Recently, a woman who previously was proud to call me her pastor before she learned I was an atheist, posted the following on Facebook:
Coming soon!! You guys watching Israel? The Bible says the first time God destroyed the earth by water and he promised to never do that again. (The real meaning of the Rainbow) he went on to say I will destroy it by fire the second time. I won’t even pretend I understand all of the book of Revelation, but I do understand quite plainly that I do wish to spend eternity in Heaven. I have been hearing about the second coming of Christ and the events unfolding since I was a child. The “Mark of the Beast” Artificial Intelligence, microchips, no cash/digital currency, total government dependency/control. When we are raising a family, working long hours, some two jobs, lots of things go unnoticed or just get ignored. No one can comprehend how bad it will be, but we see it happening, bit by bit, on the news everyday. While the devil is preparing people for the Anti Christ, God is preparing people for the Rapture. I don’t know when the rapture will take place but I know that I’m not planning to be left behind when that trumpet sounds! I also believe right now that God is giving us a chance to turn our lives around and live according to His will. We need to get the Gospel message out! Until the good Lord calls me away from this world to go home, I want to make it clear that I believe in Jesus Christ as the one and only true Lord and Savior. Despite the fact that I am human, and I fail a lot, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
So if the Holy Spirit moves you and you’re not ashamed, just COPY and PASTE.
It has been almost 2,000 years since Jesus died and allegedly resurrected from the dead before later ascending to Heaven, never to be seen again. 2,000 years have gone by, and not one person has physically seen Jesus alive. How could they, right? Jesus is dead.
Despite evidence that suggests that Jesus is d-e-a-d, countless Christians over the past twenty-one centuries have claimed that Jesus will one day return to earth, perhaps today. Evangelicals, in particular, think the return of Jesus is imminent; that Jesus will return very soon. In the late 1970s. Andre Crouch wrote a song titled, Soon and Very Soon:
Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King,
Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King,
Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we are goin’ to see the King!No more cryin’ there we are goin’ to see the King,
No more cryin’ there we are goin’ to see the King,
No more cryin’ there we are goin’ to see the King,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we are goin’ to see the King!No more dyin’ there we are goin’ to see the King,
No more dyin’ there we are goin’ to see the King,
No more dyin’ there we are goin’ to see the King,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we are goin’ to see the King!Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King,
Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King,
Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we are goin’ to see the King!Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
Also in the 70s, Bill and Gloria Gaither wrote a song titled, The King Is Coming:
The marketplace is empty
No more traffic in the streets
All the builders’ tools are silent
No more time to harvest wheat
Busy housewives cease their labors
In the courtroom no debate
Work on earth is all suspended
As the King comes thro’ the gateO the King is coming
The King is coming
I just heard the trumpets sounding
And now His face I see
O the King is coming
The King is coming
Praise God, He’s coming for meHappy faces line the hallways
Those whose lives have been redeemed
Broken homes that He has mended
Those from prison He has freed
Little children and the aged
Hand in hand stand all aglow
Who were crippled, broken, ruined
Clad in garments white as snowO the King is coming
The King is coming
I just heard the trumpets sounding
And now His face I see
O the King is coming
The King is coming
Praise God, He’s coming for meI can hear the chariots rumble
I can see the marching throng
The flurry of God’s trumpets
Spells the end of sin and wrong
Regal robes are now unfolding
Heaven’s grandstand’s all in place
Heaven’s choir now assembled
Start to sing “Amazing Grace”O the King is coming
The King is coming
I just heard the trumpets sounding
And now His face I see
O the King is coming
The King is coming
Praise God, He’s coming for me
Back in our duet days, Polly and I would lustily sing the song, Jesus is Coming Soon:
Troublesome times are here, filling men’s hearts with fear
