A
allofgrace
Guest
Good analysis. Many Protestant denominations don’t believe this either because it came out of the Plymouth (England) Brethren the denomination which John Nelson Darby was part of.The Rapture had its origin in the 1800 by John Darby a Dispensationalist. The Rapture itself is un-Biblical and some intrepretation of this theory states that there will be two Second Coming of Christ.
The Catholic Church affirms that there will be only One Resurrection and One Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Both the just and the unjust will be judge by the Son of God on the last time, and will separate them like goats and sheep. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
To the righteous he will judge them according for what they have done because these righteous in Christ feed the hungry, clothed the naked, shelter the homeless, etc.These righteous one in Christ will inherit the Kingdom of God. To those who on his left, he will cast into the everlasting fire for they did not live in faith by doing the corporal works of mercy.
The Rapture is Un-Biblical and not even the Early Church Fathers believe in such modern theory. The Rapture is purely an American invention.
Darby himself, brought his ideas to America and promoted them:
"John Nelson Darby, during the period 1862 to 1877, spent nearly seven years residing in and traveling through the United States and Canada.1 In the United States most of his work was confined to the cities of Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and Boston, although on one occasion he traveled from Chicago to San Francisco and back on his way to and from New Zealand.2 His earlier work in the United States consisted of attempts to win converts to his Brethren group from the membership of existing Protestant denominations, but this effort met with only limited success. By the early 1870’s he seems to have shifted tactics, concentrating on promoting his ideas among leading clergymen and layman in these churches without insisting that they leave their respective denominations. His success along these lines was greatest in St. Louis, Chicago, New York, and Boston.3
Two of Darby’s most influential converts were James Hall Brookes, pastor of the Walnut Street Presbyterian Church in St. Louis,4 and Adoniram Judson Gordon, pastor of the Clarendon Street Baptist Church in Boston.5 These two men, while remaining in their established pastorates, became the leaders of the movement which was successful in spreading Darby’s doctrines throughout the northeast and midwest during the last quarter of the century.6 Darby’s doctrines also had an impact on Dwight L. Moody, the famous Chicago evangelist, although Moody appears to have accepted the doctrines slowly, and perhaps only partially."
It came into the Baptist sects and some of the Baptists were vehemently opposed to it. Now it is warp and woof of the fabric of some of the Evangelical / Fundamentalist churches whose doctrines are a mish-mosh of “every wind of doctrine.”