The Rapture has happened. So who's missing?

Well, the great and the good should be up in heaven by now, leaving, Kenobi-like, only some empty clothes behind. Who exactly the great and the good are is another question.

I had no idea just how thin the scriptural basis for The Rapture was when I began reading about it to write my book of the same name. It's basically the passage from Thessalonians above and some stuff from Daniel mixed with one part of Revelation. The rest is, shall we say, imaginative interpretation. It's twice as confusing when you realise the most solid believers in Revelation as prophecy also believe the Bible should be taken literally.

So who are the saints Revelation talks about? According to Protestants they aren't the most good in the conventional idea. These aren't the people who dedicated their lives to charity, healed the sick, cured cancer, etc. Individual good works means squat, it's a personal relationship with Jesus that counts. Despite it supposedly being just between you and Jesus, they're the ones who define it.

When you get down to it, if you're on their 'team,' you get a free pass on the Apocalypse. That's what it's really about. People can yearn for earthquakes, plagues and mass murder, knowing it will only happen to the 'bad people.' By now I think I would have heard if half the preachers in the country had disappeared, if the megachurches of the sun belt were suddenly empty of everything but piles of sunday best.

Either the Rapture hasn't happened, or there are far fewer saints than the smug would like to believe. If there's an apocalypse coming, they'll be down here with the rest of us when it happens.