The Rapture is a mostly American evangelical Christian belief that Christian believers will be raptured at the end times. From the Latin root raptus, meaning to be carried away.
The history of it is pretty interesting. There's no real definite support for it in the bible. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of stuff about the end times, and some passages about the believers meeting
Jesus in the air, and some other stuff about tribulation...but essentially some different dudes over time have interpreted all these passages to death and decided on their own interpretations. It's a belief that became popular in the late 1700s, early 1800s based on some different guys interpretations of what the bible says. I mean, this is extrapolation of the vaguest kind. Times, times, and half a time (Daniel 7:25) is interpreted as 3 and 1/2 years...um...
If anyone is interested in reading more about what the rapture is, they can check out Wikipedia, which I feel gives a pretty good explanation. It also gives some links to some amazing people, like some guy named Increase Mather, and his son, Cotton. It's no surprise these guys were involved with the Salem witch trials.
There are also a lot of Christian websites those interested can immerse themselves in, and plenty of people who will spew hate at you for questioning their beliefs in the end times, as well. Anyways, I'm Catholic, so I don't get raptured. I pretty much wind up straight in hell.
But man oh man, The rapture is the stuff of Hollywood horror. Kids disappearing from their parents, teenager waking up to find their whole families gone. Then, what happens next? Torture for the next seven years.
As a story premise this is BRILLIANT. My husband was terrified when he was a child that everyone he knew would be raptured and he would be left alone. He used to wake up in the middle of the night and check to make sure everyone else was still in bed.
Unfortunately the Christians have yet to use the story gold that history has handed to them. Unable to stop beating the audience to death with their evangelical message, the story crashes and burns. Sometimes less is more guys. I may not have accepted Jesus into my heart in quite the way you have but I'm not a moron.
I can only assume that editing choices and directing were also dictated by the need to be nice instead of actually telling someone that the choices made were perhaps not the best.
A movie based on the rapture should be like a zombie flick, not really about the zombies, but about what the people do in response to the zombies. How do they react when placed in this confusing/terrifying situation.
Instead we get a nice Muslim man, who isn't saved because he's Muslim (nice isn't enough to get you saved), a dwarf with a lot of issues about being short, and a busy business man who also isn't saved, because he had no time for Jesus or family, oh, yep, and a drug addict, and lots of mom's missing their kids.
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| My companions giving their best Nic Cage impersonations |
There is an HBO show called the leftovers that just came out this year based on the rapture that I'm told might get it right. Looking forward to watching it.
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