Vaccines, The Mark of the Beast and End-Time Theology
I loved the Left Behind books as a teenager.
They were my first introduction to ‘Christian fiction’. I was enthralled by the apocalyptic story of Christians trying to survive after being ‘left behind’ following the rapture. They were truly page-turners, and I wished that someone would make a good movie about them. Hollywood attempted to do so and got Nicholas Cage as the lead actor.
I will say no more on the matter.
I became even more fascinated by the fact that the events in the book were deemed as a future reality. Whenever I spoke to most Christians about the future, the belief of things such as the rapture, the tribulation, etc., seemed as standard as Jesus dying and resurrecting.
The summary of the doctrine of the rapture is that Christians will escape future persecution which will last for 7 years (the technical name is tribulation) by being taken away from the earth into heaven. It is a doctrine that is believed by a lot of modern-day Christians, as part of the eschatological (end-time) interpretation of the book of Revelation called futurism. Some Christians believe in a ‘post-tribulation rapture’, which is the belief that at Jesus’ second coming at the end of the 7 years, Christians will meet him up in the air. As this is quite different, and virtually all Christians…
