during the election, actually.
I discussed it at length in a Facebook group, here's a few things I posted...
You wrote on September 23, 2008 at 12:56am
I'm loathe to write about this woman but this is what is probably the scariest part of the whole scenario concerning her, in my opinion. It's like a scary sci-fi movie. When are the aliens going to come to rescue us?
The Politics of Tribulation Sarah Palin and the RaptureBy RAYMOND J. LAWRENCE
Is this country ready for a president who is excited about and eagerly looking forward to the Rapture?
The Rapture, as it is called, is the imaginary day when Jesus will come down from the sky and lift up into heaven all those who are saved, leaving behind all unbelievers to destruction and death?
Anyone who believes in the Rapture scenario will likely interpret a catastrophic nuclear exchange as the opening scene of the Rapture. Thus an American president who believes in the Rapture would arguably have at least some ambivalence toward a nuclear holocaust. A believer in the Rapture with his or her fingers on the nuclear trigger might even be tempted to bring on the Rapture. The Rapture, for those who believe in it, is hardly a negative event. Rather it is culmination of everything they hope for, deliverance into the heavenly arms of Jesus.
Presumably Sarah Palin believes in the Rapture. It is one of the doctrines of her religion, and she has nowhere disavowed it. Are Americans ready to sleep at night with a President who longs for the Rapture?
The doctrine of the Rapture is a very recent invention within some of the radical fringe churches of Christianity. The Rapture doctrine is first cousin to millennialism, the belief promoted by various groups who have predicted that “the end is near.” Millennialist groups have popped up and burnt out from time to time throughout Christian history.
The Rapture doctrine has no support in the historic Christianity of any of the main traditions - Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant. The doctrine of the Rapture is cobbled together from several obscure, unrelated comments drawn from the epistles of Paul the Apostle. No credible biblical scholar in two thousand years of Christian history has taken seriously the Rapture doctrine, millennialism, or anything similar to it.
The American people ought to be concerned about the religious beliefs of its political leaders as those beliefs may determine the life of the nation as a whole. It would be foolish of the American people not to be deeply concerned about the religious beliefs of Sara Palin, who may be elected Vice President for the oldest President ever inaugurated into the office.
When John F. Kennedy campaigned for the presidency in 1960, many Americans were concerned about his commitment to the Roman Catholic Chruch. The fear was that he might be subject to directions from Catholic priests, or from the Pope, since he was a practicing Catholic, and Catholic leaders are typically quite directive and authoritarian. Kennedy answered that concern in speaking to the Houston Ministerial Association during the campaign. He declared boldly and correctly that no political leader should take directives from religious authorities whatsoever. He claimed a commitment to the strict separation of church and state. Kennedy’s assurances were widely accepted by the public.
The Sarah Palin problem is somewhat different. The concern is not whether she would take orders from her pastor. That is unlikely. Her church does not typically exercise that sort of authority. The problem is both more simple and more worrisome. The public must presume that Palin believes in the Rapture, since it is one of the central doctrines of her church. Furthermore, the American people should assume that Palin’s personal religious beliefs will have consequences in her decision-making as a President. Both Palin and McCain have already made clear that their religious views about abortion will determine presidential appointments to the courts.
The press and much of the public seem reluctant to engage Palin on her religious views, considering them to be a personal matter. In certain respects that is admirable restraint. We do not want candidates for office grilled on their private religious views as long as those views do not impinge upon the public welfare. Whether an individual believes in the bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary, predestination, or other such religious views should not be subject to political scrutiny. Such beliefs have no inherent impact on public policy.
However, a belief in the Rapture as an historic event toward which history is rapidly moving, is a belief with potentially catastrophic political implications. Do the American people want a believer in such a fantasy to hold in her hands the nuclear power to destroy civilization?
http://www.counterpunch.org/lawrence09202008.htmlDebunking the Rapture -- Barbara Rossing
New Testament scholar Barbara Rossing describes the background and fallacy of the so-called "rapture."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frqIH5eATWgSarah Palin, the pastor and the prophecy: judgment day is not far awayAlexi Mostrous in Wasilla, Alaska
At the Wasilla Assembly of God Church, Sarah Palin’s former pastor sees powerful signs that the end of the world is nigh.
