"Rapture's Delight" is the ninth episode of the sixth season of the American animated television series
American Dad! It originally aired on the Fox TV network in the United States on Dec. 13, 2009 [and remains one of the funniest and most satirical takes the show dared to make]. This episode centers around CIA Agent Stan and his housewife Francine's life after the vast majority of the church, including their children Hayley and Steve, are
raptured ("taken up"), leaving everyone else
Left Behind. When Stan begins to blame Francine for not getting into heaven, Francine ends their relationship and befriends a man whom she later finds out to be Jesus Christ. Francine becomes his bride, leaving Stan behind to participate in the showdown at
Armageddon.
MoreThe Christian myth of The Rapture
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| God is coming to beam us up, well, His son |
"
The Rapture" is a
Christian eschatological ("end-times") belief held by
some Christians, particularly those of
American evangelicalism, consisting of
a magic event when all dead Christian believers will be resurrected and, together with Christians who are still alive, will rise "in the clouds, to meet the Lord [who might be in a spaceship] in the air" [1, 2].
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| I don't want to be left behind with all the sinners! |
Many different timelines have been asserted that tie to ideas of a seven-year "Great Tribulation": pre-tribulation [3], mid-tribulation, pre-wrath, and post-tribulation raptures; and to a thousand-year age of Messianic rule: millennialism, pre-millennialism, post-millennialism, a-millennialism, and preterism [4, 5].
The origin of the term extends from translations of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians in the Christian Bible, which uses the Greek word harpazo (Ancient Greek ἁρπάζω), meaning "to snatch away" or "to seize."
The idea of a rapture as it is defined in dispensational premillennialism is NOT found in historic Christianity. It is a relatively new doctrine, originating from the 1830s.
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| Why was I left behind, not good enough? |
Most Christian denominations, and the numerically largest, do NOT believe or subscribe to "rapture theology" and have a different interpretation of the aerial gathering described in 1 Thessalonians 4 [6].
They do NOT use "rapture" as a specific theological term, nor do they generally subscribe to the dispensational theology associated with its use [7].
Instead, most Christians typically interpret "rapture" in the sense of the elect (the saved) gathering with Christ in Heaven directly after the Second Coming.
They reject outright the idea that a large portion of humanity will be "left behind" (like the
very profitable, fearmongering book series depicts) on Earth for an extended tribulation period after the events of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 [6, 8].
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