The term “Rapture” is often used by Christians,
especially Evangelical Christians, to describe an event probably best described
in I Corinthians 15:51-55 and I Thessalonians 4:13-17, where Jesus takes his
believing church up to meet Him while they are still alive on Earth. Multiple
possible times for the Rapture have been described by various Evangelicals, but
most today believe that this will happen just before a seven-year period of
judgment from God raining down on planet Earth, a period usually called the
“Great Tribulation.”
During the Tribulation, it’s widely believed that a
person (some have interpreted it as an empire or kingdom rather than a person)
called the “Beast” in Revelation 13 and elsewhere “the Antichrist” will rule
over the doomed but defiant human realm. This standard scenario has been
written about exhaustively by my fellow Christian writers, in fiction most
famously in the Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins Left Behind series of
books.
I’ve heard the suggestion floated that perhaps the
unbelieving world will ascribe the sudden disappearance of so many believers to
abduction by aliens. That little suggestion has inspired a story idea in me…
Imagine a portrayal of the Antichrist in which he
publically proclaims that not only did aliens snatch up the Christians, but
that aliens were responsible for existence of Christianity in the first place?
If you read the account of God coming down on Mount Sinai to meet Moses in fire
and smoke, it sounds almost like a rocket landing. And UFOlogists have long
maintained the “wheel within a wheel” of Ezekiel chapter 1 is a description of
a UFO.
The figure of the Antichrist in my story would say
these events were exactly that—aliens trying to reach humanity in ancient
times. And these aliens were bad people, because they, being birdlike (which is
why angels are portrayed and having wings, he would say) naturally mate for
life and found themselves repulsed by human beings who very often do anything but mate for life. SO these
aliens interfered in our culture, trying to rewrite human behavior through the
monotheistic religions—especially Christianity—and these aliens would be the
ones responsible for the miracles of Jesus (through high tech illusions and
cures for diseases) and other signs that supported the founding of these
religions in the first place. The attack of these aliens and their cultural
intolerance would be portrayed as the reason the Bible says harsh words about
homosexuality and “falsely” portrays monogamy as the natural state of human
beings—what’s natural to human beings, the Antichrist would say, would be to
enjoy one another in any way we desire (in my story, “other aliens” would have
appeared to the Antichrist, explaining all of this, offering to “help” him and
all of humanity)…
The Antichrist would be portrayed in my story
mostly in the way he would portray and think of himself, as a compassionate and
powerful human leader, rallying the human race against what he convincingly
calls sinister alien forces attacking the Earth repeatedly. In fact, many
passages of Revelation, in which a “burning mountain” is said to fall on the
Earth (chapter 9), raising up an army of weird creature like locust from “the
Bottomless Pit” immediately followed by creatures reminiscent of centaurs (but not), rather sound like an alien invasion.
The Antichrist would be publically rallying people
against these invaders and any becoming Christians after that would be seen as
filthy traitors, saboteurs loyal to the enemy. The mark of 666 would be
deliberately and openly used to flush out Believers, based on its mention in
Revelation 13 and the commandment there to Believers not to take the mark
(making it a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy). People would willingly and gratefully
line up to mark themselves with “666,” eager to prove they are loyal to the
human race and its cause…
As a nation that looks askance at Christianity and
its Rapture, the Antichrist would first find it easy to make an alliance with
Israel, forgiving their loosely worn monotheism as an overwhelmingly secular
state. But once he realizes they do not intend to fully come along with his
social program to “rehumanize” religion, which would mean forced acceptance of
Paganism (“the original human religion,” he would say), he deliberately defiles
whatever he can that’s holy of Judaism and eventually assembles an army to
invade Israel.
When the army of heaven descends to meet him, in my
story the Antichrist proclaims it’s a host of aliens attacking from above and
we humans need to do all we can to fight them—like we so often see portrayed in
so many science fiction movies today, such as Independence Day, the Avengers,
etc. And in my story I would write characters who would find these explanations
persuasive, so persuasive that even believers would wonder if they hadn’t been
duped by a God who continually seems to rain down judgment from above…as if
from orbit…as if He were, in fact, an alien…
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You keep comin' up with excellent story ideas, and this is another good'n. I'd read it.
ReplyDeleteThanks, man. Feel free to write it if you want!
ReplyDelete