Writing the Rapture: Prophecy Fiction in Evangelical America

273 Pages·2009·1.38 MB·English

by  Crawford Gribben

Writing the Rapture
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Writing the Rapture
Prophecy Fiction in Evangelical America
crawford gribben
2009
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gribben, Crawford.
Writing the rapture : prophecy fi ction in evangelical America / Crawford Gribben.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-532660-4
1. Christian fi ction, American—History and criticism. 2. End of the world in literature.
3. Rapture (Christian eschatology) I. Title.
PS374.C48G75 2009
813'.54—dc22 2008021139
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Mum and Dad
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Th e script has already been written.
—Grace Halsell, Prophecy and Politics:
Militant Evangelists on the Road
to Nuclear War ()
Th e world today is like a stage being set for a great drama. Th e major
actors are already in the wings waiting for their moment in history. Th e
main stage props are already in place. Th e prophetic play is about to
begin.
—John F. Walvoord, Armageddon, Oil, and the
Middle East Crisis: What the Bible Says about
the Future of the Middle East and the
End of Western Civilization ()
Th is script has already been written.
—Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins,
Desecration ()
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Preface

Some things we must assign to fate.
—James BeauSeigneur, In His Image (1997)
Evangelical prophecy belief has been part of my life for as far back
as I can remember. I grew up in an Irish family whose roots in the
Plymouth Brethren movement stretched back over one hundred
years. It was a family in which the material culture of the theology
of the “rapture” provided the basic props of communal life. One of
the objects I continue to treasure most is my grandfather’s Scofield
Reference Bible (1909; second edition 1917). This was the textbook of
the movement: Scofield’s eschatology was central to what it meant to
be Brethren, and his “dispensationalism” was a core component of
preaching in the congregations we knew best. The “official” theology
was not always uncritically accepted, and the timing of the rapture
was a popular subject for debate in family gatherings. But dispensa-
tionalism underpinned many of the hymns we sung and many of the
books we read.
I don’t remember when I fi rst encountered evangelical prophecy
fi ction. I might have found an old Sydney Watson novel at my grand-
parents’ farm, or I might have brought one home from the shelf of
stray volumes that sat in the men’s room at church. I (and other family
members) have very vivid memories of watching Don Th ompson’s Th ief
in the Night (1972) when I was somewhere in my mid-teens. But when-
ever my exposure to the genre began, prophecy fi ction—and Watson’s