The "Rapture" was an Irish invention
Take a bow, John Nelson Darby:
John Nelson Darby, the fella who came up with the concept of "the Rapture", was a Church of Ireland curate in Co. Wicklow. Always assumed it was a yank.
If you've ever seen American televangelists ranting about Jesus secretly swooping down to save the righteous before destroying the earth, this is where it comes from. It’s not actually normal Christianity apparently, it’s not really in the bible anywhere but this headtheball popularised it in the 19th century. The Yank fundamentalists absolutely lap this up.
The history of it is even more interesting:
He was born in England and then studied in Trinity and was a Church of Ireland pastor here. He famously converted a load of Catholics in the village but ended up resigning because the church only accepted the conversions as legitimate if they swore an oath to the British King.
Despite being English himself, he seems to genuinely have believed in religion as separate to the politics of the time, which I kind of admire tbh. So he quits, and shortly after, he's out riding in Wicklow when the horse sends him flying. He suffers a serious bang to the head.
While he's recovering from the concussion, he starts coming up with this mental end-of-the-world theology that eventually took over the US.
TL;DR: We could have been spared an unbelievable amount of absolute bollocks if some 19th century prod hadn’t been flung off a horse in rural Co. Wicklow.
Tags: history ireland rapture fundamentalism apocalypse theology end-of-the-world 19th-century wicklow concussion horse