Rapture theology, like many of the odder variants on Christian eschatology, which is theology about the end of the world, is big in the United States. Not just is it taken seriously by a substantial cohort of evangelical Christians, but it even influences US government policy, particularly when it comes to foreign affairs, especially in the Middle East.
Rapture theology asserts there will be a second coming of Jesus Christ and a day of judgment. First, all the true Christians will be assumed into heaven, leaving behind everyone else. Then the world as we know it will collapse into chaos while the true believers embark on eternal joy.
The bit relevant to US foreign policy? Well, for all that to happen (which presumably adherents actively want), Israel needs to be firmly established as a homeland for Jewish people. For some on the US right, this is Biblical justification for foreign policy decisions and actions most of the rest of the world finds questionable at best. More on that presently.
Rapture theology is also an Irish import to the US.
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It all started in the parish of Calary, near Roundwood, Co Wicklow. In 1826, a young Church of Ireland curate, John Nelson Darby, engaged on an enthusiastic, much self-publicised campaign of trying to convert local Catholics to Anglicanism. Darby was the youngest son of a wealthy Offaly family, the Darbys, who lived at Leap Castle. He wanted to make his name as a man of God.
A year later, recovering from injuries sustained in a fall from a horse, Darby started to develop his own theology, predicated on the idea that the Holy Spirit could talk through anyone. He was instrumental, with others, in founding a new breakaway Protestant church, now known as the Plymouth Brethren.
By now, Darby – by the way, a strikingly handsome fellow – was best friends with Theodosia Wingfield, Viscountess Powerscourt, of Powerscourt House in Enniskerry. Theodosia was an evangelical Christian and a prolific writer of religious material. She was also a wealthy widow, her husband Richard having died tragically young in 1832.
In 1831, at a conference organised and bankrolled by her, Darby publicly described his thoughts on the end of the world. Throughout the 1830s and 1840s, he travelled widely, assembling Brethren congregations, and became well-known for his interpretations of Biblical prophecy. Rumour had it that he and Theodosia had been in love, but agreed to separate so each could focus on their religious mission. In any case, like her husband, poor Theodosia died young in 1836.
Darby’s eschatological teachings – rapture theology – were widely adopted in the US, where local preachers brought them to new audiences. By the 1860s and 1870s – getting older but maintaining his saturnine good looks – Darby was a celebrity in evangelical circles.
Darby’s teachings were amplified in the US, as things often are. They also went increasingly mainstream. He died in 1882, but by the early 20th century – especially after the 1909 publication of the popular Scofield Bible, which included teachings on rapture theology (and quoted another great Irish cleric, Archbishop James Ussher of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, who dated Creation to 4004 BC) – many of his teachings were widely accepted in evangelical circles.
Many Americans now believed that true Christians would be lifted into heaven in the “Rapture”, which would be followed by a seven-year period of tribulation with war, chaos and persecution under a global ruler, “the Antichrist”, followed by war in the Middle East, then Christ’s return and defeat of the Antichrist.
By the 1940s, a thriving Christian film industry, with directors such as Charles O Baptista, was producing B-movies based on rapture theology. Baptista’s company produced dozens and sold its own film projector, which was guaranteed to last until the second coming of Christ. In 2014, Nicolas Cage – Oscar-winner for Leaving Las Vegas – starred in Left Behind, yet another movie telling the story of the “End Times”, based on the bestselling book of the same name. (He was nominated for a Golden Raspberry as Worst Actor.)
Today, true believers in rapture theology can be found among US president Donald Trump’s ardent supporters. For them, conflicts in the Middle East go far beyond human tragedy and horror to represent God’s ineffable truth. In these conflicts they see proof that Biblical prophecies, seen through the lens of rapture theology, are happening and the “End Times” they so eagerly await approaching.
John Hagee, an influential evangelical preacher and founder of Christians United for Israel, has been saying for years that US support for Israel, in the form of a conflict with Iran, is necessary for the US’s political aims and, more importantly, to further its spiritual needs. That it is all part of God’s plan.
The morning after the US and Israel started bombing Iran, Hagee told his parishioners: “It’s refreshing to know that God is in total control and he has plans that will not be removed.”
Darby’s ideas about a robust evangelical Christianity, the end of the world and all the things that must happen before the second coming of Christ continue to make an impact in many ways on how the US sees itself and how it acts on the world stage.
And it all started when a young curate in Co Wicklow fell off his horse.
