Deconstructing the Rapture

If you cannot read this, it is because my hands were shaking while writing this entry. No I am not on crack, but I do write this fear and trembling. The topic is deconstruction. I have had an ongoing debate with some friends at seminary, as well as with Derrida through reading his material, about the deconstruction of fundatmental, evangelical beliefs that we have held as firm truth for so long. Here's the question, to what extent am I allowed to deconstruct? What's up for grabs is, well, the rapture. (Ok,ok, it's not the end of the world...umm...ok actually I guess it is, or maybe its not. I don't know.) Anywho, here's the deal, I come from a faith tradition that has an uneasy marriage with dispensational theology. Though many Pentecostals reject dispensationalism because of its seeming hostility toward the Pentecostal tradition, Pentecostals have accepted without question, dispensationalist eschatology.

About two years ago, I began to question the traditional (though as I have come to understand really isn't "traditional") view of the end times. I have seen all the rapture movies. I never did understand why God cared enough to fold up everyone's clothes when God raptured them. The streets are wiped bare by the rapture except for the dotting of people's clothes, folded up neatly on the side of the street. Their glasses are always folded laying on the top of the shirt. Anyway, here are the questions that I have come to ask in my deconstruction of the rapture theology.

First of all, if the truth of dispensationalist theology is the truth of scripture, then why did we only discover it two hundred years ago? That's right, the early church didn't have the timelines. Secondly, why would God take God's Spirit away from the world, as well as God's presence in the Church, and then see how many people can remain pure against the pressures of "the beast" and all that the tribulation has to offer? Thirdly, why are so many church of God pastors jumping on the bandwagon of rapture theology, when the professors at the seminary, who are supposed to represent the theological integrity of the tradition, do not agree with such theology? I can possibly agree with the millenium reign of Christ, because as one of the theology professors states, it is a sabbatical, a time of grace for all of creation.

How about the anti-christ. My vote is Carman, or maybe Jerry Fallwell (thanks to Relevant Magazine for this suggestion. The irony in this suggestion is priceless.) If you look historically, you can see that Dometian set up a market place system in which one would have to sacrifice to Dometian (who thought that he was God) before one was allowed to participate in the market economy. Dometian was such a horrible ruler that the Jewish people referred to him as "the Beast." It is believed that one was given a mark after worshipping the beast, allowing one to then buy and sell in the market place. Are we to believe that there are two "Beasts?" I guess if it is true that John was writing literature against the Roman empire, then such a scenario is possible.

In the book "The Rapture Exposed," the writer shows the true nature of apocalypitic literature. She states that the literature was written as a means of showing that which could be in order to change the present course of action. Kind of like the ghost of Christmas future in a Christmas Carol. The vision is given in order to change behavior in the present.

Anyway, I have so many more thoughts on this that will have to wait for another time. I don't have everything figured out, but I do know that Christ is coming back to earth to reign, but I don't think that Christ is coming back to destroy the world. I am beginning to believe more and more each day that God is at work in the world now restoring, or recreating the world. Anywho, I am waiting for the day in which we go up to the city of New Jerusalem. (Oh yeah, Revelation states that the city comes down. Go figure.)