What is the difference between the rapture and armageddon

Self-isolation and quarantine create a sense of being separated from the community and world generally—a sense of anomie. Instead, narratives about contagious disease hold up a mirror to our deepest, most inchoate fears about our present moment and explore different possible responses to those fears.

While the global death rate from Covid has been phenomenal, the virus cannot be divorced from its sociocultural context. But global events are always enacted in a local context and it behoves social scientists to understand the meanings of Covid in specific contexts. As anthropologists would argue, pandemics are more than metrics numbers, cases, and prevalences , they are embodied, affecting situated lives.

Anthropological research is essential for placing the virus in context. Covid threatens key symbolic frameworks and presents unprecedented challenges for both people and society globally in terms of its impact on mortality, morbidity, economic decline and the ways in which we lead our lives. It has highlighted issues of work, social inequality, globalization, individualism and social interaction generally.

To date much of the scholarly work on religion and Covid has focused on religious practices and the transmission of the virus Dein et al. Here I focus upon another aspect of religion-apocalypticism- as one way of understanding Covid It is religious fundamentalists who generally associate coronavirus as a sign of end times or a final judgment.

But apocalypses can be secular as well as religious. In the time of Covid it has become obvious that the current world order is becoming a thing of the past and the future is highly likely to be different. Our current plausibility structures upon which the existence of society is dependent and threatened and we are urgently in need of alternative sociocultural contexts to provide structures of meaning. While in the lay mind the term apocalypse signifies some violent and cataclysmic ending of the world, the word derives from Apokalypsis —the Greek word for Revelation.

Aldrovandi discusses the etymology of this word:. The idea was brought down from the Book of Revelation, the final text of the Christian Bible, and denotes a time when some truth or understanding, previously unknown, is revealed. Apocalyptic literature, as a genre, documents the authors' visions of the end times which have been revealed by an angel or some other heavenly messenger. Fundamentalist Christians, especially those who hold to the rapture, assert that the Book of Revelation forecasted the pandemic years ago.

Throughout the course Christian history, apocalyptic expectations that the world will imminently end have waxed and waned. The idea that history is moving inexorably to a catastrophic end is a longstanding one in the West.

The millennial years, and were associated with heightened apocalyptic expectations. Catastrophic events, such as the Black Death in or the Cuban Missile Crisis in , regularly bring about panic and the expectation that doomsday is imminent. Apocalyptic narratives, particularly premillennialist, have significantly impacted American religion and politics and fuelled evangelical political activism and continue to exert a great influence over the contemporary American mainstream Sutton Similarly, Kyle notes how dispensational premillennialism drives doomsday ideas in the USA.

For this author radical Evangelical Christianity is inextricably linked to free market economics. Those who maintain the immanence of the apocalypse continuously attempt to align biblical prophecy with contemporary world events. Until the beginning of the twentieth Century apocalyptic narratives were generally the purview of religion. According to Kyle the durability of Apocalyptic ideas in the face of continual disconfirmation results from the consolations they provide in the wake of global adversity.

However, it is not just fundamentalist Christians who associate adverse events with the end of the world. Weber : 11 notes:. Some groups actively prepare for the apocalypse.

Garrett reports on USA preppers—individuals who prepare for the imminent cataclysm by hiding in underground bunkers. The term prepping according to Garrett refers to practices of anticipating and adapting to impending conditions of calamity. While there is disagreement among scholars as to how the text is to be interpreted, the book spans three genres: Epistolary, the apocalyptic, and the prophetic.

Many have taken the text as a literal description of the end times while others have used it as a revelation of divine will. Yet others see it as a social allegory-a diatribe against the oppression of imperial Rome. And for others it is a direct criticism of power concentrated in the hands of a small elite and systemic injustice both resulting in poverty, famine, hunger, pestilence and disease.

In terms of Revelations, the Beast from the Sea Chap 13 and the woman Chap 17 represent the Roman Empire Collins and represent a political perspective in this book. Reidl notes that the apocalypse is a millennia-old symbolic complex which emerged in Jewish intellectual circles who were experiencing oppression and social and political alienation as a result of foreign imperial power.

For him apocalypses are characterized by a complete rejection of present reality and an outlook toward an entirely different future reality where power relations will be reversed. Pagels argues that apocalyptic literature which includes visions, prophecies and predictions of cataclysm always carries political overtones, both revolutionary and reactionary, liberal and conservative.

In her view apocalyptic meanings are always malleable and can adapt to any crisis. I would argue that its use as political critique is one reason for the widespread appeal of the book throughout the last two thousand years or so. Revelation describes four horseman of the Apocalypse who appear when the seven seals are opened. The first symbolizes Christ. The second represents war and bloodshed. The third is identified with famine and the fourth is associated with pestilence and death.

Corona has been associated with the fourth horseman. Its author claimed that the rapture would occur by This book, alongside numerous other films and television series since, resulted in a transition of apocalyptic thinking from fringe religious belief to fundamental tropes which are popular and known to many in contemporary American culture.

