The Rapture

I saw a couple of people on the street today waving signs declaring that the world ends tomorrow (which begins here in about ninety minutes). I didn't stop to enquire further. But apparently this is part of a widespread belief drummed up by some American evangelical who is getting much attention notwithstanding that he is but the latest in a long line of people who have thought they could predict the (start, end of?) the end times. If I recall correcty, the early Christian church made frequent predictions about an imminent return of the Messiah, a habit it gave up at some medieval point, recognizing that serial declarations of the end were costing the Church credibility.

Indeed it seems to me that the truest spirit of Judeo-Christian, or Abrahamic religion is the development of a faith that can allow one to live confidently in the possibility of an ongoing creativity and growth in human civilization, with no guarantees of an imminent end of history, a faith that survives all doubts whether life is still meaningful if it is deeply open-ended, with no final judgment day any time soon.

It was this book which introduced me to a memorable Franz Kafka aphorism, one I think speaks to a true faith in our humanity able to live without belief that either we or the divinity must soon bring things to an end. Faith in humanity is faith in our ability ever to defer the violence that must destroy our world. Keeping in mind that in Judaism (in contrast to Christianity), the promised Messiah is not thought to be God, but a human, we may in any case still ask whether our faith in God should be any different than our faith in humanity. Kafka articulates the question thus:

The Messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary; he will come only on the day after his arrival; he will come, not on the last day, but on the very last day

Variant translation: The Messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary; he will come only on the day after his arrival; he will come, not on the last day, but at the very last.