"CRAPTURE"

Tony Hendra, comedian, comic writer, best-selling author of "Father Joe, the Man who Saved My Soul," writes about the American Taliban's Holy Grail, in his two-part article, "The Rapture is Crapture." You can read part one of the article here, but here's a nugget:

The Rapture however is new - dreamed up by one John Nelson Darby, an Irish lawyer turned Anglican priest, in the 1830s. His loopy biblical interpretations divide all history into seven ages or dispensations and declare - surprise surprise! - that Jesus' precepts are inoperative until he returns. This will be heralded by...the Rapture.

Darby was defrocked by the Anglican Church and most of his pals regarded him as deranged. But his ravings spread like kudzu in the fertile soil of 19th century American evangelical fundamentalism. A century and a half later the Rapture is taken as literal truth according to reliable estimates - eg Kevin Phillips - by a third of the nation, who, needless to say, will be the only Rapturees.

For two thousand years this kind of drivel stayed on the spittle-flecked straw-in-the-hair lunatic fringe but now in 21st century America, it's front and center, driving the domestic and foreign policy, the social and moral agenda, the spending power, and worst of all, the military, of the most powerful nation on earth. Just to get some idea of how it's affecting not just policy but the whole standing of the nation in the world, here's a few paltry matters seen in Rapturous light:

Since Christ is right around the corner global warming and Kyoto don't matter because the planet only has few years to go anyway. So belch out that pollution - Christ don't give a shit. Ditto drilling offshore in Virginia and Alaska, logging ancient forests, trepanning whole mountains to get at the coal. Gotta keep those SUVs and Macmansions running. Gotta have some place to be Raptured from.

A $7-trillion deficit and bankrupting the nation with debt doesn't matter either, because we'll never have to pay it down. Katrina doesn't matter because it's a biblically prophesied sign Christ is at hand. What's the point in saving lives that'll end soon anyway? Ditto eradicating AIDS. Anyway it's punishment for your vile abominations.

9/11 doesn't matter in fact it's desirable because it proves Christ is right around the corner. Ditto pitching a few nukes into the raging firestorm of the Mid-East because it will actually bring him back quicker!

Yeah, as if the end times could be cultivated, like rubbing a lamp, or seeding the clouds, or for you marketing whizzes out there, phone banking, canvassing or focus grouping. Did somebody forget about "you know not the day or the hour?"

And that date that "Reverend" Darby started up his processes, the 1830's . . . Hmmm, so familiar. For those really paying attention, that was right about the time that Joseph Smith started staring at rocks in his hat to get "revelations" about mulitiple wives, dream mines and titanic struggles about non-white contemporaries of Jesus exiled in America. A connection then? An explanation for the twin threads of religious neo-bizarro-ness that have combined to hijack the country, marginalize people of more traditional faith denominations, and demonize those with differing opinions in any subject? What else would account for the oil and water mezcla of "fish" emblems and Bush Cheney stickers (or w-o4 ovals) on the backs of Monstrously sized SUVs all over this little portion of Governator territory?

Now if you'll indulge LOST, its time to find a Sunday Mass that will work for the family schedule