For decades, most of my life really and from as far back as I can remember, I was told that in the book of Revelation, John was shown that Christians were going to go through a time commonly referred to as the Tribulation. Anyone brought up in a Protestant, non-denominational or interdenominational Pentecostal or charismatic church will know exactly what I'm talking about. In fact, anyone that grew up in a church like that will know that the next important question that must be answered and will decide which camp you belong in, because nothing says Christian brotherhood like division, is if you're pre-Trib or post-Trib. The answer to this question can actually lose you the fellowship of Christian brethren and has been known to have people asked to leave churches so it's a pretty important piece of information. This refers to the Rapture and whether or not God's people would be forced to go through the time of testing for Christians or if they would be called by Gabriel's trumpet and be caught up with Christ in the air and be spared the persecution of that time.
One of the things that happens during the time leading up to that is that the Christian community will be persecuted. This is one of the things that was drilled into our heads that we needed to watch out for: persecution from society and the government. We had to be careful of everyone that thought differently than us to the point that educated people and the media were all suspect. If anyone thought differently than us and had a college degree, they were probably brainwashed. I explain all this to say that during all this time I remember questioning how or why Christianity would ever or could ever be persecuted in this country. I had a hard time understanding how a religion based on a God that was loving and only wanted what was best for people could ever be viewed in a negative light in such large numbers that they could have persecution on a scale that could spell the end of those people.
I also heard all my life that we were in the End Times and yes, this is capital E, capital T, End Times. These are the times that were prophesied that would the times that would bring about the Second Coming of Christ. This, of course, brought the discussion back to pre- or post-Tribulation but this had to happen because humans were going to attempt to effect the return of Christ. In the last few years I've had occasion to wonder if all this indoctrination was about so much BS and if any of it even makes sense but then I started looking at the political marriage between the Conservatives and the Religious Right and it started to make sense. A few things fell into place.
I read an article in the Washington Post that asked what, if any, role Christianity had in the murder of an openly gay mayoral candidate in Mississippi. The short answer to that question is that there is no indication of the murder being a hate crime at all. There were no scrawled writings, no notes, nothing that says what the motive for this murder was and, furthermore, if there was any type of religious component on the part of the murderer(s) to commit this crime. The longer answer involves a broader perspective and says that the right wing Christian part of society has a view that isn't evolved, isn't interested in having an evolving view, and in some cases has made vile and violent suggestions about what to do with people that they view as sinners. Most of these statements are in direct opposition to what the Bible states and since much of the conservative part of the Right wing group is political, they have made statements about the effect of these groups, such as homosexuality or poor people, on society and what judgements are awaiting them when Christ returns. Moreover, why the larger society should shun them or not accept them because their interpretation of their "sin" makes them unacceptable. The louder and more angrily the Christian community announces what sinners these groups of people are, the less they proclaim the love of God. The less they read the Bible and listen only to their church leaders or follow church tradition, the less they display the love of God and lower the opinion of much of the rest of society. The more time spent on insisting on the "rightness" of their own religion and the "wrongness" of all the others, the less people can stomach even the idea of Christianity and the harder it is to distinguish between the crackpots like Westboro Baptist Church or Terry Jones in Gainesville, Fla and the Billy Grahams of the world. For that matter it makes it difficult to tell the difference between the Billy Grahams and Franklin Grahams of the world.
THIS is how the persecution happens. Making statements about what a sin homosexuality is or how horrible a man the President is because he is insisting that contraception be paid for by insurances or... pick a subject on which the teaching of Christ doesn't match what the church is teaching now is how the opinion of the world gets lower and lower to the point that it makes it easier to persecute them. I don't believe that lower church attendance in the United States at this time is an accident or a coincidence. I also don't condone the persecution of any group of people, but I'm just stating that for all the fear of the Christian community about the possibility of the persecution during the Tribulation, they appear to be bringing it on themselves. One of the other things that I was always taught was that in the end times, there would be people deceived by false prophets and false teachers. What isn't clear is what are the teachings that would be doing the deceiving. It seems to me that it's entirely possible that the false teachers might not be deceptive intentionally. The best teachers of false material are those that truly believe what they are teaching. The problem that I can think of is that the people that also identify as Christian but have looked to follow the actual words of Christ will be persecuted as well.
My mother and I have the same view of this period of time and the way to approach it, no matter what happens. Our view on this is that it really doesn't matter if it's pre- or post-Trib, who might be deceived, or which views are going to be doing the deceiving, the most important thing to do is to be prayed up and love everyone and above all, love God. Nothing else really makes much difference. Making sure that people are doing what others think is the right thing to do is ridiculous and pointless because no one really knows who will be deceived and who won't so the only thing that can truly be done is to let people know where one's hope lies and why you believe what you believe and teach people to read and pray to hear God on their own. That, to me, is the only thing that can keep one safe and God is the only person that can make sure they aren't lied to.
This is the thought that I have.
I'm done with the Soapbox for today.
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