Rapturous Bachmann
by Tom Sullivan
Go ahead, Michele Bachmann. Break out your “THE END IS NEAR” sign. You know you want to. She came close in a radio interview:
Michele Bachmann says the rapture is coming, thanks to President Barack Obama’s policies on Iran’s nuclear program and marriage equality.
In a radio interview last week, Bachmann, the former Minnesota Republican congresswoman, told “End Times” host Jan Markell, “We need to realize how close this clock is getting to the midnight hour.”
“We in our lifetimes potentially could see Jesus Christ returning to earth and the rapture of the church,” Bachmann said. “We see the destruction, but this was a destruction that was foretold.”
Yes, she’s serious. In the westernmost mountains of North Carolina, for example, one of the most frequent questions congressional candidates will be asked is what version of the Bible they read.
Eschatology has been quite the rage among Bachmann-like believers pretty much forever. They take Revelation very seriously. Especially the “Rapture,” a word that appears nowhere in the New Testament. They’ll even argue over whether the Rapture comes before, during, or after the Great Tribulation that precedes the Second Coming and the Millennium. A preacher I knew was once asked whether he believed in a pre-Trib, mid-Trib, or post-Trib Rapture. He answered that he was a pan-Millennialist. He figured it would all pan out in the end.
I’m not sure Michele Bachmann would get the joke.