“We must make sure that nobody is left behind…”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ (September 2019)
One of the most disappointing ministry stories that I’ve ever encountered was that of a young woman who recounted how she ended her Awana glory days. This young woman was part of a Christian family and a baptized member of the local First Baptist Church. She had been through multiple stages of Awana and considered herself “on fire” for Christ. When the year 2000 came around, her pastor encouraged her to put her faith to practice. He warned that Y2K and all of the apocalyptic events surrounding the new millennium were certainly signs of the end times. “Jesus is coming back. Don’t be left behind,” was the clear message.
This young woman was ready for the return of Christ. Her pastor shared that December 31st of the year 1999 was going to be the last day of the world and that the Lord would rapture up the faithful believers into Heaven. Everyone else will be left behind to face the most difficult times mankind has ever known. The message was clear – everyone who does not believe will face certain disaster. It was a powerful tool for conversions. It made the fear of the Lord into a pressing reality and gave evangelical Christians a paradigm by which to read current events.
But on January 1st, 2000 – Jesus did not return. And neither did this young woman. Not to Church at least. She was more than disappointed, she felt deceived. Her entire worldview was built around Christ’s return and her pastor’s ability to tell the truth.
Christian teachers who expect the imminent return of Christ are largely from the American dispensational and premillennial camps. This innovative 19th century movement can be traced back to men like Darby and Scofield, yet it now holds a great deal of influence in evangelical circles today. You may even be familiar with some of their more ardent advocates like Tim LaHaye of the fiction series “Left Behind” (which was also made into a movie with Nicolas Cage and Jordin Sparks). Our friend Gary Demar refers to this theological movement as “Last Days Madness.” (See his book by the same title here).
But rapture theology permeates not only the evangelical world, but the entire human condition. The idea that the world is running down toward destruction is a common trope also embraced by climate alarmists and is often coupled with phrases like, “left behind.”
In a press release, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks, “We must make sure that nobody is left behind as a result of the climate impacts that we are already experiencing and more and more will experience in the future.” This apocalyptic language is common throughout the climate change discussion. One of the most eminent prophets for American environmentalism is former Vice President Al Gore. In 2006, Gore’s famous An Inconvenient Truth set the clock at ten years until the ice caps were gone and irreversible damage had been done. But as David French put it, “Well, the ten years passed today, we’re still here, and the climate activists have postponed the apocalypse. Again.”
Postponing the apocalypse happens again and again. Today’s climate prophets like Greta Thunberg sound eerily familiar to the wonks predicting the coming rapture. “I want you to panic… I want you to feel the fear I feel every day,” preaches Thunberg. And she’s not alone in her preaching, ”The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,” says millennial Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The religious overtone of these conversations continue in almost every level of politics. In responding to wildfires and hurricanes, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims, “Mother Earth is angry… She’s telling us with hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, fires in the West…”
I remember when the news media would mock men like Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson for linking natural disasters to the wrath of God. Yet, climate alarmism seems to embrace the very same rapture mentality: the end is near, be afraid.
The negative effects and false prophecies of climate alarmism have been readily apparent for decades. Yet our politicians continue to choose the religion of climate activism over the welfare of human life. In his book “Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All” Michael Shellenberger chronicles how end-times environmentalism has done more damage than good.
More than embracing junk science, modern climate change alarmist often reveal a hatred for our world.
“When we hear activists, journalists, IPCC scientists, and others claim climate change will be apocalyptic unless we make immediate, radical changes, including massive reductions in energy consumption, we might consider whether they are motivated by love for humanity or something closer to its opposite We must fight against Malthusian and apocalyptic environmentalists who condemn human civilization and humanity itself.”
(Apocalypse Never, p. 274)
While I don’t personally agree with many of Shellenberger’s ultimate conclusions, there is an underlying truth that humans can improve the health and well being of our planet. We can transform once arid environments into farmland and relieve some of the worst human suffering by economic development. There’s no need for alarm, but rather hope.
The myths of limited resources and overpopulation are used to malign human life by climate alarmists. Again, wielding a similar weapon American Dispensationalism spurns the world and looks to escape a sinful world via the rapture. But the message of the Gospel is that Christ’s resurrection has overcome the sin of Adam. The lamb of God has come to take away, not the people from the world, but the sin from the world. We have therefore both a spiritual and cosmic hope for this world and the next.
We cannot allow the “apocalypse nonsense” of the left’s “climate alarmism” or dispensational “end times madness” to be the rudder of a Christian future. Christians ought to recognize the power of our sovereign God in history and the present reality of Christ’s dominion for the life of the world.
