It’s the End of the World - Again
Published November 5th, 2006 in Articles of InterestThis article in todays Age newspaper caught my eye and reminded me of an experiment I once tried with a type of online ministry/church.
Through an online forum I had made some internet friends who were asking some fairly significant things about life and faith etc. I’d met with a few of them face to face and was quite thrilled about the potential the web displayed for ministry. Anyway, this bunch naturally searched for answers to their questions on the internet, and ended up at the site quoted in the Age article.
The folk at Rapture Ready were, to be totally blunt, nothing but rude and arrogant. According to the RR folk, my web friends asked all the wrong questions, lived the wrong sort of life, obviously hadn’t worked out their end times theology properly and were all promptly banned from participating in the Rapture Ready forums. This made me look like a fool, Christians everywhere look really bad, and God some fanatical lunatic.
I wasn’t banned, but was given plenty of warnings. Apparently I hung out with the wrong people and should take a good look at myself if I was going to continue to be a Pastor. I didn’t really care that much, but it worried me that such a large group of people could get Christianity so wrong.
I can’t (and don’t) claim to know everything about faith, but I do know that Jesus is central. End times stuff as far as the Bible is concerned is pretty fuzzy and open to lots of interpretations. Making end times theology your defining belief places you on pretty shaky ground and seems to make faith a thing of fear rather than life. You become so busy looking for signs of the end times that you forget to show love and compassion to those that surround you in the here and now. To me, that seems to be the most important thing Jesus was calling us to do.
Anyway, the article seems to indicate that the RR folk haven’t changed that much. They still seem to be worrying about ‘the end’, forgetting about their suffering brothers and sisters both at home and beyond their American borders.
Say a prayer for them all tonight. Pray that they somehow find a desire to live life instead of fretting about how and when it is going to end.
I was reading a different article (one about the sheik, etc. In the education section) and the point was made that just as one Christian doesn’t speak for all the diverse types of Christianity, one Muslim doesn’t speak for all. I was amazed! Someone actually seeing that not all Christian groups are the same. Hopefully more people will work this out, and not be turned off Christianity by the loonies.