Why so gullible?

The true believers got burned by the Rapture. They'll do it again.

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Last week, yet another failed prophecy about the “Rapture” provided a welcome diversion from the ongoing fascist takeover of the country, and perhaps some insight into why so many Americans are so susceptible to the most ridiculous and fanciful claims.

Unless you were totally isolated from news and social media (and, if you were, congratulations), you know that TikTok erupted last week with posts made by evangelical “Christians” who were absolutely certain that the Rapture would occur on Tuesday, or maybe Wednesday.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, The Rapture is a (sort-of) Christian belief, popular in conservative American Evangelicalism, that at some point all sufficiently-fervent believers in Jesus will fly into the sky to meet him and then ascend to heaven.

The Biblically-unsupported notion dates from the 19^th Century, when some conservative preachers reinterpreted New Testament passages like 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, which describes the resurrection of dead believers and the transformation of living believers to be with the Lord. Those not taken at the Rapture would be left behind on Earth to endure a period of great suffering before Christ’s final return.

Non-evangelical sects like Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians reject the Rapture as nonsense.

The concept of the pre-tribulation rapture was systematized and popularized by British preacher John Nelson Darby in the 1830s. Darby may have been influenced by a young Scottish woman named Margaret Macdonald, who claimed to have had a private vision of a pre-tribulation rapture.

Darby and other evangelicals of the era were convinced that the “Great Tribulation” outlined in the New Testament Book of Revelation, a seven-year period of intense suffering, judgment, and chaos on Earth immediately prior to Jesus’s triumphant return, would surely not be visited upon the true believers, and they sought an escape clause. The Rapture was their contrived get-out-of-jail free card.

Most New Testament scholars hold that the Book of Revelation was not actually intended as prophecy, but was actually an anti-Roman polemic. The book, attributed to someone known as John of Patmos, used symbolism and apocalyptic language to condemn the Roman Empire’s oppression and persecution of early Christians. The author portrayed the empire as a demonic force destined for destruction by God. Scholars interpret figures like “the beast” as a reference to Roman emperors and Roman practices, arguing that the book served as a call to resistance and a warning against assimilating into Roman culture. New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has written extensively on the topic. I highly recommend reading his insights into Revelation: https://ehrmanblog.org/my-new-view-of-the-book-of-revelation/

Evangelicals reject all of this, of course. Many evangelicals cling to the notion that Revelation was written by John, one of the 12 apostles, and interpret the book as a guideline to the “end times,” which they believe are upon us. Spoiler alert - Revelation was written around 95 CE, and it was written in Greek. Jesus’s disciples spoke Aramaic, and they were all almost certainly illiterate, so they didn’t write anything.

Many millennial evangelicals have been influenced by the “Left Behind” series of novels published between 1995 and 2007 by authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. These were wildly popular among young evangelicals, with more than 70 million copies sold during their run. LeHaye was an evangelical Baptist minister and conservative political activist who made a whole lot of money exploiting the Rapture fantasy.

In short, the Rapture is fantasy, but it is a dangerous fantasy that has serious repercussions for those who are taken in.

There are currently dozens of TikTok videos circulating from true believers who took last week’s Rapture predictions seriously, and who claim to have sold or gave away clothes and cars and homes and cash in the expectation of flying up into the sky to meet Jesus.

These folks are either unaware of history, or they just don’t learn from it.

End-of-the-world predictions have been recorded as far back as 70 CE, when the Jewish Essene sect expected an uprising against the Romans to summon the Messiah and end the Roman Empire.

Predictions of the end of the world followed regularly throughout recorded history, often with complex mathematical calculations offered as “proof” that Jesus would be coming back on this, that, or the other date certain.

In 1843 the Millerites, a sect that followed the preaching of Baptist lay preacher William Miller, took to heart his prediction that the world would end in that year. Miller’s prognostication became a national sensation. Wikipedia has an excellent, well-documented article about Miller and his movement.

When Miller’s original 1843 date proved wrong, his followers quickly pivoted and embraced the idea that his calculations had failed because he used the wrong calendar, and that 1844 would bring the end, just you wait and see.

As with many of today’s Rapture devotees, many Miller followers sold their possessions and gave away their money in anticipation of the meeting with Jesus that never happened.

The failure of the second Miller date came to be known as the Great Disappointment. The prophecy and its after-effects are well-documented, and have served as the fodder for many a psychological study.

Human gullibility is real, and is the reason con men and religious charlatans flourish.

The indoctrination methods of some religious groups leave their followers more susceptible to suggestion than others. Conservative evangelicals are conditioned from birth to believe what is taught by those in “authority,” and that questioning or disbelieving is sin of the highest order.

In my completely unqualified and non-professional opinion, this accounts for the disturbingly high proportion of Christian evangelicals who subscribe to the doctrines of Trump - but, I digress.

This also explains, at least in part, why evangelicals fall victim to so many frauds and confidence schemes. They are taught to take things on “faith,” to avoid questioning “authority,” and to believe above all else that Jesus is coming back here any day now to meet and reward them, and to punish all those black and brown and immigrant types who they don’t like very much.

The latest Rapture failure wasn’t the first, and it certainly won’t be the last. Some self-proclaimed prophet will likely pop up between now and next September to announce that the 2025 date was in error because of some made-up mathematical error, but, in the immortal words of Bullwinkle J. Moose, “This time for sure!”

If you want to believe, that’s great, but I’d recommend against selling your house and car. I think Jesus will understand if you hedge your bet.

© 2025 George Delisle