Tidbit to Threads

Susan Stirling
5 days ago
8 min read

Today, it’s all about Rapture Anxiety

RAPTURE ANXIETY

(RAP-chur ang-ZY-uh-tee) noun

A state of persistent worry, fear, or heightened emotional distress related to beliefs about the “rapture” or end-times events, often characterized by hypervigilance for signs that such events are imminent.

‘Ongoing anxiety or fear that the end times or rapture could happen at any moment, often shaped by religious teaching about the end of the world.

(definition adapted from dictionary sources)

usually Rapture Anxiety typically discussed in contexts of:

end-times theology (eschatology)/high-control or fear-based religious environments/ and long-term exposure to apocalyptic messaging

This was an important thread for me to follow, especially because it connects to systems of religious trauma that can form when an individual (particularly children) are taught and indoctrinated into believing in “the Rapture.”

Shall we begin? You might want to grab a cup of tea as you read along.

When I discovered this information in my late 50s, it was something I wish I had learned much sooner. It’s one of the reasons I’ve chosen to talk about it here as I begin sharing these Tidbits to Threads.

The idea of ‘the Rapture’ comes out of something called Dispensational Theology.

I remember watching John Hagee on television, with images illustrating what was presented as the unfolding, impending Rapture—dramatic scenes of end-times events laid out like a timeline.

I’m not a historian, so I’ll put this in layman’s terms.

The rapture doctrine typically includes a set of familiar ingredients: an antichrist figure rising to global power, followed by a seven-year period called the tribulation, which is often described as a kind of hell-on-earth. Within this framework are images of war, pestilence, natural disasters, famine, “microchipped” populations, and 666 barcodes used to buy groceries.

If you mix all of that together, you get a kind of stew: widespread panic, collective alarm, and a constant sense of looming collapse.

And depending on the version of rapture theology someone has been taught, believers will be taken “whisked away “to meet Jesus Christ in the clouds either before, during, or after that seven-year tribulation period.

In my book Velcro Kisses, I mention returning from my first honeymoon and watching the original Left Behind series in 1991. More recently, I discovered it was remade again in 2000, 2014, and another film released in 2023. I won’t go into those details here, but it’s worth noting that this theology is still very much present and circulating today

Writing Tidbits to Threads I’ve found it helpful to try to get as close to the beginnings of where or how these ideas originated. So, let’s start with who began to popularize the Rapture. I found an article that talked about the man ‘who popularized the Rapture’ who systemized and popularized it into the framework most people recognize today.

Let’s meet that man together.

John Nelson Darby was a 19th-century Bible teacher associated with the Plymouth Brethren. He developed a system for interpreting biblical history known as Dispensationalism.

Darby grew up in a wealthy Irish household in the 1700s but later renounced materialism and his aristocratic lifestyle. During this period, Great Britain saw a dramatic rise in the popularity of apocalyptic eschatology. The era also introduced a growing distinction between the Christian church and the Jewish nation of Israel.

Darby eventually became disillusioned with the state of Christianity in Ireland and sought to form a community that would accept only those he believed were truly saved, convinced that much of Christianity had apostatized.

Today, Darby is widely recognized as a central figure in the origins of modern rapture theology. Learning this was significant for me, because it shifted my understanding from seeing it as “Biblical Truth” to recognizing it as a human teaching.

What’s important historically is that Darby didn’t just mention a vague end-times hope, he created a structured timeline that made the rapture feel like a defined event in a prophetic sequence even through it was his interpretation of scripture.

In the 1820s, John Nelson Darby co-founded the Plymouth Brethren.

I’ve read that John Nelson Darby was described as ill-tempered and scornful. Then again, some might say that isn’t surprising for someone who seemed deeply dissatisfied with life on earth.

The article continues to reveal that Darby comes to America seven times and by the time he left America eighty-eight Brethren meetings had been established which initiated the American Bible and Prophecy Conference movement. It was through these conferences that prophecies became a cultural phenomenon in America. (I’ll include a link to the full article at the end of my post if you’d like to read more.)

When I think about Rapture Anxiety today, I picture it as a kind of spiritual stew. And across several Christian traditions, rapture theology became one of the main ingredients in a shared end-times framework.

What’s striking is that, in different ways, I found this same teaching of “end-times stew” across traditions: including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter-day Saints, Seventh-day Adventists, and a group I that was new to me, called the Christadelphians (a non-Trinitarian, millennial Christian movement founded in the 19th century, advocating a return to first-century Christianity, with roughly 50,000 members worldwide).

When I stepped back and looked at it more broadly, I realized I had, in some ways, shared conceptual ground with all of them. That realization was genuinely mind-blowing for me. This was especially true around ideas of imminent end-times, the separation of the faithful, and being “set apart” from a collapsing world.

And beyond these specific groups, there have also been numerous movements and cults throughout modern history built around similar expectations: that the world is about to end, or that a select group will be taken out of it in a special way.

The list becomes long.

Train up a child'…

When ideas like this are absorbed early in life, (as it was in mine) they tend to become lived perception.

Over time, the brain learns to scan for signs. Ordinary events can begin to feel layered with meaning: news headlines, world events, even changes in weather or social tension can get pulled into an interpretive framework of “something is about to happen.”

