A Fourth Church Sermon by Cynthia M. Campbell

July 22, 2001 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

What’s Next?

Cynthia M. Campbell
President, McCormick Theological Seminary

Matthew 24:36–44

They call it “beach reading.” Books that entertain more than they enlighten; books that can be comprehended despite frequent interruptions for naps; books that you don’t mind if you get a little water or sand or your favorite food or drink on them. In other seasons, “beach reading,” especially fiction, might be called “trash novels.” I do not mean by either label to indicate my disdain or disapproval for all of this sort of writing. No one who spends as much time traveling as I do can reasonably dismiss entertainment reading. My personal taste leans more in the direction of mysteries, detective stories, and lawyer stories than romance or science fiction, but the genre covers them all.

I do confess that I tend to look carefully at what makes it onto the best-seller lists, however. I happened to be at a conference a few years back with Frank Harrington, the late pastor of the Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. Frank seemed always to have a book in his hand and to be reading every moment that he wasn’t preaching or visiting with people. “What do you read?” I asked him. “Everything that’s on the best-seller list,” he responded. “How do you stand some of that stuff?” I asked in return. “They don’t call it the best-seller list for nothing. . . . That’s what people are reading. If you’re going to preach to them, you have to know where their heads are.”

Sometime earlier this year I succumbed to one of those. It is an intriguing spin-off of action fiction, what promos call a page-turner. I think the series is now in its sixth or seventh volume. They claim to have sold in the tens of millions in the series. So I bought and have read most of Left Behind, the first book in the Left Behind series.

The premise of this book is that the “rapture” has taken place, and the entire world is on the brink of chaos. The idea of the rapture emerged in Christian thinking late in the nineteenth century. It is based on selected biblical texts, which, woven together and read literally, produce a scenario describing the end of the world. According to this theory, when the right time comes, all the true Christians will disappear. Jesus will rescue them, literally take them directly up to heaven. There they will wait out the “tribulation,” a time of warfare between the forces of God and the forces of the Antichrist. This will climax in the battle of Armageddon. After that battle, the millennium of peace and joy will come.

In the book, this rapture is quite dramatic: in one moment, all around the world, some adults and all children simply vanish, leaving only their clothing behind. There are massive traffic jams as cars suddenly become driverless. Airplanes plummet to the ground. In my favorite vignette, the not-really-saved assistant pastor of a fundamentalist church is reading late at night in bed and nods off. He awakens and senses that his wife is no longer beside him. He turns over, pulls back the covers, and discovers only her nightgown and hair curlers. This rapture experience is based on a literal reading of our gospel text: two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, the other left. Left behind.

Left behind. The very words are designed to raise anxiety, to instill fear, to make the reader worry: Will I be left behind? Am I really saved? Is everything OK? What’s next? Anxiety about the future is something we all have from time to time. Whether it is our health or employment, retirement income or what will happen to our children, we wonder and worry about the future. In addition to our personal lives, there are all sorts of things to be anxious about: global warming and the degradation of the environment; drug-resistant infections; terrorism. Theology such as this appeals to all of those fears. It says, if you are saved, you won’t have to face all of these trials. You will be lifted up and out of all of this mess. Before it goes from bad to worse, God will rescue you . . . maybe not your friends or even your family members . . . but God will come for you!

It is fascinating to me that this version of Christian faith, first developed over a century ago, has made such a strong appearance as the twentieth century has come to an end. Perhaps it’s only a coincidence, but the fact that this anxiety about the future comes on the heels of the most materially prosperous time in American history is at the very least interesting. Perhaps it betrays a deep-seated anxiety beneath our apparent success and security.

Anxiety about the future is understandable, but this particular response, in my opinion, does serious damage to the good news of the gospel. It makes some assumptions and claims that I think are fundamentally at odds with the basic thrust of Christian faith.

First of all, the theology of the rapture suggests that the earth is not our home. This view is not new; it has surfaced a number of times in Christian history. We are pilgrims; we are bound for glory; we are headed home to God—this earth is not our home. The problem with this is that it implies that creation was good only at the beginning but isn’t really good any longer. It means believing that we really don’t belong here—we belong with God, and God isn’t here. It also means believing that things are so bad that God can only bring the new creation by destroying the present creation.

