September Wrap Up
Late Night Forgiveness, Rapture Tok, Altar Call Rappers, and More!
After a Summer hiatus, the month-end Wrap Up returns! It’s brief, but here are a few places where I saw Law/Gospel implications last month. Enjoy!
Hearing the gospel (or some semblance thereof) on Late Night TV was something I wasn’t expecting last week. I have to admit that I tuned in for Jimmy Kimmel’s return to television with the full anticipation of getting ‘all the smoke’, haha…Instead, I heard a message about forgiveness, the teachings of Jesus, grace, etc... What is this world coming to? You can check out a snippet from his full monologue by visiting this link. Here was my salient takeaway though,
There was a moment over the weekend, a very beautiful moment. I don’t know if you saw this on Sunday. Erika Kirk forgave the man who shot her husband. She forgave him. That is an example we should follow. If you believe in the teachings of Jesus as I do, there it was. That’s, that’s it. A selfless act of grace, forgiveness from a grieving widow. It touched me deeply, and I hope it touches many, and if there’s anything we should take from this tragedy to carry forward, I hope it can be that…
I had never heard of Memphis rapper Project Pat (though I am familiar with his former group, Three6 Mafia), but this clip that showed up in my Instagram feed, in which he leads his fans in the so called ‘sinner’s prayer’ caught my attention. While I question the efficacy of altar calls, an audience of 600 fans calling on the Name of Jesus can’t be entirely bad…
Did we miss the Rapture…again? Dang it! I never should have stopped wearing that WWJD bracelet 20 years ago! Evidently, ‘Rapture Tok’ is, or rather was a thing. The Guardian commented on this viral moment in a recent article. The full write-up is available here, but below is a brief synopsis of some of the points that raptured my attention:
Evangelical Christians who believe in the rapture describe it as a fundamental doctrine: the idea that one day, true believers of God will ascend into heaven, ending life as we know it – while the rest are left behind for a seven-year period of suffering at the hands of the antichrist.
Since the theory was popularized in the early 1800s by a British clergyman named John Nelson Darby, there have been countless false alarms: in 1844, a New York farmer turned Baptist preacher named William Miller amassed thousands of followers through preaching a second coming that never materialized, in an event later dubbed the Great Disappointment. When Halley’s comet passed through the sky in 1910, scammers sold “anti-comet pills” intended to save souls. In 1997, the Hale-Bopp comet led 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult to die by mass suicide. This time around, the call came from the South African preacher Joshua Mhlakela, who spread the word during a June podcast appearance. “The rapture is upon us, whether you are ready or not,” Mhlakela said. The theory quickly translated to TikTok, where the hashtag #rapture has more than 320,000 posts…
Rapture rumors typically amp up in September, [Podcaster April Ajoy] says, due to the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah, which is mentioned in the Bible. “But ultimately, I think any time people feel really out of control and scared, it’s prime time for them to start talking about the rapture,” she said.
Sara Reinis, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania who studies religion and social media, has seen videos of moms sharing their end times prepping routines or giving tips for people who are left behind. “They’re adopting the language of self-help, which is so prevalent on social media, and attaching it to the rapture discussion,” she said. “Some don’t really know if this is when the rapture is going to happen, but they think it’s still an important wake-up call to pay attention to. They’re hedging their bets.”
So what will have changed if we wake up on Thursday? [Tyler] Huckabee, the Sojo.net editor, says that if past false flag raptures are any indicator, not much. People who go all-in on the rapture only to be proved wrong do not usually use it as an opportunity to reflect on their beliefs.
“There’s a very human fear of saying ‘I was wrong,’” Huckabee said. “So what I’ve tended to see from the people who quit their job because they think Jesus is coming back, or whatever, it’s that they say they got something wrong – maybe the date was a bit off, but it’s still coming soon. There’s always a way to kick the ball down the road.”
Respect to David Zahl who inadvertently put me up on new (well, new-to-me) music, via one of the recent Mockingbird weekenders (which you should read btw). John Van Deusen has since been in regular rotation on my playlist, and I am eagerly anticipating his October release, As Long As I Am In The Tent of This Body I Will Make A Joyful Noise…
I was saddened by the news of the death of Voddie Baucham. I can still remember talking Pulp Fiction, Hip Hop, and eschatology with him, at the Iron Sharpens Iron conference in 2014. Many a night, I rocked my (then) infant son to sleep listening to his sermons on Sermon Audio. Along with Tullian Tchvidjian, Elyse Fitzpatrick, and Paul Tripp, he had a tremendous impact on my understanding of grace back in the early 2010’s. Rest well, my friend…until the Resurrection. *Sorry, I never completed that book you encouraged me to write…
Religious People are lying to themselves…or so says comedian Jordan Jensen during an episode of Kareem Rahma’s Subway Takes series. In the clip featured below, Jordan explains that most so called ‘religious’ people are more attracted to the “vibe” of their faith, than they are to actually following the dictates and devout lifestyle their religion demands. I particularly appreciated the following insight she offered up here:
“I quit eating sugar. I’ve told every last one of my friends about it to try and help them get off sugar. If I thought they were gonna burn in hell, I would be shaking them in the middle of the night and be like, ‘accept Jesus into your life, please!’... People talk about Keto, people talk about so many things all the time, and if you thought there was a God, and there was a heaven and a hell, people would not [shut…up] about it. They would really be trying to convert you into a pious person…The vibe is nice. To be a part of a tribe is great, but they don’t actually believe in the doctrines…”
Warning: the clip below contains strong language. For a truncated, censored version, you can click here!