The Critical Edition

When Jason received the email, he was panicked. He’d heard his father talking about the rapture for all his life, but he’d never really bought into it himself. Then, suddenly, an email from dad:

Dear Jason,

You must be wondering what happened to me, and I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’m not the only one to disappear. I’m also certain that you’re well aware of what has happened. And sadly, I’m sure you understand why you’re still here, left behind.

I have arranged to have this email sent so that I might have one last word with you, one last plea for you to take a look in your heart and see how much you really need Jesus as your Lord and Savior. There can be no doubt in your mind about the troubling times that are looming now that the rapture is history, but those troubles are nothing compared to what you will face if you don’t fall to your knees and pray this simple prayer.

Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. But I believe that you died upon the cross for me. That you shed your precious blood for the forgiveness of my sin. And I believe that on the third day, you rose from the dead, and went to Heaven to prepare a place for me. I accept you now as my Savior, my Lord, my God, my friend. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus, and set me free from my sin. And, because you are my Savior, Jesus, “I shall not die, but have everlasting life”. Thank you Jesus!

Please, son: do this for your own soul’s sake!

Jason sat stupefied for a moment, wondering whether or not he’d been wrong all this time about his father’s “silly religious rantings.” It seemed that he was wrong, and he was about to get down on his knees when the phone rang.

“Hi son,” said the familiar voice.

“Dad? I thought, I mean, the email, the rapture — I thought you were gone!” Jason stammered, on the verge of tears.

“Oh, did it get sent. God damn it, those people assured me there was no chance of an accidental, pre-rapture sending of all those emails. You know, son, you just can’t trust anyone these days, not even Christians. Or so-called Christians.”

What torment it will be for those caught up in the Rapture to spend the Tribulation with Christ yet knowing some of their loved ones didn’t make it. Wouldn’t it be a great relief if these poor, tortured, saved souls could have one last shot at reaching their loved ones for Christ?

There is Hope: youvebeenleftbehind.com.

Their service is simple: for a low yearly fee, they’ll save documents for you that will be emailed after the rapture.

We have set up a system to send documents by the email, to the addresses you provide, 6 days after the “Rapture” of the Church. This occurs when 3 of our 5 team members scattered around the U.S fail to log in over a 3 day period. Another 3 days are given to fail safe any false triggering of the system. (You’ve Been Left Behind )

How about a stack of letters on your desk? Wouldn’t that accomplish the same thing without the risks involved (i.e., storing significant amounts private data on a server)?

And that’s not the only risk. Emails accidentally sent could, theoritically, be amusing, but it could also damage relationships. Imagine someone gets one of these “You’ve been left behind” emails from a close family member yet she always considered herself a prime rapture candidate. Can’t you hear the heated phone call.

“You mean all this time you’ve thought I wasn’t saved? How dare you judge me like that!”

I told my Polish Catholic wife about it, first explaining what the rapture was –  there are not many Polish Catholics who know what the rapture is, let alone the difference between pre-trib and post-trib and mid-trib and late-trib and early-trib and all the other -trib varieties out there. Her response: “Only in America!”

A colleague once bemoaned the lack of solidarity concerning the war in Iraq compared to that in World War II.

There are a lot of differences, cultural and otherwise, and the cultural differences have a lot to do with what happened in Vietnam. Even without Vietnam, though, there are enough differences between the US of 1941 and the US of 2008 to explain compellingly why we were more united in the effort 60+ years ago than we are now — and none of these reasons has anything to do directly with the war itself.

Certainly there are important differences regarding the nature of the wars: Hitler was not hiding his ambition to conquer Europe; Iraq was, at the very least, not being blatantly aggressive. But that is not the fundamental difference.

The main difference is economic.

The economic reason people were so united was that we had to pay for the war somehow — then and there. We bought war bonds; we conserved; we preserved; women took men’s jobs; we skipped vacations.

The Second World War was an expensive proposition. It was even more expensive considering the fact that America had just suffered the Great Depression. It was still more expensive considering the fact that America the dollar was still based on the gold standard, and all that money had to back by something other than loans and good intentions, as it is today. So when we built a plane or manufactured a round of ammunition, it ultimately had to be backed with gold. The government could not just print off money or get a loan. It had to pay for all the materials outright.

James McGovern explained it thusly in The Boston Globe

Currently, we are paying for the war in Iraq not through the normal budget process but by borrowing and increasing the national debt - by putting the costs onto the national credit card. Every morning, countries like China and India buy up this debt, further weakening our economy and our national security. (Globe)

Not so in 1941. If we went to war, we paid for it.

That’s why World War II stimulated the American economy — because real money, backed by gold — was changing hands. The current war does nothing to stimulate the economy because we’re only getting loans to pay for it.

The only way to change this is to get America back on the gold standard. However, this is all but impossible: most American’s don’t even know that we’re no longer on the gold standard, and even if they did, most wouldn’t want to return. “Why, we have enough to pay for with gas at $3.30 a gallon!”

One of my favorite little sects out there is the Restored Church of God. It’s leader, David Pack is The spokesman for god — by his own humble admission, an apostle, with the same authority as the Apostle Paul. Yes, that Paul, of New Testament fame.

After Katrina hit the Gulf coast, he, like many other ministers, gave a sermon about what True Christians© should do to help.

True Christians© should, in short, continue preaching the gospel and warning the people — synonymous in his group. The gospel — the True Gospel© — is simply that Germany is going to rise again and this time beat America, take it into captivity, and basically make the Nazis look like daycare playmates.

(Confused? It all goes back to ancient simmering hatreds. America, of course, comprises the real Israelites, along with the French, the Dutch, the British — the Lost Ten Tribes. Germany is Assyria. History — ancient or otherwise — is not a strength of this group’s theology. )

False Christians (the vast majority of the 2 billion Christians in the world world, who are deceived and actually worship Satan) give to relief organizations. True Christians© (David Pack’s group — representing at most 0.00005% of the world Christian population) don’t.

His reasoning, though, is stunning biblical hermeneutics. I clipped the relevant portion from the sermon.

Listen to it:

Relief Organizations