Why Are Christians Obsessed With the Rapture?

Why are Christians so obsessed with the end of the world? Mostly for the same reasons Christians are obsessed with anything: It’s in the Bible. The Old Testament is full of terrifying, cryptic prophecies about the End Times: “The two kings, their minds bent on evil, shall sit at one table and exchange lies,” the prophet Daniel says. “But it shall not succeed, for there remains an end at the time appointed.” (Two kings exchanging lies sounds ominously like the plot to Game of Thrones.) Then, in the New Testament, Jesus tells his disciples that “the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ with power and great glory.” The Second Coming of Christ involves its own vocabulary; words like “Postmillennialism” and “Pre-Tribulation” get tossed around in End Times crowds like confetti at a parade.