What is the Rapture? In some Christian schemes of the end-times, there is a thing called the “rapture,” where the church (i.e., true believers) will be raptured up to heaven at the Lord’s first return. Then, after seven years of tribulation, the Lord will return again with the church, to usher in a millennial reign on earth. This is partly derived from 1 Thess 4:13-18:
Those of a "certain age" learned this in the impact of Salem Kirban who was then adjusted by Hal Lindsey's "Late Great Planet Earth," Tim LaHaye got it through the dispensational institutions and Jerry Jenkins wrote it up into the mega-selling series. The earliest phases of this stuff rooted phobias in communism, which shows just how theo-political this discussion has always been.
I can hardly say that I experienced "rapture trauma" as a teen or adult (although I grew up in the Plymouth Brethren who at least popularized and may have originated dispensationalism), but did experience well-meaning rapture child-abuse about age 5. Our small Brethren Assembly did have a Sunday School after "the Breaking of Bread" and I remember my Sunday School teacher telling us that if we did not "accept Jesus into our heart" or "ask Jesus into our heart" our parents could be raptured and we would be left behind. First, it was disorienting in that it drove a wedge between my parents' faith (and my father and mother had planted that assembly) and mine - I can never remember a time that I did not have a meaningful faith in Jesus, I had had Bible read to me starting at age 1 (it was done for my older brother, but my mother soon discovered that I was absorbing it too), and around age 4 I was participating in the "Breaking of Bread" as I could in that I had excitedly announced that I had "sung all the hymns" (I suspect it was from memory, for I doubt I was reading that well). Furthermore, we did not have an evangelistic service, so I had never heard that one had to pray the proper formula to "be saved." (I would learn: by age 8 or 9 I was giving a talk to a Bible Club banquet and then on radio on "the Wordless Book"). Then, second, the experience was traumatizing, for what could be more terrifying for a child than to be told that he might go to sleep and during the night his parents might be raptured and he would wake up all alone - all because he had not done something that he had never heard of? The teacher made the mistake of (1) not discovering the belief status of the students and (2) not discovering how her statements impacted the students. I was so terrified that I did not tell my parents. Instead, every night after lights were out and I was in bed (silently, or at least quietly, since my younger brother slept in the same room) I would pray "Jesus come into my heart" repeatedly until I fell asleep. I remember doing this for weeks. Of course, nothing "happened," for I was too traumatized to talk about it, and since I already had a deep and significant child's faith, Jesus was already in me through the Spirit. I think that somehow I eventually realized that I was OK or at least that I could not do anything about the situation, for I do not remember worrying about it later. And still later (probably earlier, but at least by the time I was a Child Evangelism Fellowship Summer Missionary at age 17) I would cite that even as my "conversion" when asked when it came about - yet within I knew that there had been no change in status in me, that I had always had faith, and that my answer was just to satisfy the questioner that I was really "in." I suspect that this trauma is why despite believing in the rapture up until seminary (Dr. Richard Longenecker had his students write a paper on the most significant passage without ever commenting on the topic himself, but this changed the beliefs of many, perhaps most, of us) I never got excited about Hal Lindsey and the like. I wanted to get my eschatology right (as the Brethren taught it for we knew we were right), but it was not a big thing. It would be decades later when I would label my experience "well-meaning spiritual child abuse," but by then I was Anglican/Episcopalian and understood what trauma was both theoretically (from psychology and counseling education) and experientially (from dealing with trauma survivors).
Those of a "certain age" learned this in the impact of Salem Kirban who was then adjusted by Hal Lindsey's "Late Great Planet Earth," Tim LaHaye got it through the dispensational institutions and Jerry Jenkins wrote it up into the mega-selling series. The earliest phases of this stuff rooted phobias in communism, which shows just how theo-political this discussion has always been.
I can hardly say that I experienced "rapture trauma" as a teen or adult (although I grew up in the Plymouth Brethren who at least popularized and may have originated dispensationalism), but did experience well-meaning rapture child-abuse about age 5. Our small Brethren Assembly did have a Sunday School after "the Breaking of Bread" and I remember my Sunday School teacher telling us that if we did not "accept Jesus into our heart" or "ask Jesus into our heart" our parents could be raptured and we would be left behind. First, it was disorienting in that it drove a wedge between my parents' faith (and my father and mother had planted that assembly) and mine - I can never remember a time that I did not have a meaningful faith in Jesus, I had had Bible read to me starting at age 1 (it was done for my older brother, but my mother soon discovered that I was absorbing it too), and around age 4 I was participating in the "Breaking of Bread" as I could in that I had excitedly announced that I had "sung all the hymns" (I suspect it was from memory, for I doubt I was reading that well). Furthermore, we did not have an evangelistic service, so I had never heard that one had to pray the proper formula to "be saved." (I would learn: by age 8 or 9 I was giving a talk to a Bible Club banquet and then on radio on "the Wordless Book"). Then, second, the experience was traumatizing, for what could be more terrifying for a child than to be told that he might go to sleep and during the night his parents might be raptured and he would wake up all alone - all because he had not done something that he had never heard of? The teacher made the mistake of (1) not discovering the belief status of the students and (2) not discovering how her statements impacted the students. I was so terrified that I did not tell my parents. Instead, every night after lights were out and I was in bed (silently, or at least quietly, since my younger brother slept in the same room) I would pray "Jesus come into my heart" repeatedly until I fell asleep. I remember doing this for weeks. Of course, nothing "happened," for I was too traumatized to talk about it, and since I already had a deep and significant child's faith, Jesus was already in me through the Spirit. I think that somehow I eventually realized that I was OK or at least that I could not do anything about the situation, for I do not remember worrying about it later. And still later (probably earlier, but at least by the time I was a Child Evangelism Fellowship Summer Missionary at age 17) I would cite that even as my "conversion" when asked when it came about - yet within I knew that there had been no change in status in me, that I had always had faith, and that my answer was just to satisfy the questioner that I was really "in." I suspect that this trauma is why despite believing in the rapture up until seminary (Dr. Richard Longenecker had his students write a paper on the most significant passage without ever commenting on the topic himself, but this changed the beliefs of many, perhaps most, of us) I never got excited about Hal Lindsey and the like. I wanted to get my eschatology right (as the Brethren taught it for we knew we were right), but it was not a big thing. It would be decades later when I would label my experience "well-meaning spiritual child abuse," but by then I was Anglican/Episcopalian and understood what trauma was both theoretically (from psychology and counseling education) and experientially (from dealing with trauma survivors).