The Rapture Exposed
The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation
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4.4 • 5 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A leading New Testament scholar exposes the myth of “The Rapture” and restores the Book of Revelation’s true message of God’s love
“Lucid and passionate.” —Harper’s
The idea of “The Rapture”—the return of Christ at the end of times to rescue and deliver born-again Christians off the earth—is an extremely popular interpretation of the biblical book of Revelation. This dramatic understanding of the end-times has inspired recent doomsday prophecies and infiltrated popular media, as exemplified by the wildly successful Left Behind franchise.
In The Rapture Exposed, New Testament scholar Barbara Rossing argues that this script for the world’s future is nothing more than a disingenuous distortion of the Bible, based on a psychology of fear. The truth is that Revelation offers a vision of God’s healing love for the world. The Rapture Exposed reclaims Christianity from fundamentalists’ destructive reading of the biblical story and back into God’s beloved community.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ordained minister Rossing is ready to do battle with evangelicals both within and outside of her Lutheran Church camp. Rossing, who teaches New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, begins her sparring by taking on the widely popular Left Behind series and all it presumes to communicate about the future of the world. Claiming that the Left Behind authors' interpretation of prophetic biblical verses is "fiction," Rossing firmly asserts that the Book of Revelation has a completely different purpose than to predict upcoming world uprisings and the eventual end of the earth. Instead, Rossing believes that this biblical vision is meant to inspire humanity to seek out "repentance and justice." Rossing also maintains, somewhat unfairly, that rapture enthusiasts extol a careless, abusive attitude toward God's created world, since rapture theology declares that the followers of Christ are soon to be removed from it. More significant is Rossing's belief that Revelation does not offer a prophetic look at Jerusalem as the inevitable battleground between good and evil, but rather extends the promise of a New Jerusalem that will open its arms to all nations in peace. While Rossing's scholarly work is well organized and obviously carefully thought out, evangelicals may take issue with the blanket statement that "most Christian churches and biblical scholars condemn Rapture theology as a distortion of Christian faith with little biblical basis." This book will likely upset Christian conservatives while appealing to many in mainline denominations.
