Damned (American Revelation X, One.)

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. ~Matthew 24:36

Lauren Boebert thinks the "Church" has some kind of a role in "Ushering in the Second Coming of Jesus."

Horse shit.

In fact, it's impossible to overstate the fractal level of horse shit involved here.

It comes down to a basic question of metaphysics, really.

Either God is omnipotent, or He is not.

That somebody would even say this in public and not be chased off by an angry mob is the fruit of Conspiracy Theories, Creationism, Man-centered theology and the Prosperity Gospel, ad infinitum.

According to what I was taught, if God needs Man to do *Anything* by definition He is not God. The Bible doesn't say that the Church will help bring about the "Second Coming." Depending on your interpretation or if you believe in the End Times Prophecy narrative, not only does the Church have no role whatever...but most, if not all of it, would simply be gone...if you believe in all the Rapture hokum.

Of course, what remains of the End Times movement has drifted away from that...and embraced conspiracy theories to the point of making conspiracy the point of the belief system...for one simple reason; Belief in Christ offers insufficient opportunities to be cruel and hurt people.

Belief in any fixed point, morally or theologically, imposes limits on behavior.

Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, are infinitely moveable, no wonder they've become the basis of both Evangelical Christianity and Republican Party doctrine.

I'd like to propose a slightly modified scenario.

What happens, if on September 14th, 2022 John Nelson Darby is proven right, at least after a fashion?

Roughly mid-morning (UTC) billions of people...of all religions as well as virtuous nonbelievers and those defined as innocent...disappear in less time than it takes to speak a word. Whatever they're carrying with them, clothes, kids, pets...just gone.

It's a massive disaster simply from various aircraft, ground vehicles and ships either becoming unmanned or at least losing whoever had their hands at the controls. Various alliances and major nations around the world instantly go to strategic alert, though deployments and response times are hampered by so many people missing. Blackouts, brownouts, various power and service outages pile up faster than they can be reported.

In various conflict zones, one side or the other makes gains either because they lost fewer people or simply because they got reorganized faster. For example, the Russians were able to recoup some lost territory simply because half of the Ukrainian Army...along with a similar percentage of the civilian population...was simply gone and their own losses from the disappearances were less severe.

Many leaders around the world, and people in government, are likewise affected. Many leaders from the EU, as well as the Global South, disappear...some of them in the middle of public events, as do other people in attendance. Many current and former US political and religious leaders are gone, including Biden and all living former US Presidents save Donald Trump. 

Tellingly, Russia is less affected. Vladimir Putin declares Martial Law and institutes military conscription...though more for disaster relief than military action at this point.

But somebody takes a quick inventory, the event has left behind more current Republican elected officials than Democrats...and though thanks to the Constitutional line of succession and Continuity of Government, the new President is also a Democrat...but she's facing an instant substantial Republican majority. 

A video from inside a Pentecostal church in Nigeria literally shows almost all of the congregation disappearing. In a different country and time zone, a Mosque in Egypt is similarly affected. Both videos hit the BBC, CNN, FOX News and MSNBC at about the same time.

Somebody somewhere...probably a media person...does a quick tally and realizes that the Global South has been considerably more affected by the Event.

Some shouty YouTube idiot makes all the connections first, a couple days after the Event realizing that liberals and anti-fascist conservatives were hit harder by the event, the same, likewise non-Christians, People of Color, and many disabled and poor people as well.

Dude posts a video within the hour, claiming that God has cleansed the Earth of "Undesirables."

FOX News picks up the line first...

Now you tell me, what are the odds that These Fucking People wouldn't declare the Rapture some sort of cleansing if it eliminated many or most of their "enemies" and instantly reorder their moral universes to declare themselves the Inheritors of the Earth?

After all, Hell and Sin are for Other People, right? Whatever they do is righteous... 

And if they got so much wrong the first time...why wouldn't they just assume they were wrong about all that hellfire and judgment stuff??

After all, you can look at current Republican policies and see that these fucking people seem to regard the judgements of Revelation, and the poverty, scarcity and wars that result from them not as disasters but as laudable policy goals.

And now the people with the infinitely shifting moral compass think they want to bring about the End Times??

Fuck that.

You get what you tolerate, America.

At least Democrats, for all of their faults, try to make things better. Republicans only want to hurt people and try to make money off of doing so.

We need to stop putting up with this silly bullshit. 

Now.

Before people like Blowbert Hoebert figure out some way to blow up the world, simply because they think it would be funny or to offer up the ashes to their Blood God.

The Bible says when the End comes, everyone will see it.

And no man will have brought it about, either.

These people are Damned, and they want you to be as well.

Remember that.

Слава Україна!

And so tomorrow, as we take the campaign south and west as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas, that the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A. we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people, we are one nation. And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea, Yes, we can. ~Barack Obama