Friday, March 29, AD 2024 5:25am

End Times Catechesis

On the bright side, a Christian-based movie is being released today.

Unfortunately that movie is this:

Left Behind

Well, they can’t all be The Passion of the Christ.

With Left Behind being released today, it’s probably a good time to brush up on what Catholics actually believe about the end times. In long form, there’s Paul Thigpen’s The Rapture Trap: A Catholic Response to End TimesFever. Even better is Carl Olson’s Will Catholics Be Left Behind? Meanwhile, Msgr. Pope has penned a blog post on the Catholic approach to the end times which helps sum up Catholic teaching on this matter.

As for you poor, brave souls who for some reason choose to view this cinematic masterpiece, I have a feeling you’ll be feeling envious of this man by the end:

 

 

 

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Paul W Primavera
Friday, October 3, AD 2014 8:13am

My whole family – Mom, brothers and sister – are devout Pentecostals who believe in the Rapture theology invented by former Anglican priest John Darby in the 19th century and popularized in CI Scofield’s study Bible of the early 20th century. I myself once believed in it, too. Then I studied the Catholic Faith and what the Church Fathers said. I changed my mind.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Friday, October 3, AD 2014 8:24am

I always get a chuckle when I see a car with a bumper sticker stating: “Caution, in the event of Rapture this car will be unmanned.” The presumption! I do suspect that on the Last Day many people will be repenting of wishing to have that day of judgment hastened.

c matt
c matt
Friday, October 3, AD 2014 10:07am

So a remake of the Kirk Cameron starring masterpiece? Is Nicolas Cage that desperate?

Philip
Philip
Friday, October 3, AD 2014 10:21am

The only rapture I believed in was from my youth. A performer named Blondie had a hit that was catchy. Rapture!
Nicholas Cage is grinding it out.
Take the crumbs until the filets arrive.

By the way….love the bee’s.
Funny Mr. M.

Philip
Philip
Friday, October 3, AD 2014 10:25am

Opps. Funny Paul Zummo..Mr. McClarey does have a great sense of humor though.

Stephen E. Dalton
Stephen E. Dalton
Friday, October 3, AD 2014 2:06pm

Ghost Rider was better.

trackback
Friday, October 3, AD 2014 3:21pm

[…] End Times Catechesis […]

TomD
TomD
Friday, October 3, AD 2014 9:18pm

I confess to be a sucker for end-times fiction (for both religious and sociological reasons), so I ended up buying the first three books in the Left Behind series. The first was pretty good. The second was so-so. The third was worse. I stopped there.

The problem wasn’t the theology, which was standard fare. It was the quality of writing. I must mention that all three books ended on a well-written cliffhanger. The authors did seem to have a good vision as to what the books were supposed to be. But the second book spent too many pages recounting the events of the first, and the third felt as if half of it recounted the first two. The pace got so draggy it became a Tribulation of its own.

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Saturday, October 4, AD 2014 2:46am

OK. This link made sense out of the Catholic position to me as a recovering pre-trib Protestant. However, I simply will never be able to agree with the amillennial position because of the plain reading of the scripture. I know….I know….not all passages are meant to be literal–I just had too much explaining away of such things as a teenager in the General Baptist denomination for my liking.

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-rapture

Am I understanding the Catholic position on the rapture correctly if I say that Catholics believe in the rapture–they just don’t call it that?

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, October 4, AD 2014 3:27am

I well remember the reaction of a certain Doctor of Divinity at Oxford, on being told that a former student of his was writing a commentary on St John’s Revelation –
“Oh, dear! How very sad. Such a promising young man – and with a young family, too.”

joe DeCarlo
joe DeCarlo
Sunday, October 5, AD 2014 7:50am

What I don’t understand is “speaking in tongues.” I still waiting to hear a person speak in tongues.

Mary De Voe
Sunday, October 5, AD 2014 10:15am

joe DeCarlo: I am told that for a person to be “speaking in tongues”, there must be an interpreter present for the speaking to be authentic. I have been present and heard on several occasions (three) the “speaking in tongues”. One time was an exorcism which only a bishop can authorize. The “speaking in tongues” frightened me. Sometimes the speaker does not understand what he or she, all were women, is speaking. Someone approached the speaker and told her that she was speaking in aramaic. Her response to the information was very informative. Ordinary.

lroy
lroy
Friday, October 17, AD 2014 7:41am

I have a theory that people will watch it because a) they believe in the theology of the Rapture or b) simply because Nicholas Cage is in it.

In all the reviews I have seen so far, it’s not doing well in theaters. Wonder why?

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