EIGHT
Show me two theologians in agreement and I will show thee compromise.
Julius Mann, Traditions, vol. 2, ch. 9
On Wednesday morning Roy wasted near to an hour hunting through the computer modes, trying to produce a map of the city which could adequately identify where each one of his church members lived. In the end he gave up and went to a drawer to find an old map. He then sat down with his church phonebook and a marker pen to laboriously find each address.
He went to each house and hammered at each door, demanding someone to answer, before returning to his car and checking off the names in his phonebook. He had worked out that it would take him at least two days to visit all one-hundred-and-three houses. But when he saw that many houses had desperate animals roaming the properties, he recalculated.
Assuming that the cats could hunt for food, he thought that if he rounded up the dogs and somehow trapped them in his car and drove them to the special emergency pet shelter set up by animal lovers, then it would take him well over a week to visit each house. His other option was to purchase pet food and distribute it with a promise that the animal lovers would be informed. Roy hated seeing animals suffer, but he told himself that his first priority was to check on all his people. He took the second option.
At the end of day-one he arrived home weary and depressed over finding no one. But at least he was in time to see the Blair Laraine Show. When he turned on the TCS, Blair finished her introductory monologue and began talking to the first of her guests. He was a slightly-built man with thick glasses, who smiled and leaned forward in his chair as he spoke.
In one wide shot of the studio set, Roy saw that Alex was indeed one of the guests, and patiently waiting his turn to speak. He was broad-shouldered and thick-set, and his expensive suit looked good on him. His dark hair was tied back tight against his scalp with a short pony-tail at the back. His face was fat, with piercing brown eyes. He could weaken any opposition with a single glance.
Roy began to prepare his evening meal, and when he moved to the kitchen the screen by the fridge automatically came on.
“One possibility,” said the first guest, “that many have missed here, is an occurrence that few people outside Christendom are aware of, and few inside, I might add; and that is the rapture, or ‘the great catching away of God’s people’, that many fundamentalists have been expecting and predicting for years. Now, it is widely known that most of those who have been reported missing were Christians, from all denominations, right across the board, and that is exactly what would happen if the rapture did in fact take place. Not all Christians, I might add, for the so-called apostates from fundamentalism will not be taken away; it will only be the good Christians.”
Roy nearly cut himself and not the onion. He put the knife down and stared at the screen. He had not even expected Alex to mention the rapture idea, let alone some “expert” he had never seen before. Roy was interested in how Blair would react to hearing about the rapture, as she seldom discussed and Christian issues.
“Are you saying millions of people have been taken away by God,” Blair fired at him, “without warning and against their will?”
“No, he didn’t say that,” said Roy.
“Yes,” said the man. “That’s exactly what happened, in my opinion. In the minds of the fundamentalists it was the rapture, but in reality, the God-force has seen fit to remove those who are not fitting into our planet’s life cycle. It is really not all that surprising, and should be applauded.”
“Would you care to comment on that, George?” the host asked another of the guests, a man Roy had seen on her show before, who seemed to be a favourite of hers.
George was a big man, like Alex, with a square jaw. Unlike Alex, he had a strong mid-European accent and was in his sixties. He eyed the other man as he said, “It sounds a reasonable hypothesis to me.” He pointed his hand at the first guest in a forceful manner and asked, “You mean those fundamentalist types were getting on nature’s nerves, so she had them all removed?”
“Yes, in layman’s terms, that is exactly what happened,” said the first man. “If you read their writings you see they already knew this was going to happen. They expected it. There has been a regular setting of dates for this event, over the past twenty years, all of which had thousands believing it was about to happen. None of them were correct, but it served to prepare them for when it actually did happen, which was this past Sunday morning. There is an endless supply of books on the subject of what they call the rapture. You can actually trace these date-setting and end-of-the-world fanatics all the way back to the third century of the common era. St Augustine in the fifth century said the world would end in the year 1,000; and he was wrong by a considerable margin, I would say. They never change, and they never get it right, either. Until of course, this week.”
“How would you explain that, Doctor?” the host asked him. “How did they know this would happen?”
