It appears Jesus is getting his transition team in place, what with the
recent raptures—albeit by conventional means—of the Rev. D. James
Kennedy, godfather of the American Dominionist [a.k.a. theofascist]
movement and hater of our secular constitution, and the Rev. Jerry
Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority and hater of all people he could
think of to hate.
I do wish the Lord would get his jesters assembled and move on this.
Think what the Rapture will mean to those of us left behind.
Twenty-three percent of the 208 million adults in America identify
themselves as either Pentecostal or Charismatic Christians [a.k.a.
Rapture-ready]. In the event of the Rapture up to 50 million workers
will be leaving their jobs without clocking out. The number of
positions vacated will be five times as many needed to wipe out the
country’s unemployment, leaving the rest of us in a workers’ paradise.
Affirmative action be damned! It’s “trickle up” economics at work here.
Not only will our career paths be enhanced, but we’ll have a chance at
longer, healthier lives by taking the untold billons of dollars
President Bush is currently funneling into the Christian Right’s
faith-based coffers to save “Americans one soul at a time" and
reallocating them to stem cell research and universal health care,
which will save considerably more of an American than just his or her
ethereal soul.
Along with vocational upgrades and improved health, we’ll no longer
have to wonder, “is our kids learning?” High school grads having
trouble gaining admission to one of our over-crowded universities will
have immediate access to the vacant desks—and possibly iPods—left by
the tens of thousands of Rapture-ready students attending America’s 102
“Christ-centered” colleges, which will be under new management and
begging for warm bodies.
And guys, speaking of warm bodies, the universities will be flush with
coeds since far fewer teenage girls will be home taking care of their
babies—there were 435,000 teen mothers last year. The hundreds of
millions of federal dollars spent annually on abstinence-only sex
education [a.k.a. religious dogma] in our public high schools will now
fund comprehensive sex education programs that promote safe and
effective birth control methods. Let’s face it. It was only the
Christian Right who thought hormone-pumped primates would ever stop
“doing it.”
By the way, do I even need to mention that with the Rapture-ready
blissfully ensconced behind the pearly gates the rest of us will be
left in peace to enjoy our bedrooms and our most personal intimate
relationships on our own terms?
Unarguably though, the highlight of the Rapture will be finding out
which of the “born-again” politicians are left on the ground. Unless
someone has been lying to the American people—perish the thought—we
stand to lose 48 Senators, 186 Representatives, four Supreme Court
justices, seven presidential hopefuls, and one hopeless president.
If it turns out—highly unlikely though it is— that the 2008
presidential frontrunners of both parties are missing on
Rapture-plus-one, we’ll enjoy the remaining election season with
candidates who’ve always been willing to talk about more substantive
issues than their most recent meet and greet with the Lord. The
God-talk will be in heaven where it belongs.
Consider this . . . with a smile. If the Democrats with Dennis Kucinich
and Al Gore—we can talk him into it—or the Greens with Cynthia McKinney
and Ralph Nader can’t defeat the unraptured and unrepentant Ron Paul
and Rudy Giuliani on their own merits, we’ll now own the Supreme Court.
There is a downside. We know damn-good-and-well who’ll be sitting at
his Oval Office desk with a “fooled you again” smirk on his mug on
Rapture-plus-one. But keep in mind, we’ll still have Section 4 of
Article II of the Constitution and we’ll have the votes and we’ll have
the prison. Keep in mind also, gods mostly help those who help
themselves.
Having imagined all the above, my thinking is not so magical as to
believe there won’t be a few post-Rapture problems. After all,
according to Revelations this will be the time of the Great Tribulation
and we’ll still have Satan [a.k.a. your choice] to wrestle with. But
with the Christian Right enjoying eternity . . . well . . . who cares
where, we’ll have only one Devil in the ring at a time. And he’ll be
the one carrying a pitchfork not a Bible.
Author’s note: Hopefully Jesus is a not a strict sectarian and swooshes
up Jewish and Muslim fundamentalists as well. WHAT? I have the right to
hope.
Biography: Robert
Weitzel is a freelance writer and contributing editor to Media With a
Conscience. His essays regularly appear in The Capital Times in
Madison, WI. He has been published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
Skeptic Magazine, Freethought Today, and on popular liberal websites.
He can be contacted at: robertweitzel@mac.com
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