Freedom we all hold dear, now is at stake
Humbling your heart to God saves from the chastening rod
Seek the way pilgrims trod, Christians awake!Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon
Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound
All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the sky
Going where no one dies, Heavenward bound!Troubles will soon be o’er, happy forever more
When we meet on that shore, free from all care
Rising up in the sky, telling this world goodbye
Homeward we then will fly, glory to shareJesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon
Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound
All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the sky
Going where no one dies, Heavenward bound!Troubles will soon be o’er, happy forever more
When we meet on that shore, free from all care
Rising up in the sky, telling this world goodbye
Homeward we then will fly, glory to share
For 2,000 years, Christians have been singing songs and making prophetic announcements about the soon return of Jesus. Countless prophecy sermons have been preached and books written, yet Jesus remains AWOL. Evangelicals post memes and messages to social media, assuring their friends that, to quote a gospel song, their Redemption Draweth Nigh:
Years of time have come and gone
Since I first heard it told
Of how Jesus would come again someday
If back then it seems so real
Then I just can’t help but feel
How much closer His returning is todaySigns of the times are everywhere
There’s a brand new excitement in the air
Keep your eyes upon the eastern sky
Lift up your head, your redemption draweth nighWars and strife on every hand
Violence fills all the land
Still some people doubt He’ll ever come again
But the Word of God is true
He’ll redeem His chosen few
Don’t lose hope soon Christ Jesus will descendSigns of the times are everywhere
There’s a brand new excitement in the air
Keep your eyes upon the eastern sky
Lift up your head, lift up your head
Lift up your head, your redemption draweth nigh!
This is another one of the songs Polly and I loved to sing for the church. If you are familiar with this song, you know that at the end of the song, the lyrics “Lift up your head, lift up your head,
Lift up your head, your redemption draweth nigh,” is sung at a higher key. I am pleased to say that I could hit every one of those notes fifty years ago (I have a tenor voice). I just tried to sing the song today, and I can report that I can no longer hit those high notes. Those days are gone, but damn if I don’t still try to sing them anyway — alone or in the car. Once in a blue moon, I can talk Polly into reprising a song with me. Polly plays the piano, but since we no longer own a piano, Polly has stopped playing. Her interest in playing disappeared about the same time God did. I always appreciated her playing more than she did. One church I pastored offered me two choices for a piano player: Polly, and a teen girl who played EVERYTHING in the key of C. As a pastor, I often HAD to choose the teenager, but I preferred Polly’s plunkety-plunk chording to her too-high or too-low playing.
Back to the return or second coming of Jesus. The God of the Universe promised his followers that he would come back during their lifetime. He didn’t, and they died hoping he would. Since then, preacher after preacher has said Jesus would soon return to earth — perhaps today! These false prophets cook up all sorts of explanations for Jesus NOT returning to earth, but one fact remains: Jesus is nowhere to be found. No one has seen him in 2,000 years, and I think it’s safe to assume that the dead Jew millions and millions of people worship ain’t coming back to life.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Jesus is coming soon. So is my Amazon order. But only one has tracking info.
I’m shocked. Shocked I tell you. God is not mocked. I know that because my Evangelizing Niece told me so. And she would know cause she said so and has faith.
lol
‘…The “Mark of the Beast” Artificial Intelligence, microchips, no cash/digital currency, total government dependency/control….’
Yeah, that’s the current scare story – go back to earlier decades and I’m sure it will be true to say that there have been thousands of other sure-fire ‘signs’ – randomly for example, when the printing press was invented, TV, the home computer, the internal combustion engine or the bicycle. Heck, folks probably even condemned the invention of the wheel….a sure sign god would disapprove, he gave men manly muscles to lift stuff with, he’ll return any time to scotch that wicked invention!