Does anyone remember Y2K? I do. Stocking up on food and supplies, staying up past midnight to see if this was “the beginning of the End,” as many were predicting. Today I look back and think, “Geesh.” But back then, I was also thanking God that I at least got to be married and have children. How Sad.

I believe this is part of what can make end-times teaching so impactful. Over time, it can settle into the nervous system as either anticipation or Rapture Anxiety. Either way, it can begin to feel internally lived and embodied as though it has become something alive in you.

And when this framework is sustained day after day, week after week, year after year, even century after century, it can begin to feel less like belief and more like vigilance, or even hyper-vigilance, as the brain and body are continually, often subconsciously, scanning for threat.

Age matters here. Asking, “At what age did the indoctrination take place?” is an important starting point. The seeds of Rapture Anxiety planted in a child don’t usually take root as a single, isolated fear. Instead, they can become a way of orienting to the world.

This is one of the reasons I wrote my story.

In my own deconstruction process, I discovered that not only I, but many of us, continued to carry “the Rapture” as a tagged belief. Many of us had left the systems and structures and no longer identified with our religious group.

We had left physically but not psychologically.

This belief was still taking up space in the background of the mind and body.

And like me, under the right circumstances or in a similar environment, the symptoms of this belief can become activated. It moves from the background to the foreground, taking center stage for all to see.

For me, it happened in a Costco of all places, watching a cart loaded with toilet paper roll past us. As it did, something in me registered that old, familiar edge of uncertainty and urgency again.

Rapture Anxiety can show up in a variety of symptoms and ways. These are not diagnoses, but patterns I’ve observed in myself and others navigating deconstruction.

Rapture Anxiety may present as:

anxiety or persistent unease
a sense that time is running out
fear of missing something important
intrusive or looping thoughts about end-times scenarios
catastrophic thinking
reassurance-seeking or decision paralysis
fear of making the “wrong” choice
guilt about not being “faithful enough” or “good enough”
hypervigilance or constant scanning for threat
black-and-white thinking
difficulty trusting internal judgment (outside locus of control)
compulsive behaviors such as hoarding or scarcity responses
self-medicating to manage internal tension
difficulty imagining long-term stability (career, future planning)
quiet despair or low-grade depression
seeking safety primarily through external structures or relationships

Please keep in mind that I am writing as a survivor of these systems, and as someone actively deconstructing and learning to examine what I was taught. This includes learning to ask better questions and to think critically about what I once accepted as certainty.

If you were under teachings

If you have read authors such as Tim LaHaye, Hal Lindsey, or John Hagee, or engaged with the spiritual teachings of Watchman Nee, you may want to begin giving yourself permission to ask questions.

I’m sure there are additional names that could be added to this list depending on the specific tradition or group.

“Rapture theology portrays the end times as marked by wars and rumors of wars. Working for peace might actually get in the way of the rapture and the second coming . . . Rapture theology and the ‘Left Behind’ novels are filled with violence . . .God and Jesus are violent, involved in the destruction of the world and evildoers. Jesus’s followers are violent; they war against the Antichrist...What kind of theology are you likely to have if you think of God and Jesus as violent?” Marcus J. Borg, Speaking Christian, pp. 192-93.

The Seven Mountain Mandate

I’m also asking hard questions about the Seven Mountain Mandate, which I once believed was God’s mandate. I’m examining its influence within the various spheres of culture and how it intersects with ideas within Christian nationalism.

I’m also questioning whether this movement can be understood—as I currently interpret it—as a kind of reconfigured “Rapture” narrative. In this framing, rather than focusing on being taken out of the world, supporters are oriented toward actively engaging and transforming cultural and institutional spheres in preparation for the return of Christ and the advancement of God’s Kingdom on Earth.

Within this broader landscape, Paula White-Cain is serving in a spiritual advisory capacity connected to the White House for the Trump administration and she is a public figure within Pentecostal and charismatic Christian traditions. From that perspective, she understands her role as speaking under Divine guidance, though this is a theological claim rooted in her personal religious beliefs rather than an official governmental designation. Do the lines get burred? In her ministry context, she often uses language that reflects a belief in divine guidance, which is rooted in her personal theological framework rather than any official governmental role or designation.

Question: “Is this real?”

I’ll answer this question, since it is a hot topic in politics today and the political sphere is not my focus. I will simply share what was observed.

My spouse, Andrew, was attending union meetings in Ottawa this past week. The meetings were held at a hotel near the airport. In the room adjacent to their conference space, this was present:

Andrew relayed that one of his co-workers was verbally accosted on the bus ride to the hotel by an attendee of the “Word Over the World Summit.” The attendee turned to Andrew’s co-worker and asked, “Are you a Christian? And if not, why?”

In my view, this reflects a live example of “us versus them” thinking. I would respond, “Yes, I do believe this is real.”

I believe it’s relevant and timely for each of us to do our homework and follow our threads.

Will you join me?

Thank you for reading Tidbits to Threads: where small moments, insights, and deep threads become a return to self-trust, reflection, and healing.

Small moments. Deep threads. A return to self-trust.