Anonymous wrote:Why would there be anxiety over this? Either you believe you’ll be taken up or you don’t believe and don’t care.

It's not that simple. The underlying message is you're never good enough so the anxiety is that you won't be good enough to go and will therefore be left behind to fend for yourself, alone.

I grew up like this - real, constant anxiety. It took me years to work this out.

Anonymous wrote:Why would there be anxiety over this? Either you believe you’ll be taken up or you don’t believe and don’t care.

I’m going to put it to you in a nutshell although it’s complicated.

Christians who would be left behind are Christians who were not quite good enough, backslidden or didn’t live up to their full Christian potential. If you were left behind it was your second chance to get right with God and Jesus so you would be taken into heaven for the second coming.

Basically you did 90% of the good work but there might’ve been a little bit of sin in your life and that’s why you didn’t get rapture. And yes this was preached on the regular and there was a lot of fear and anxiety and excitement.

Anonymous wrote:Meh. Most of it is Boomer anxiety about their own impending "end times" that they project onto everyone and everything else.

"I'm coming to my end. That MUST mean the world is coming to its end."

Do you have OCD? Or just an obsessive personality? Not everything is about boomers. People have been anticipating the end of the world since the beginning of time.

I remember the groovy 70s comic about the end times. All the people who got raptured looked pretty hot!

https://2warpstoneptune.com/2015/08/26/theres-a-new-world-coming-by-hal-lindsey-and-al-hartley-spire-christian-comics-1974/

Anonymous wrote:Why would there be anxiety over this? Either you believe you’ll be taken up or you don’t believe and don’t care.

Because this flavor of Christianity propagates self doubt as a way to keep everyone on the hook. I would hear things in sermons like “some of you out there think you are saved, but are you really sure??” I was actually “saved” and baptized 3x because of this fear. Looking back, the reason I had these doubts was because I didn’t truly believe 100% in some of the precepts of the faith.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not anxious. I'm Catholic. We don't believe in The Rapture.

I was Catholic, and I absolutely stayed up at night in fear over what sin I had committed, and how I hadn't been to confession.

Awful. I refuse to partake in any religion and the religious guilt and anxiety is a big reason why.

Examining your conscience is a good thing even if you are atheist. Feeling guilty when you've done something wrong is human nature. It is a feeling that a psychiatrist or a priest can help you with. FYI -- priests would tell you the same thing a psychiatrist would about your anxiety.

Why would there be anxiety over this? Either you believe you’ll be taken up or you don’t believe and don’t care.

Anonymous wrote:I was terrified as a kid that I would get left behind. Also traumatized by those movies. My mother told me once that she also used to be afraid of this, like when her mom was late picking her up or something. Why did she just repeat that with me, I wonder?!

I was also always worried about backsliding. And the one unforgivable sin- I wasn’t sure exactly what it was (blaspheming the Holy Spirit? How would I even do that?).

I am now a happy Presbyterian and don’t look back fondly on those evangelical days, esp now that many of those people became Trump supporters and xenophobes and just went off the deep end on abortion etc. I actually remember the first time one woman got up to encourage parishioners to protest at an abortion clinic and my usually quiet mom tsk-tsk-ing at how unseemly it was for that lady to bring up politics. Now? My mom voted for Trump and counts anti-abortion views as the most important litmus test for a Christian voter. The 1980s and the moral majority really have been successful.

Still working this out, apparently! 🤪

+1 We are no longer church goers But I won't blashpheme.

I was raised in the southern baptist cult. It took years of therapy and work to start to deconstruct the beliefs forced on me as a child. I did fear the rapture. Big time. I remember the song “The King is Coming” (shudder). I still can’t believe I carried those beliefs into my young adulthood. Religious trauma is real. Growing up in a high control, fear based religion is awful.

So no - I don’t believe in the rapture. At least not as the evangelical nonsense I was raised with. I’m very spiritual today. I have a close relationship with my creator. I just no longer carry the fear, guilt, and shame.

Anonymous wrote:I was terrified as a kid that I would get left behind. Also traumatized by those movies. My mother told me once that she also used to be afraid of this, like when her mom was late picking her up or something. Why did she just repeat that with me, I wonder?!

I was also always worried about backsliding. And the one unforgivable sin- I wasn’t sure exactly what it was (blaspheming the Holy Spirit? How would I even do that?).

I am now a happy Presbyterian and don’t look back fondly on those evangelical days, esp now that many of those people became Trump supporters and xenophobes and just went off the deep end on abortion etc. I actually remember the first time one woman got up to encourage parishioners to protest at an abortion clinic and my usually quiet mom tsk-tsk-ing at how unseemly it was for that lady to bring up politics. Now? My mom voted for Trump and counts anti-abortion views as the most important litmus test for a Christian voter. The 1980s and the moral majority really have been successful.

Still working this out, apparently! 🤪

Here's how: God damn you, Holy Spirit!

Well, that's it for me -- I'm going straight to hell

I was terrified as a kid that I would get left behind. Also traumatized by those movies. My mother told me once that she also used to be afraid of this, like when her mom was late picking her up or something. Why did she just repeat that with me, I wonder?!

I was also always worried about backsliding. And the one unforgivable sin- I wasn’t sure exactly what it was (blaspheming the Holy Spirit? How would I even do that?).

I am now a happy Presbyterian and don’t look back fondly on those evangelical days, esp now that many of those people became Trump supporters and xenophobes and just went off the deep end on abortion etc. I actually remember the first time one woman got up to encourage parishioners to protest at an abortion clinic and my usually quiet mom tsk-tsk-ing at how unseemly it was for that lady to bring up politics. Now? My mom voted for Trump and counts anti-abortion views as the most important litmus test for a Christian voter. The 1980s and the moral majority really have been successful.

Still working this out, apparently! 🤪

I remember once when the Rapture was expected to happen soon, that a group of atheists offered to take care of pets that were left behind.

Anonymous wrote:
The link doesn't work. Was this a spoof article?

Sorry my bad link editing

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/27/us/rapture-anxiety-evangelical-exvangelical-christianity-cec/index.html

The link doesn’t work but I confirm that growing up as evangelical I always thinking about the rapture. Now as adults my brothers and I were laughing because they were also scared as well. If we were home and for some reason out patents wouldn’t reply, we would think we were left behind.

There was always a fear and anxiety about the rapture, heaven and hell.

Anonymous wrote:There is only one second coming of Christ and nothing in between. Be prepared to withstand the end times because salvation alone, righteous living and a relationship with Christ will be the only thing to save you.

Snore.