No Rapture for You!

Things have been a little quiet here on Augoeides with respect to current events. But this week's news merits a mention - televangelist Pat Robertson has died. Robertson is one of the handful of individuals with their own tags on the blog, and he has held his since 2017. Older Robertson posts are also tagged with his name, but that was done after the tag was created. Few people have been the source of as much nonsense as Robertson, who believed things like you could be attacked by thrift store demons and that all denominations of Christianity besides his own were of the devil and therefore hopelessly evil.

Pat Robertson, the prominent televangelist who founded the Christian Broadcasting Network, made the Christian right a powerful political force and unsuccessfully ran for president in 1988, died on Thursday, the network said in a news release.

“Pat Robertson, longtime TV host, religious broadcaster, educator, humanitarian, and one-time presidential candidate died at his home in Virginia Beach early Thursday morning. He was 93,” the release said. Regent University in Virginia also released a statement saying it was mourning the loss of Robertson.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of our beloved founder,” Regent University Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs William L. Hathaway said. “Dr. Robertson was a globally-renowned leader, broadcaster, philanthropist, educator, author, accomplished businessman, and – most importantly – a faithful servant of God who dedicated his life to glorifying the Lord and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Robertson's "faithful service" included blaming feminists and liberals for 9/11, attacking Dungeons and Dragons as demonic, and using miraculous powers to perform miracles - what he called "prayer" and many of us call "magick." Most of those attempts failed, but it's less about competence than hypocrisy on Pat's part. Calling on deities and angels to make things happen is a big part of ceremonial magick, but it's good when he's doing it and evil when it's us.

Robertson's death also means that he won't be Raptured, hence the title of this article. To be Raptured, you have to be alive when the End Times start. The whole Rapture idea is silly anyway. The epistle where the responsible quote comes from is badly translated as "we will rise up to meet Him in the air." Literalists contend that this means that believers will float up into the sky. But in Greek, "air" and "spirit" are the same word, similar to what we see in Hebrew. Doesn't it make more sense to say that when Jesus returns, believers will rise up to meet him in the spirit

I mean, because the idea is so goofy it wouldn't be true anyway, regardless of how the text reads. But that it's based on a bad translation makes it all the more wrong. The Revelation of Saint John most likely refers to events that happened around and after the time it was written. 666 is probably a reference to Nero, and in fact the whole narrative can be read as a prophecy regarding the Roman Empire's conversion to Christianity. The "End Times" narrative we have today originated with William Miller in the early 1800's, and everybody who has used versions of his method to caculate a date has gotten it wrong.

Whatever the "real" End Times narrative - if it ever even comes to pass - turns out to be, the one thing that's clear is that Pat missed it. So no Rapture for him. I also hope fervently that he wasn't rewarded in the afterlife for his work on Earth, since that work has hurt so many people. He was instrumental in the rise of theocratic fascism that punishes anyone different from the mainstream, the overturning of abortion rights, and preferential treatment for Christians in all areas of the public sphere. He deserves no reward for doing any of that.