“Well, the answer’s quite simple, really. The God-force implanted the thought in their minds, for generations, to spiritually prepare them for it. If you study the history of this rapture doctrine, you see that it only goes back to the nineteenth century, and since then numerous fundamentalists have tried to apply ancient prophecies to accommodate it. If you think about it, the God-force has done a beautiful work in helping save our planet.”
Roy wished he was in the studio to refute him. He bet Alex was fuming, just waiting for his chance to cut such nonsensical ideas to shreds. Alex waited until Roy had the onions frying up with the sliced meat. Roy tapped at the nearby controls to turn up the volume to hear Blair’s introduction.
“My other guest is a respected minister in the New Reformed United Brethren church. He’s well known in the Carlow community for his charity work and service for the elderly. Welcome, Alex.”
“Thank you, Blair.”
“What are your thoughts concerning this matter, Alex? Do you support the view of the God-force implanting the idea of mass removal from the Earth of those who hinder the human race’s evolution, in the minds of Christian fundamentalists in the form of a fanciful notion of a rapture of God’s so-called people?”
“Not at all.”
“How else do you explain it?” the first guest asked Alex with vigour.
“Well,” Alex said with an easy smile and no hint of nerves, “I’m content to let the government agencies work on solving the mystery of the thousands of missing people. For now, I believe we should be looking ahead, to rebuild our community that has lost so much from this tragic event.”
“Please tell us, Alex,” said Blair, “do you hold to this rapture idea at all? I believe you call yourself a fundamentalist?”
“Yes, I’m a fundamentalist, and proud of it. I believe in the fundamentals of the Christian religion.”
“All fundamentalists would hold to this rapture idea, wouldn’t they?”
“Oh no, you’re quite misinformed there, Blair. The rapture doctrine in held by those who have no serious education in Christian theology. They may call themselves fundamentalists, but they actually follow their own heretical doctrines far removed from apostolic tradition. One such doctrine is this rapture idea. The types I mean are those who stand about babbling at each other, claiming some kind of spiritually ecstatic experience. The rapture is what I call a play-doctrine, one for those not spiritually mature to handle the real meat of holy scripture.”
“And implanted in their minds,” said the first guest.
“I would agree,” said George.
“No, I cannot agree with that,” Alex said in a friendly manner, nonplussed by the contention around him. “What some people might believe in the name of Christ, I have no control over. All I know is that no serious Bible student believes in the rapture doctrine, and I certainly don’t hold it to be a plausible option to explain the current events. There are many fine Christians not affected, and remain with us. They are good members of society, hard workers, and loyal to their churches. It makes no s
ense at all that the missing Christians could have been taken to heaven because they were good. Many good Christians may be included with the missing, but many more remain with us.”
“Do you have your own idea of what happened?” the host asked.
“Could be,” said Alex with a shrug, “that God took pity on those who believed in the rapture and took them all away to heaven.”
The group laughed and the first guest added, “Took pity on us, more like.”
“Could be,” said Alex.
“Come on Alex,” said Roy as he added the sauce to the steaming frying pan, “you can do better than that, can’t you?”
“But let me say this,” said Alex. “The Christian leaders in the city—those still with us, I mean—will be holding a meeting to discuss what we do from here; where we are going in the days and years ahead. I may not agree with either of your two guests here tonight, Blair, but I do believe we can find some common ground to work together. One of the goals of this meeting is to show St Antipas that the differing Christian denominations can unite and help our beautiful island recover. I think even my fellow guests here in the studio will concede that our intention is for the good of St Antipas, and the world. We must learn to work together in harmony, for nothing else but for our children’s future.”
Roy turned the sound off and carried his finished meal into the lounge. He shook his head with regret as he watched the silent screen. He could not understand how Alex did not defend the rapture doctrine. Just because he did not think it was right, did that mean he had the licence to deride those who thought it was true? Roy told himself that if it was him up on the screen it would be his duty to defend the rapture doctrine, on behalf of all those who believed it. He then realised such a thought was easier for him than for Alex, as Kingdomite priests were trained to be ready to jump to the help of anyone needing it, and to stand and represent their views in their place.
He switched the screen to NewsText to read the latest.
NewsText. 7:15 p.m. Wednesday 7 October 2026. Major world crisis: mass disappearance of millions of people. Missing in St Antipas: 38,719 reported, total of 90,000 suspected or confirmed missing. Shelters now open for anyone requiring assistance. Prime Minister Marvin Francis issued a statement at 7:01 p.m. [edited]” “Your co-operation over the past few days had been much appreciated by all involved in emergency work, but we still require more time to fully deal with the crisis. Thank you, St Antipas.”
