The Reality of Rapture Anxiety: The Fear of Being Left Behind

“I truly believe that this generation will see the second coming of Christ….” The preacher man said gravely as he spoke prophetically over a room full of impressionable teenagers.

I was among the crowd.

As a 13-year-old, I had mixed feelings about the idea that Christ might return at any moment. In a way, I was rather hoping that he’d be delayed long enough that I could… you know… enjoy some of life’s more guilty pleasures.

“What will he find you doing when he arrives?” Bellowed the preacher man. “Will you be found out, or will he find you faithful?”

So much for guilty pleasures.

“No man knows the hour nor the day, for the Son of Man will come like a thief in the night!” And he slammed his fist down on the pulpit. “Time is short, young people. You must warn your friends to make their peace with God through Jesus Christ!”

Then he invited us to bow our heads and close our eyes. This was followed by an invitation. I use the term “invitation” loosely because it was more like an ultimatum than an invitation.

“If you want to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior right now, then, while every head is bowed and every eye is closed, raise your hand.”

The worship band had snuck up to the front while our eyes were closed, and now the music swelled. It built to a glorious crescendo of ethereal-sounding keyboard pad that sounded like the choirs of heaven.

“What if Jesus returned tonight?” Whispered the preacher with a pained expression. “Would he take you with him to heaven, or would you be left behind.”

Oh boy.

I don’t want to be left behind.

I thrust my hand up into the air without delay, as if the sky might rend and be open at any second, and the Lord descend that very moment.

Phew! Just in time.

Saved.

The Left-Behind generation

I lived my childhood through the eighties and nineties. Any kid who was in the evangelical church back then can tell you all about “Left Behind.”

For those who are unfamiliar with it, “Left Behind” was a 16-book series — that was later made into a movie starring Kirk Cameron of ‘Growing Pains’ fame — that told the story of the end times, in which the true believers of Christ have been “raptured” (taken instantly to Heaven).

Planes fall from the sky.

Doctors disappear in the middle of surgical procedures.

Families are torn apart.

Economies collapse.

The world descends into utter chaos.

All those wicked atheists, agnostics, and people of other religions are struck by the daunting realization that they were wrong and are now staring down the barrel of eternal damnation.

Yes, as children, we were fed these “Left Behind” stories in a steady stream. And although they were fiction, they were presented as a kind of prophetic story about real future events.

Fear sells

From the moment I was old enough to understand, I was taught that the Rapture was something that could happen at any moment. Although there were different schools of thought about how such an event would unfold, the basic idea went something like this: True Christians would be taken up into heaven by Jesus Christ, while the rest of humanity would be left behind to suffer.

As a kid, I was constantly reminded that the rapture was just around the corner. It could happen at any moment. What is more, I was taught to avoid sin because what if the very last thing I did before Jesus returned to Earth was some kind of horrible sin? What if I was caught in the very act? Heck… what if I wasn’t forgiven at the moment of Jesus’s arrival?

When I accepted “Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and savior” at that youth camp, I sure meant it.

Why?

Because I didn’t want to be left behind!

Far too many years later, I realized that my conversion to Christianity at that youth camp had been done under duress. I was pressured. I was emotionally manipulated. I was presented with an impossible choice, and I chose the path that I thought would deliver me from the nightmarish scenario presented to me from the pulpit.

And I did it time and time again.

When I started following Jesus, I did it to avoid the consequences of not following Jesus. I did not love Jesus. I was not compelled to follow him by reading about his exemplary life through the Gospels. I was simply following Jesus to avoid punishment — to escape the flames — and not be left behind.

I arrived at a troubling conclusion: The church’s primary weapon to achieve many of its goals is fear. Fear controls the masses. Fear sells. I think back over the years that I was part of the evangelical church, and I saw it time and time again.

The anxiety is real…

“Rapture anxiety” is now recognized by some faith experts and mental health professionals as a kind of religious trauma. Darren Slade, the president and CEO of the Global Center for Religious Research, has been studying religious trauma across several faiths and denominations for years. In a recent article, he said:

This is a real thing. It’s a chronic problem. This is a new area of study, but in general, our research has revealed that religious trauma leads to an increase of anxiety, depression, paranoia and even some OCD-like behaviors: ‘I need to say this prayer of salvation so many times,’ ‘I need to confess my sins so often.’

Now imagine you are taught that at any minute, you could be left here on Earth. What does that do to the teenager who just had premarital sex, or even simply took the Lord’s name in vain?

This perfectly describes my experience as a kid growing up. I always prayed what I called the “just in case” prayer before bed. It went something like this:

Now I lay me down to sleep
Pray the Lord, my soul to keep
But if at morn, I do not wake
Pray the Lord, my soul to take

I prayed this each night, just in case either I died in my sleep or the Lord returned during the night, as extra insurance on my immortal soul.

I would pray and ask God to forgive me of my sins. I spent a long time listing pretty much everything I could think of, from fighting with my little sister to saying a swear word at school to thinking naughty thoughts. I didn’t want to miss a single sin because I was convinced that God would hold me accountable for the one thing I forgot to mention.

Only now can I see how messed up this is.

The truth about the rapture

If you grew up in a Catholic or mainline protestant denomination, you probably didn’t hear much about the rapture. It’s a belief that is very much unique to evangelical and fundamentalist churches.

And it’s still taught today.

Here’s the truth about the rapture, though.

When Darren Slade, the president and CEO of the Global Center for Religious Research, traced the history of the modern rapture theology commonly taught as fact in many evangelical churches, he discovered that the rapture, as evangelicals understand it, is hardly mentioned in the Bible. What is more, modern rapture theology only dates back to the 1800s.

Here’s one last uncomfortable truth: The word “rapture” doesn’t even appear in the Bible.

Awkward.

So where did it comes from? Much like the ideas of “Hell” and “Eternal Conscious Torment,” Christians plucked a few Bible verses, mainly from the Apostle Paul — rather than Jesus Christ — and sewed together a theology that perpetuates the idea of a God who is unreasonably angry and bloodthirsty. Before long, it was presumed to be a time-honored truth.

But it’s not.

It’s time to ditch fear from our religion

Right now, there are millions of people across the world who are terrified of an event called “The Rapture,” which they believe will come like a bolt out of the blue, wreaking havoc and leaving immeasurable suffering in its wake.

But only for those who are left behind.

So, many choose to “follow Christ” to avoid such a horrible fate. The thing is, a human being will only follow another out of fear for so long before deciding to break free from their puritanical regime. Eventually, they will say, “Hang on a second! This just isn’t right!”

And it isn’t.

Love, on the other hand, compels a person to follow indefinitely. The problem is that love takes longer to reap a harvest than fear, and the church has never been known for its patience.

God is love.

Perfect love casts out all fear.

The rapture wasn’t God’s idea.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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