matter, it’s a personal one: if the president fails to start a conflagration there, his core voters don’t get to sit at the right hand of God.

As I understand it, the larger system of thought from which these beliefs come is called dispensationalism, within which the belief George is writing about — a pretribulational rapture — is foundational.

That this dispensational thought didn’t exist in its current form before 1830, isn’t obvious in biblical texts, and certainly isn’t part of Church history and the Creeds makes me wonder why it’s caught on as it has, especially among those who otherwise aim to be punctilious. Using these criteria, isn’t dispensational thinking comparable to LDS thinking (Mormonism) in terms of its sufficient or insufficient basis for believability?

Most of the Church Universal considers dispensationalism “at variance with established religious beliefs,” which makes it, at least according to the dictionary, heresy. Whether heresy or not, as a practical theological matter I consider dispensational thinking bad news because it leads many of its adherents — no matter how otherwise sincere — to support U.S.-led injustices like inciting violence in the Middle East, which, if God’s revelation to us in Jesus means anything, opposes and grieves his Spirit.

(Disclaimer: I am no expert on either dispensational hermeneutics or LDS. Nor, given what I have learned so far, do I see any compelling reason to become one. I grant that YMMV.)

[via comment to Billmon]