Pastor Ed Kalnins cites conflict in the Middle East, America’s dependence on foreign oil and the depletion of energy reserves as evidence that “storm clouds are gathering”. He told The Times: “Scripture specifically mentions oil instability as a sign of the Rapture. We’re seeing more and more oil wars. The contractions of the fulfilment of prophecies are getting tighter and tighter.”
He declined to set an exact date for the Rapture, or the “End of Days” – the belief in a time when Jesus will return, raising up believers to Heaven and leaving the wicked to be ruled by the Antichrist – but hopes it will be in his lifetime. “I’m looking out the window and I can see it’s going to rain,” he said. “I’m just looking at the turmoil of the world, Iraq, other places – everywhere people are fighting against Christ.”
From:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4720440.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=2015164 //The Bible which is authority for many Christians speaks on the rapture!//
No it doesn't!
"The trouble is, the interpretation of the Bible on which these books are based is also fiction," Rossing writes. "Today's end-times writings draw on a method for looking at prophecy that was invented less than two hundred years ago and, by now, is a dominant American view.
In this system, the Bible - particularly the books of Daniel and Revelation - spell out in detail God's pre-ordained script of predictions for the end of the world."
"But as Rossing writes, "The Rapture is a racket."
The "system" was born of a young Scottish girl's vision in 1830, later fleshed out by a late-19th-century British preacher, John Nelson Darby. Darby conjured up the idea of Rapture based on scriptural texts that, read by most, indicate no such thing, and he devised the concept of "dispensations" - distinct epochs in God's time, with different rules, to account for biblical inconsistencies and, shall we say, ease of prophecy."
http://www.s8int.com/norapture.html"Where did this doctrine come from? Who are the people promoting it? In spite of recent attempts to attribute the pretribulation rapture doctrine to the early church by several leading proponents, the doctrine had no mention in any valid historical document before the 19th century. If anyone held the belief before then, it is certain that it was most certainly not received by any detectable percentage of Christianity. The doctrine of the pretribulation rapture of the Church is a new doctrine that surfaced early in the 19th century and gained popularity in America at the beginning of the 20th century.
The origin for the pretribulation rapture is well documented. The doctrine was publicly revealed first by a London preacher named Edward Irving. After receiving information by a woman named Margaret McDonald, who claimed to receive a revelation from God, Irving began to publish teachings about the pretribulation rapture in his journal, The Morning Watch, about 1830.
About the same time period, an Anglican minister by the name of J. N. Darby came up with the idea of Dispensationalism while studying the Book of Revelation during a time of recovery after falling from his horse. Even though many have wrongly credited John Darby of the Brethren with originating the pretribulation rapture doctrine, he was still defending the historic posttribulation rapture view in the December, 1830 issue of "The Christian Herald." As late as 1837 Darby saw the church "going in with Him to the marriage, to wit, with Jerusalem and the Jews. And we now know that he didn't clearly teach the pretribulation rapture doctrine before 1839. It was not until 1839 that Darby finally began to clearly teach a pretribulation rapture. Later on in the nineteenth century Darby incorporated the idea of the any-moment secret into a last-days scheme which has come to be known as Dispensationalism.
A little over a half a century later, C. I. Scofield took a fancy to the doctrine and thought up the plan for a reference Bible that would help to explain the complicated structure of Dispensationalism to the masses. He constructed his reference Bible to include Darby's dispensational error, which included the doctrine of pretribulation rapture. The Scofield Reference Bible introduced Dispensationalism into the American church shortly after the turn of the 20th century. It was first met with great resistance, and caused much confusion and conflict among professing Christians. Throughout time, it has gradually become accepted and defended by many as true, Biblical doctrine."
http://www.truthkeepers.com/chapter_four.htm
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