And to add, I’m not familiar with the songs you post here, but we were passionate believers in Larry Norman’s sentiments in his song, ‘I wish we’d all been ready,’ back in the 70s
“lustily sing” 🙂
I have two piano’s still in the house. The grandchildren enjoy them. I stopped playing when I changed my mind about my former evangelical beliefs. So I have that in common with Polly. I can still sit and play every hymn in the hymn book, but I don’t. I’ll be one of those aging dementia patients in the long-term care facility that will be able to sing all those hymns because the neural wiring was laid down at an early age and dementia doesn’t really affect the musical area of the brain. So, I’ll be the little old lady sitting in her chair at the group sing along who no one will know is an atheist singing the hymn book to her hearts content. 🙂 Hallelujah.
I do have fond memories of sitting at the piano, in the living room and pounding out Revive Us Again, when the kids were young. 😀
I remember I couldn’t wait for Jesus to come. Now, I kind of hope he tarries. 😉
That facebook post from one of your former congregants is the same old spiel I’ve heard a thousand times before since I was a young impressionable boy. It’s the same old script from the same old playbook meant to incite fear. Judging by her post all that she seems concerned about is her guaranteed place in heaven. More than a few of my relatives have held fast to this belief and are now dead and buried. Keep waiting lady, keep waiting.
Major eye roll! I hate to say I know most of these songs! The “rapture” used to terrify the living daylights out of me when I was young. The particular rumor that Jesus would return in 1988 since that was 40 years after the inception of Israel as a nation was especially vexing for me as that was the year of my high school graduation and admission to college. I was eager to get on with my life, hopefully with some freedom from fundamentalism to a greater degree than I was able to achieve as a minor.
Fundamentalist evangelical eschatology sucks.
My mom used to sing this song but changed the words:
Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon
Many will meet their doom***, trumpets will sound
All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the sky
Going where no one dies, Heavenward bound!
***she changed “doom” to “groom” because she didn’t like the notion that people would meet their doom. I guess she thoroughly believed that God would punish and torture people, but she didn’t want to think about it. Too bad she didn’t deconstruct all that.
That good, well intentioned, people are sucked into this nonsense makes me surpisingly sad. I may be naive but I give credit for good intention, honesty, and sincere beliefs which tend to shine through. For the sake of good hearted people I wish their beliefs could come to fruition in a real Heaven. I hate for deserving people to be disappointed. But hey, when the lights go out, they, and we, will see and hear whatever there is to see and hear at that moment and expectations won’t have much currency. If anything at all, I hope I hear Bruce and Polly will be there harmonizing.
It’s interesting to get the perspective of scholars like Bart Ehrman and others on this. Bruce, clearly you know much more about this topic than I, but my understanding is the “Jesus is coming soon” story is fraught with contradictions and later interpretations as to what is presented in the Gospels.
Didn’t the Apostle Paul claim it was “just around the corner” (not a direct quote). or within one human lifetime?
Yeah, I know, a God minute might equal 500 human years according to evangelicals.
I have always been confused about the “soul and body state”, of the dead, and the interpretations of this topic by the Catholics regarding waiting on Jesus return.
I guess it gives the cultists inspiration.
Hell of a thing though, living a human life and waiting for death to “Live Eternally”.
We have the choice of living our biological life NOW or waiting on……………… uhh, old age and death to “live”.
I took Vegas odds on this one and decided to do a little “sinning” while I still had the chops.
Recently I watched a 1990s BBC series on YouTube. Three parter, “Walking with Monsters,” “Walking with Dinosaurs” and “Walking with Beasts.” First part covers the time when vertebrate species appeared, the second with dinosaurs of various eras and the third about the rise of mammals. It was fun, well done (if somewhat outdated scientifically ) and sobering. Seeing hundreds of millions of years of earth changes, uncountable life forms coming in and dying out for good makes you realize that you are only one (barely) conscious being in a long line of life forms. And that Nature is amoral, that the will to live has caused massive suffering – endless eating and being eaten, dying painfully, becoming mulch. We humans like to soften these hard truths by making up pretty tales of resurrection and heaven, Rapture and rebirth but it’s better to acknowledge that they are all fiction. We die just like all these life forms do, and we’re done. Only our fossilized bones will remain, if anything. So try to look inside yourself, gain wisdom and do good with your time here. You gain the satisfaction of living your life fully, like a seed that gets to blossom. “The Kingdom of God is within you.” You have to draw it out of yourself, it is nowhere else and no one can do the hard work but you.