As Roy looked at the numbers he found it difficult to believe how Alex could joke about it with Blair Laraine. Roy himself would never surrender to those holding EarthMother ideas. He knew he would much rather believe in the rapture. He conceded a laugh to himself as he thought he could sound like Lenny the other night, and spout off Apocalyptic symbolism on live TCS. The more he thought about it the less it seemed a funny idea.
He tapped at the control to his personal computer, call up his BibleNotes programme. He typed in “rapture” and found himself reading:
RAPTURE: popular doctrine of saints being translated, or “caught up” into the clouds to meet Christ and all the dead saints who were similarly translated, based chiefly on 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, but 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, John 14:2-3, Revelation 3:10 are other proof verses. Manifold variations, including seven years prior to Christ returning to the world in his manifest glory, the original and most popular version of the twentieth and late nineteenth century, now superseded by version which promises rapture to happen three-and-a-half years before Christ’s return, and three-and-a-half years after a supposed “peace treaty” of the supposed Antichrist and the national state of Israel. Other versions state that rapture will occur when Christ returns in glory, or rapture will be for only “pure” saints, or rapture will be for only “impure” saints, or rapture will be for only unbelievers. Adherents to any of these are usually unaware of the finer points of theology and base their belief on the latest best-seller from popular authors. Treat with undue care and do not try to refute too much of what they believe.
The programme was Kingdomite, and the notes were only advice on how to answer and console someone who believed in the rapture. Roy needed more, and from a biblical viewpoint.
He returned his plate to the kitchen and found his old King James Bible. It was large and gold-rimmed and bound in sturdy black leather. Although Revelation was the last book, it was only about two-thirds of the way through; the rest consisted of extensive notes, lists and diagrams. He turned to the first page of the mysterious book and the first thing he noticed was half of the text was in red, showing that it was thought to be the words of Christ.
The BibleNotes had told him that verse ten of chapter three was “a main proof verse”. He read it and found it contained no references to the rapture. He could see how it could be used to support the rapture, but not to prove the idea.
Roy had seldom looked at Revelation, and as he paged through it he struggled to find anything that looked like it could be referring to the rapture. His Bible was covered in notes and references down both of the two columns of text on each page, but he could see nothing even slightly resembling a rapture reference.
He went to First Thessalonians and read the whole of the ancient short letter. He saw that it promised some sort of rapture concept, on the surface at least. But he could not see any connection with what he had personally witnessed.
There must be more to it than this!
He sat back and tried to think of where he had some material that dealt with the rapture idea. He knew Julius Mann had said nothing about it. Throughout his extensive training at Kingdom of God Theological Seminary the only time he remembered hearing about the rapture was in jokes about fundamentalists. The only books he knew of were the popular ones at the church library. After deciding he should go in to get the books, he remembered they were all gone; stolen by someone who was obviously convinced about the rapture.
Roy felt uneasy. If it were true, that the rapture had happened like the popular doomsdayers had said, then he was a long way behind in learning about it. Even the library thief was ahead of him. His skin went cold as he recalled some of the things said by people who believed it, and what Lenny had mentioned to him. It was all foreign to him.
He looked at the text of Revelation and did not like what he saw. Judgements and plagues. Even the notes at the side did not help him; one said, Satanic Malice, and another, The Beast Rising Out Of The Sea.
“Come on,” Roy said to himself, “this can’t be right. God doesn’t create evil things. This is all in spiritual language. It’s not meant to be real.”
He turned to the notes at the back of the Bible in the hope of finding some mention of the rapture. He checked the concordance but found nothing, only ransom, ransomed, raze, rash. No rapture. He turned to the index and nearly ripped the pages trying to find the “R”s. He found ransom, rapacity, rash. No rapture.
He shut the big Bible with frustration. He did not want to admit it, but he had no known access to any kind of end-times teaching. He allowed himself a small laugh as he thought of asking Lenny what he knew. It would be the expert asking the learner for help. He wondered if he could do it in such a way as to not let Lenny know he was desperate for the information.