This post begins a new series where I reflect on the theology I was raised in—how it shaped my mind, body, and soul, and how I’m slowly unlearning its fears. This is Part One of Deconstructing the Rapture.
☀️ Part One: The Rapture, Dispensationalism, and the Fear that Followed
By Meagan
Sunny days. Clear blue skies. Not a cloud above.
No matter the season, days like this used to terrify me. If those days were silent too—no cars on our neighborhood streets, no dogs barking, no birds singing—I would feel my chest tighten.
Just quiet.
Nothing.
Had I missed the Rapture?
Had I been left behind?
John Nelson Darby died long before I was born, but his theology haunted my life. His voice echoed through the preachers, teachers, and church elders of my childhood. Darby was an Anglo-Irish preacher and founder of the Plymouth Brethren, a fundamentalist sect of Christianity. In the 1830s, he developed Dispensationalism—a theological framework that divided history into “ages” or dispensations. This lens shaped modern evangelical beliefs about the Rapture, the Antichrist, and the End Times.
Dispensationalism teaches that God interacts with humanity differently across time, marking each age with specific covenants and moral tests. Its literal interpretation of biblical prophecy—especially from Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation—gave rise to belief in a pre-tribulation rapture, a seven-year global crisis, and a millennial kingdom where Christ would rule the earth for 1,000 years.
It taught me that Israel and the Church were separate, that God had different plans for Jews and Christians, and that world events were signs of the End Times. It taught me to look for the Antichrist, to expect a one-world government, to fear the mark of the beast. It taught me I could vanish at any moment if I was righteous—or be left behind if I wasn’t.
I was raised on these ideas in the Black church. I sang songs about being “caught up to meet Him in the air,” and heard preaching that warned of fire, judgment, and hell if we didn’t “get right with God.” We were told we were gentiles “grafted into the vine,” counted among the seed of Abraham. It was deeply manipulative. And it was normalized.
The theology was reinforced by figures like C. I. Scofield, whose Scofield Reference Bible embedded dispensationalist interpretations into its footnotes—essentially turning opinion into divine commentary. It became mainstream. It became gospel.
I was never taught that Palestine existed before the modern state of Israel. I was told Israel always existed—that Jacob was renamed Israel and his children were the nation. But how did a man become a country? What was left out of that story?
There was also Margaret MacDonald, a young Scottish girl who, in a trance-like vision in 1830, described a secret return of Christ where believers would be taken away before a time of great suffering. Her vision was quoted by early rapture proponents and helped shape the theology. This idea—a secret rapture—was virtually unknown before Darby, MacDonald, and Scofield.
It wasn’t until I began deconstructing my faith that I learned:
- The concept of a pre-tribulation rapture is not ancient.
- The early church did not teach dispensationalism.
- There are eight supposed “dispensations”—each with a moral test humanity fails.
- The theology has political influence, particularly through its support of Zionism and U.S. foreign policy toward Israel.
- Some Christians ignore climate change, poverty, or war because “Jesus is coming soon.”
- End-times theology fuels conspiracy theories about the Antichrist, microchips, vaccines, and global government.
Deconstructing the Rapture has freed me.
Now, I welcome quiet, sunny days.
I bask in their stillness, soak in their warmth.
I feel the sunlight on my skin, my face, my body—and I do not panic. I breathe. I smile.
I live.
This is the gift of deconstruction.
This is the gift of truth-telling.