I was thinking about the latest “rapture” craze on social media. And I remembered learning about it growing up. I went to a conservative protestant church, and later to a conservative Christian college. So, I am quite familiar with the concept.

When I began deconstructing my faith I learned that the word “rapture” isn’t even in Biblical scripture, In fact, the idea first emerged in 1830s America. And while it is popular in fundamentalist or evangelical circles, most Christian denominations reject the doctrine completely.

Regardless of that, I have been reflecting on the despair that buttresses such a theology. How sad that there are so many who would rather be whisked away into the sky to some imagined paradise, rather than stay here and fight for this world to be livable, just, egalitarian and kind. And how very misanthropic. This doesn’t appear like spiritual practice, it strikes me as spiritual abuse.

Not only does this idea of “rapture” delight in leaving earth and billions of human beings to perish or suffer unimaginably. War? Genocide? Destruction of the biosphere? It sees it all as necessary to the story. There is only one ending to this tale. Only one conclusion. And that is for its apocalyptic “prophecies” to be fulfilled. Whether or not that will come about by the Divine or his followers is the sticky part.

If this was a religious belief that did not grievously affect virtually everything about our future as a species, it would not matter. But now that evangelical Christian fanatics are firmly in power in the United States, the wealthiest and most powerful military empire in human history, it matters to everyone.

So, while we may laugh at such ideas or pity those bamboozled by them, maybe it is time we acknowledge that we are all being held hostage by an unhinged death cult. And their sole intent is to rise into the heavens while reducing this world, our only home, to a pile of ash.

Kenn Orfanos, September 2025