I had intended to feature a quote every day during March from a woman in history, but it’s been a little busy at the keyboard over the last couple of days and I’m already four behind.
But it’s not too late, and so I’m going to offer you a couple here from two pastoring women. The subject this time is the premillennial, pretribulation, Dispensational theology of the Rapture, developed around the time of the first speaker and elucidated by the second:
“You seem to be expecting to go to some parlor away up somewhere, and when the wicked have been burnt, you are coming back to walk in triumph over their ashes — and this is to be your New Jerusalem! Now I can’t see anything so very nice about that, coming back to such a muss as that will be, a world covered with the ashes of the wicked. Besides, if the Lord comes and burns — as you say he will — I am not going away; I’m going to stay here and stand the fire, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! And Jesus will walk with me through the fire and keep me from harm . . . “
Abolitionist Preacher Sojourner Truth, on the escapism of Dispensational “rapture theology”
“The rapture vision invites a selfish non-concern for the world. It turns salvation into a personal 401(k) plan that saves only
yourself . . . “
Lutheran Pastor and Theologian Barbara R. Rossing, in “The Rapture Exposed,” 2004