in which i offend half the tia readership

My friend C (who probably needs a nickname, hmm?) sends along this little gem, which you may have heard about. Apparently some people in our society are in need of a way to continue sending emails after the Second Coming - specifically for the purpose of explaining where they've gone - and, as is the case with any perceived need in America, there's a capitalist ready to step in with a solution to such dilemmas. For only $40 per annum, Youvebeenleftbehind.com will send emails to 62 of your closest friends and family to explain why you're gone and they're not. And, presumably, what they'll need to do during the next seven and/or 3.5 years of tribulation.

Sigh. I just have no patience for bad theology, and most popular understandings of the so-called rapture are based on really bad theology. This is largely based in my having spent way too much time as a teenager being taught really distorted garbage about the Second Coming (including that the antichrist would be the Secretary-General of the United Nations, that the battle of armageddon would take place somewhere near Moscow (or was it Jerusalem? I forget.), and a whole lot of other crazy). Don't get me wrong, as my sister always points out, there are 2000 years of church tradition (not to mention scriptures) about the return of Christ, but returning to judge the quick and the dead is quite another matter than all the nonsense that's been popularized as a result of a poorly written series of fantasy novels and one too many Dawson McAlister conferences.

(Don't get all mad. Other than the fact that it's based on stuff that someone made up less than two hundred years ago that was then exaggerated in the face of the Cold War nuclear annihilation threat in contrast to 1800 previous years of Christian tradition, I'm sure it's fine to believe whatever you want about these things.)

This post was probably enough to get me on someone's post-rapture email list, huh?