Unraptured: How End Times Theology Gets It Wrong

American Christianity has come to be defined by who and what it’s against, by legalism and dogmatism that draws lines in the sand and turns unbelievers into enemies.

We’re called to love people more than we love being right, but being right theologically rather than being in right relationship with our neighbor has become the defining identity of the church.

apocalypse is fundamentally about truth-telling, not fortune-telling.

Here lies the ultimate problem with end-times theology: it values prophecy more than people.

when Jesus ascended into heaven, leaving his disciples behind with the great commission to go and make disciples of all the nations on earth, some still doubted. But Jesus didn’t excommunicate them. He gave them the same authority as the rest of the disciples to be his agents of grace in the world (Matthew 28:16-20).

We’ve always needed a hermeneutic of love for reading the Bible, but as our list of “enemies” seems to grow, perhaps we need it now more than ever.

What Paul is describing in 1 Thessalonians is the completely opposite type of encounter. In Paul’s twinkling of an eye, Jesus returns for good. He never turns around and goes back to heaven.

The New Jerusalem isn’t a goal as much as it is a way of life that is about to dawn on earth.

kairos, or an opportunity for grace and conversion,