I don’t want to give up that easily. I believe that God made us and this world and called both very good. Of course we are flawed and broken; we have done major damage to the earth and to one another. But I also believe that this earth is our home and that God’s promise is to redeem both us and this creation; to restore us and the world according to God’s original design. I do believe that the gospel contains profound hope for future beyond this life, but I also believe that while we are alive, this is our home and God is here with us. I also believe that God is already in the process of transforming us and this world and that God calls upon us to join in God’s work here and now. That’s what Jesus meant, I think, when he said the kingdom of God is in your midst. But if you are waiting for the rapture, you don’t really care about the here and now; you’re waiting for tomorrow!

A second problem I have with the rapture notion is the one vividly expressed in our gospel: two will be in the field, one will be taken and one will be left. According to the rapture theory, those who will be taken are the true Christians—those who have sincerely repented and received Christ (in what these folk would consider the right way). This means that God intends to save only some people but not all. Those who believe this cite Paul, who wrote, “At the right time, Christ died for the godly.” Only the chosen are saved, and God knows who they are. In fact, a number of theologians in the Reformed tradition have believed this: that the effect of Christ’s saving death is limited to those whom God has chosen to save. But then you must take account of something else Paul wrote: “God was in Christ reconciling the world [the whole world, the cosmos, the creation] to himself.” Not some of it, all of it.

There is another problem here, namely the way rapture theory reads the “one taken, one left” scenario. Rapture theory says that the one is taken because of something that one has done: namely, repent. This means that it finally depends on us! It’s up to you. You have to believe. You have to decide. And if you don’t, you will be . . . left behind. You must repent, otherwise God will not forgive you. But this takes us back to Paul’s argument with the Galatians: we are saved by grace through faith, Paul wrote, not by works, lest anyone should boast. The rapture theory has turned faith into a work, into something we do, a requirement for entrance, rather than a gift of God’s grace. Paul’s point was that grace is always first; call precedes response; and even the response of faith is the gift God has given . . . lest anyone should boast!

The third major problem with the rapture theory has to do with what comes afterwards. Those who are left behind are left to experience the “tribulation” or the struggle between good and evil, the battle between God and Satan (in the form of the Antichrist). Underlying this view of the future is the concept of a force of evil that is almost as powerful as God. It is the force of evil that is to blame for the pain and suffering of the world (not us!). The only way God will get rid of this evil is through violence, warfare, suffering, and death. No nonviolent revolution here! God wins because God’s armies are better armed and more powerful. This enemy is not loved or even redeemed, just destroyed.

Is there another way to look at all of this? One way is expressed in “The Brief Statement of Faith,” adopted by the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1991. It puts all of these questions, questions about the end and the beginning, in a much larger context. The opening and closing lines of the Brief Statement are these: “In life and in death, we belong to God. And nothing in life or in death will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Faith for us is a matter of trust, not fear. It’s as simple as that. God does not want us to spend our waking hours worried about whether we are “really” saved. God does not want us to concentrate on the end of the world. God wants us to trust God to live up to God’s promises. And the core of that promise for Christians is that nothing—in all creation—will be able to separate us from God’s love.

Several years ago now, I was visiting Barbara Wheeler, who is the president of Auburn Seminary, at her home in Granville, New York. Nearby is a place called “Miller Rock,” the place where, in 1839, a group of Christians gathered to await Christ’s second coming, his literal reappearance on earth to usher in the end of creation. There was no reappearance that year (or the year after), but that group of believers eventually became the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The Adventists loved to sing, and in the nineteenth century wrote hundreds of hymns joyfully anticipating Christ’s return.

As we drove away from Miller Rock that day, Barbara began singing one of these bouncy tunes. Between hymns, I said, “Of all the standard doctrines of Christian faith, the one that has always left me cold is the second coming of Christ.” Barbara looked at me in surprise and shock and said, “Then how can you hope! What gives you the energy to work for change? How can you believe that good will triumph over evil, that God will prevail, that there will really be an end to suffering and pain and death?”

Barbara has herself reported this exchange in one of her sermons. She likes it because I must admit that she is right. In the prayer at the Lord’s Supper, many Christians say or sing, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” This isn’t just a nice parallelism. It means that the beginning and the end are in God’s hands. It means that there is a larger plan for this universe than that it simply exists. It means that there is a moral structure or shape embedded in creation. It means that death, destruction, separation, and suffering are not the last word. God is the last word just as God is the first word.

In life and in death, we belong to God. That’s God’s promise. I believe it is a promise for everyone. Just as the gospel song says, “He’s got the whole world in his hands! You and me, the little bitty baby, the wind and the rain, everybody here: the whole of creation in God’s hands.” And that is as much of the future as I need to know.