From Candace Chellew-Hodge at Religion Dispatches comes this excellent article on the resurgence of rapture theology.

All the while, Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh and the rest disavow their role in the uptick in sheer lunacy going on in America. They can’t fathom that their daily rants against a democratically-elected president could have any effect on anyone in America. If that’s the case, it would seem pretty pointless for them to take to the air if they didn’t believe their words had power or influence. But, their words matter and their words do influence people—and what’s more, their theology matters and carries influence.

The theology they espouse is not one Jesus would recognize. It’s true, Jesus talked about apocalyptic visions—but his visions were nothing like what the religious right spouts today. What they teach is a fairly recent aberration in theology with tenuous biblical grounding. . . .

In his book The Meaning of Jesus, writer and theologian Marcus Borg puts Revelation in its proper perspective reminding us of the central theme of the book:

“the conflict between the lordship of Christ and the lordship of empire, a conflict that continues to this day. Its central message is that the lords of this world do not have the final answer: therefore, take heart, have courage, be faithful.” (p. 195)

In the end, Revelation is not a book about end time despair, but a book about hope. God comes to dwell with humanity—wiping away our tears, ending all of our pain.

Her argument is that we should look for Christ’s return every day – not in the flash of lightning and the blast of trumpets, but in the faces of the tortured, the poor, the oppressed. While that might not be as photogenic as the bad theology of the right-wing fearmongers, it’s much more in line with what Jesus talks about in the Gospels, and an excellent charge to His followers on this holy weekend.