Leaving behind Left Behind
Why the genocide in Gaza is the moment to pack up and leave rapture theology
The TL;DR
I left behind Israel-as-fulfillment-of-prophecy/rapture/end-times theology (i.e. dispensationlism) views a few years ago, so I truly feel for folks out there who feel torn between their framework of understanding Bible prophecy (which requires supporting the nation of Israel) and the horrible atrocities Israel has committed in Gaza.
The thing is, that dissonance exists because the dispensational framework is indeed logically inconsistent, inconsistent with both New Testament Christology and our God-given desire to see human flourishing win out over Israeli apartheid and genocide in Gaza.
Backstory
I grew up deeply connected to the Plymouth Brethren movement, and I have experienced a rich legacy of faith from wonderful people who, like many American evangelicals in the 20th century, happened to believe dispensational theology to be the most straightforward way of reading the Bible. Some of the finest Christians I know hold this view. Dispensationalism can be summarized by two big ideas: strong distinction between God’s promises to Israel vs. the church , and a commitment to non-metaphorical (frequently “literal”) interpretations in almost all areas of scripture, including apocalyptic literature.
For some alternative Bible reading strategies, I have found the Bible Project podcast to be really concise and approachable: Bible Project: How to Read Apocalyptic Literature
In my experience, dispensational thinking surfaced most often through discussion about the rapture (the partial return of Jesus to take his saints from earth prior to times of judgment on earth), various signs of end-times leading up to the return of Jesus, and the importance of evaluating political candidates based on their support for Israel.
I was fascinated by the idea that even the most vivid, dramatic, and on-the-surface-hard-to-decipher passages of scripture could be easily understood with some help from dispensational thought. I invested lots of time studying the rapture, the end-times, and Israel. I read every book of the Left Behind series, plus the multiple companion guide the-theology-behind-the-stories books, plus the Left Behind: The Kids series. I even took a small measure of pride in the fact that I had read the “adult” books before I even knew about the kids series.
I was always skeptical of predictions about when the end of the world would come, in no small part because end-times speculation totally complicated Marina and Jed’s budding summer romance in Armageddon Summer, and frankly that was a huge bummer:
But the idea that the world would end in my lifetime was still pretty solidly baked in: I was grateful that I would not have to die, but, like Elijah, sail out of here in style to meet the Lord! In order for me to make it out “on time”, Israel had to be restored to the promised land borders described in Deuteronomy, the temple needed to be rebuilt, the anti-Christ had to emerge.
I watched the Kirk Cameron Left Behind and Tribulation Force films, featuring Brad Pitt’s old roommate Gordon Currie as the disturbingly good looking antichrist character, Nicolae Carpathia—if ever there was a United Nations secretary that crossed People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” list, got injured in serious-but-not-permanently-disfiguring farm accident as a child, and started peddling ideas about the “global community” such an individual was undoubtedly about to sign a land deal with Israel and get me my sweet ticket to the sky.
So naturally I had opinions about my guy Nic Cage doing Left Behind…just wildly infringing on Kirk’s territory…stick to the whole Ben Gates whispering about secret maps thing, and we’ll be good. Anyway…
All that to say, there is so much challenging stuff in the Bible—even if I hadn’t actually read Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth and There’s a New World Coming, at least I had them on the shelf (and frankly, who needs dusty old Hal when we have LaHaye and Jenkins, AMIRITE?! )—Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins had put the pieces together. Left Behind was a smashing story, and all the theological teaching was baked right in. It was exciting to read and exciting to know what was going to happen next in global affairs! I had studied AE Booth’s Eternity to Eternity chart, and I even tried going to a prophecy conference once—ironically, that was a snooze fest, and I was easily the youngest person there by several decades…the influence of the old school prophecy absolutely paled in comparison to Left Behind.
Fast Forward
In the years following my move away from all that, I learned to read the Bible with this big question always in mind: what did this text mean to the original readers? I learned (through the Bible Project) that the Bible was perhaps written for our benefit, it was not directly addressed to us modern readers. If my modern frame for interpreting the Bible would not have been available to the first readers, then I need to check my homework.
I continued to monitor a few Christian Zionist newsletters that had subscribed to during my prophecy conference experience—and BTW, these groups pump out LOTS of content! Naturally, I would be remiss to not check the Rapture Index periodically: self-described as both a “Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity” and “prophetic speedometer”! I only wonder whether the current rating of 182 is in km/hr or mph…
During both the Biden and the Trump era, this stuff has not gone away—and the modern-Israel-as-fulfillment-of-Bible-prophecy narrative proves time and again extremely useful for keeping political coalitions and popular support ever refreshed with righteous language to prop up whatever new blank checks need to be signed to Israel.
In light of the genocide in Gaza, it would seem to me wholly appropriate and even imperative that those of us who inherited a dispensational mindset about the Bible take the opportunity to re-evaluate its merits and consider alternatives. This includes distancing from Christian Zionist political coalitions that have for so long funded and justified any act of Israeli military aggression. This also likely includes distancing from well-intended evangelistic organizations that relentlessly pump one-sided pro-Israel rhetoric—such organizations must be forced to grow a conscience for Palestinian children or face the prospect of all their donors immediately cancelling their checks.
The good news is, there are better alternatives for reading the Bible without the dispensational lens.
Importantly, and contrary to consternation in Christian Zionist publications, other interpretations of key dispensational scripture texts cannot be dismissed as automatically anti-semitic (and to be sure, some traditions have become tragically anti-semitic). For example, in Romans, we can recognize Paul pointedly critiques anti-Jewish ethnocentrism in the Roman church: Paul goes to great lengths to emphasize the tremendous value of Jewish scriptures and traditions!
When Paul has anything to say about ethnicity, it is harsh rebuke of ethnocentrism from all quarters, full stop.
N.T. Wright offers a few more pointers on the way forward in this Q&A:
For a more in-depth tour through the key dispensational Bible passages, I recommend Not Afraid of the Antichrist: Why We Don't Believe in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture by Craig Keener and Michael Brown. Keener and Brown both explain their own faith journey from their conversion stories, learning dispensational thought, and later re-examining and applying a different lens of understanding.
