I don’t take the story literally (sorry Ken Ham), but I see some general themes: We live in a moral universe, and God judges the immoral.
I never heard anyone refer to environmentalists that way. Green on the outside?? Maybe decades ago, but…actually I never have ever. Not everyone is concerned equally about every issue…and you may support a candidate for one set of reasons, but not others .
Like jpm…I have not heard rapture theology used to dismiss environmental concerns. But I HAVE on occasion listened to environmentalists who are no less alarmist than people who want to let you know the timing of the Second Coming. You can react negatively to alarmist thinking just because you are tired of hearing it.
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Also, not every evangelical believes in the Rapture.
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It was fairly recent that I heard it the expression, used by one of the prominent climate scientists.
That is true, but most who believe in the rapture as it is popularly known tend to be Evangelicals.
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a prominent climate scientist said that environmentalists are green on the outside and red on the inside!!! Thanks for the info…but now I have a question: When you said the statement (copied and pasted below), I thought you meant that evangelicals call environmentalists watermelons — green on the outside, red (communist, I assume is meant) on the inside…so it is not evangelicals but “prominent climate scientist” ??
- Evangelicals sometimes consider environmentalism a liberal, communist concern. Environmentalists are sometimes called watermelons: green on the outside, red on the inside.
why is it crazy?
I think the issue is that what is meant is a future judgment…How that looks and who and what is left standing is an entirely different discussion, Marisa.
(She meant it in a good way, not literally, just as a figure of speech I’m quite sure. Kind of like “That’s cool!” can mean the same thing as “That’s hot!” or “That’s wild!” and… “That’s crazy!”, none meant literally. Antiphrasis may be the technical term for it.)
I was being sarcastic at the risk of being taken seriously.
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NO NO NO. What I actually said was,
It was fairly recent that I heard it the expression, used by one of the prominent climate scientists.
It showed how denialists use the expression “green on the outside, red on the inside”
Living dangerously, eh?
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OK…thanks to you and also to Kendel for clarifying…I must say that this post, like most others, moved from one issue (the impact of the rapture concept on evangelical thinking about “preserving Creation”) to other matters quite quickly…and it all, suddenly, boils down to someone’s political stance. Since it is my last visit and I have noticed various side trails popping up…I would say that — IMHO — developing a label like “climate change” was a mistake. The notion of “climate change” can be easily ridiculed (as in, "seriously? where were YOU x millennia ago when there were tropical rain forests in Antarctica (or whenever/wherever that was). " It’s a long philosophical (nay geological) discussion to get past the reality that the environment of the earth/solar system/ universe has made significant changes (not necessarily decade by decade though) .—so why should the latest situation be of concern? or is there a change at all?
And the purveyors of this message become, eventually, like every preacher with a “Jesus is coming SOON and I know when” book to sell…and have occasionally seemed to be hypocritical or misleading in their presentation. All another discussion…More than likely that these other issues go into the thinking of many people – not just evangelicals and not because of the belief in a Rapture.
Seems to be how I roll any more,
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So why is concern for the environment considered by some to be leftist/Communist? Consider the George C. Marshall Institute. This institute was founded originally to counter communism. Later, they associated almost any government regulations with communism and an assault on capitalism. They fought regulations on smoking for years. They were so successful at this that their strategy became the playbook for opposing regulations on all kinds of things: acid rain, the ozone layer, climate change.
Hmmm… I kind of feel like the title of this thread is misleading, and might be better rephrased as:
Does the concept of the Rapture lead American Evangelical Christians against preserving Creation?
or perhaps,
Does the concept of the Rapture lead a subset of Christians against preserving creation?
From my experience, the vast majority of Evangelicals in the UK don’t hold to a Rapture theology. Most are either amillennial (like myself), historic pre-millennial… or, what a mentor of mine once termed, ‘panmillenial’, the belief that “whatever happens, it will all pan out in the end”… in other words, they’re just not that bothered either way.
Truth be told, I think I’ve only known 4 card-carrying, rapture-promoting dispensational premillennialists in my Christian life. So, if the Rapture is causing Christians to turn away from Creation care, it seems to me that it might be principally an American problem. At least in the first instance, I can’t speak for mainland Europe, et al.
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Bingo. This is the land of “Left Behind” and one failed apocalypse after another.
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I agree that the problem of (misunderstood) Rapture vs. Creation care is principally an American problem.
American Christians have been active in spreading their beliefs through literature and social media. Popular books or films, like ‘Left Behind’, have spread and been translated in most(?) European countries.
Many in Europe have read what those Americans have written and some people have adopted those beliefs. It is a minority in Europe but there are still probably tens of thousands of Christians in Europe that believe in those interpretations. I have not counted how many I have met but probably hundreds of Christians that support this interpretation of Rapture.
It should be noted that we are talking about interpretations of biblical passages. To be honest, we do not know what the ‘final truth’ is. Our pet interpretations usually depend on the theological and social background we have. In some churches, very few promote the Rapture thinking. In some churches, usually small ones, one or more leaders have adopted that interpretation and most members have adopted the pet interpretations of their leaders.
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Goodness, Liam. This sounds wonderful. Can you direct me to reading?
An excellent book on the topic is Unraptured: How End Times Theology gets it Wrong
written by Zack Hunt.
Growing up in a conservative area, Zack became something of a rapture geek. But as he grew older he realized that this kind of thinking was unbiblical. Zack has a Master’s Degree in Christian history from Yale Div. School, and remains an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene.
This book is readable, theologically sound, and has lots of humor!
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Thanks for the title, @beaglelady. I’ve spent my life in pre-trib, rapturous, dispensational churches, but have never taken those parts of the doctrinal statements very much to heart. Explanations of end times and excruciatingly detailed timelines have been so convoluted and confusing, some parts fantastical, that I (to my shame) ignored it. Same with dispensationalism. It just really didn’t make sense to me. And it didn’t seem very important to my life with Christ and within the church.
It’s refreshing to be coming into contact with different thoughts about these issues, which might make more sense to me.
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This is great! In our tradition, it seems almost to be heresy not to be pre trib.
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