Jenkins , deals with Christian dispensationalist interpretation of prophecies in the Biblical books of Revelation, Daniel, Isaiah and Ezekiel, in which true believers in Christ have been "raptured", leaving the world in a chaotic state. These books dating from have had a profound influence on apocalyptic though in the USA Forbes and Halgren Kilde Christian social media threads like Jesusiscoming are replete with discussions of the imminence of the end times and Watch Jerusalem editor-in-chief and Evangelist pastor, Gerald Flurry , recently asserted the coronavirus is a sign from God redirecting humanity on the right path before the ultimate clash between the forces of good and evil:.

In recent months, Christian sources on the internet quote a range of biblical sources about the preceding of the end of time with pestilence. There are several examples: Revelation —And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

Matthew —13—For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in diverse places. But Revelation is not the only book in the Christian Bible to speak about an end-time return of disease outbreaks. Pestilence in this context refers to full scale disease outbreaks. Unlike religious apocalypticism where the future is determined by divine intervention, in secular apocalypticism natural events such as the current Covid pandemic are the cause of the impending doomsday.

Apocalyptic belief was invigorated by the World Wars, the Cold War, and the threat of nuclear annihilation. Fears pertaining to atomic destruction, lethal disease, and environmental catastrophes have become prevalent. Specifically, I argue that the Covid pandemic has been viewed in apocalyptic terms signifying a radical societal change. This author notes how the secular and religious apocalypticism are mirror images of each other. Both originate from disasters, social dislocation and dashed expectations.

He asserts that the early secular apocalypse grew out of its religious counterpart and until the beginning of the twentieth century there were significant interactions between the two. Even now the idea that God deploys the natural world e. Both secular and religious forms offer hope for change. As Shermer notes:. Emotionally, the end of the world is actually a renewal, a transition to a new beginning and a better life to come. In religious narratives, God smites sinners and resurrects the virtuous.

For secularists, the sins of humanity are atoned through a change in our political, economic or ideological system. Apocalypse has now become a popular cultural trope in fiction, film and popular discourse. Far from dissipating in modernity, apocalypticism appears to be here to stay and is possibly escalating. Like religious apocalyptic thinking, the secular version is one response to the problem of suffering- in theological terms a theodicy.

In modernity science is the primary lens through which humans understand their worlds. Akin to the notion of secular apocalypse is the term Cultural Apocalypse—a term first coined by Italian anthropologist Ernesto De Martino to describe the sense that the current historical epoch is coming to an end. De Martino characterizes such apocalyptic experience as follows:.

Survey Questions. Q26H from Baylor Religion Survey, Q26 In your opinion, does each of the following Armageddon Q26H. Survey Details Scope: U. Sample Frame: U. In your opinion, does each of the following exist? How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement: do you strongly agree, agree, neither agree or disagree, disagree, or strongly disagree?

Which, if any, of the following do you believe in? Do you believe in the Rapture of the Church, that is, that before the world comes to an end, the religiously faithful will be saved and taken up to Heaven?

Q26I from Baylor Religion Survey, The Rapture Q26I. Some Catholics believe in a teaching known as the Rapture of the Church. How much have you heard about this? For each one, please tell me if you completely agree with it, mostly agree with it, mostly disagree with it, or completely disagree with it.

Jesus will return to earth in my lifetime. Do you believe that Jesus will return to earth in your lifetime? Do you believe that the specific time of Jesus Christs return to earth is revealed in the prophecies contained in the Bible, or dont you think so? Do you believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ - that is, that Jesus will return to earth someday, or dont you believe this?

Do you believe Jesus will actually return to the earth some day? Eventually Jesus Christ will personally and visibly return to the Earth to defeat the anti-Christ. Frame: U. Eventually, Jesus Christ will personally and visibly return to the Earth to defeat the anti-Christ. SubCategories [ Back to Top ]. Armageddon: This question type asks the respondent if an Armageddon event will occur Rapture: This question type asks about belief in a rapture event Return of Jesus: This question type specifically asks the respondent about a return to Earth of Jesus.

While it started with a small group of adherents, many historians regard Zoroastrianism is an ancient Persian religion that may have originated as early as 4, years ago.

Zoroastrianism was the state religion of three Persian dynasties, until the Wicca is a modern-day, nature-based pagan religion. Though rituals and practices vary among people who identify as Wiccan, most observations include the festival celebrations of solstices and equinoxes, the honoring of a male god and a female goddess, and the incorporation of Live TV.

This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. Religions on the End of the World. Freedom of Religion in the U. Religion and The Presidency. December 21, For years there was speculation that on December 21, , the world as we know it would end.

Islam Islam is the second largest religion in the world after Christianity, with about 1. Christianity Christianity is the most widely practiced religion in the world, with more than 2 billion followers. Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism is an ancient Persian religion that may have originated as early as 4, years ago.