Does anyone else remember back in the 1990’s there were religious leaders calling the new barcode system on foods as “the Mark of the Beast” and had people hysterical claiming them would refuse to “participate” in that system? Now I doubt you would find anyone today who even gives it a second thought as they scan the barcode on a can of soup. Now I see people on social media ranting how digital currency is the “Mark of the Beast” yet in their next sentence are praising their Lord and Savior Donald J. Trump who they claim is going to usher in “the new quantum digital currency” and people will no longer need to work for a living. So they say something is evil, but in next breath are all for it. These people are just beyond help at this point brainwashed by all the conspiracy stories to the point if you live in a rural area, like I do, you will literally find no one else in town besides yourself who doesn’t believe all this BS. My doctors, my dentist, my hair stylist, my neighbors and family all rant nonstop about either the coming of the Rapture, Trump coming to save them and how the government is spraying them with chemtrails. This sickness has reached every level of society even among our seemingly most educated people.
As far as Christianity goes: these folks are in denial about the cold and brutal facts of reality. Even educated people like doctors can be that way, though they face those facts all the time. (And it can happen in another religion. A very worldly Hindu businessman I knew said sincerely that Rama’s chariot was the first airplane!) Christian belief offers them at least some hope, like a friend of mine said after she left Christianity, of not dying (Rapture) or of life after death. Even Paul said he hoped he’d be “raptured.” He didn’t want to go through death. It’s comforting to have a community around you that reinforces these beliefs. Delusion is a common problem in human beings of all stripes. It keeps the pain of true knowledge away.
I remember so vividly in the seventies standing around a big bonfire at bible camp singing ” I wish we’d all been ready”. Or the 2nd Chapter of Acts concert where dozens and dozens of people would go forward because of all the “He’s coming very soon, maybe tonight” rhetoric. Or when my dad, who was was dying of cancer said” I wish the lord would come back before I die”. And yet we’re still here, waiting for Jesus to Come! Great, give him a tissue.
As a practicing Christian, I enjoy reading your posts, Bruce.
Not because you are always right – although you frequently are.
But because you are consistently thoughtful and wise.
Your cartoon at the beginning of this piece reminds me of a music practice at our local Methodist church several years back.
During a break, the conversation turned to a prediction that the rapture would occur earlier that day.
The pastor sadly shook his head: another misguided “prophesy”, this one that all the good people would vanish into heaven, had turned out to be wrong.
Naturally, I responded: How do we know?
Happy July 4th,Bruce,Polly, everybody! Imyan avid newshound, because I have to be. Especially what’s going on with the Russian Federation. And Ukraine, as I’ve got paternal ties to both countries. I really, really hate Ezekiel 38-39, and related scriptures, for obvious reasons. I don’t want those things to ever happen,and always fretted that they will one day. And I’m well aware that there are people who are actively trying to bring these verses to life, Netanyahu is a follower of Rebbe Scneerson of Chabad, so by making the world more dangerous they’re helping the Messiah to return. He’s going to annex the West Bank as part of this campaign. It doesn’t matter that most Israelis hate him and his party, and they want him to be arrested by the ICC and the Hague. I’ve often wondered why America hasn’t arrested him or held him for the ICC at least. I never want Armageddon to happen. Nor any of this other stuff,and I’m still a believer ( I have my reasons- I k,Ik lol) and I’m sure Jesus doesn’t need the above to come back. The carnage from Ukraine and Gaza appall me. I’ll never get used to it. The a-hole Drumpf on top of it. Stay safe, everyone!
Had a lot on my plate, so I’ve been away for some months. But I’m glad to see Bruce still going for it. As for the Son of God’s promised soon return, nothing’s happened, but no big surprise there.