A Hilarious Christian Prank
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Comedy, Religion, VideoWhat happens when Christians prank each other?
Prank 3:16 finds out when they attempt to convince a particularly devout fan of the Left Behind series that the Rapture has just happened…and she wasn’t part of it.
One note…Prank 3:16 says that their goal is “to provide wholesome programming while teaching Christian principles.” Do you think this clip does that or lampoons faith itself? Because while I get that some Christians may not believe as strongly in the Rapture, isn’t that pretty well established in scripture?
I open the floor to the more “faithful” readers of this blog to discuss…
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July 3rd, 2008 at 12:30 pm
“Because while I get that some Christians may not believe as strongly in the Rapture, isn’t that pretty well established in scripture?”
Not at all. It takes a creative reading of scripture to come up with the idea of the Rapture as it is popularly known. The belief of a Rapture was pretty much non-existent until the 1800s, and didn’t really catch on until the Scoffield Reference Bible was published about a century ago. For a religion that’s coming up on the dawn of its third millenium, that’s not established at all. To this day, the belief is pretty much only espoused by American Evangelicals. That’s what, maybe 2-3% of Christians worldwide? Just because it is believed by the loudest does not mean that it is believed by the most. Wikipedia is just junk on this issue (it’s been turned into a pulpit), but the BBC has a decent synopsis.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/endtimes_1.shtml
To me, the rise in belief in the Rapture is tied to the rise in technology. When you see how far we’ve come in just the last century, it’s impossible to know where we’ll be in the next decade. There’s a comfort, albiet a perverse one, in a belief that things can’t change too much more because the world is about to end. There are some who are looking forward to the Rapture, and others who are actively doing things that they believe will bring it sooner.
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Actually, “the Rapture” and Fundamentalism in general are doctrines that were invented in the 19th century. Like just about any Christian doctrine, there is little support for them in the Bible. And what support there is, depends on how one interprets certain key passages. And probably also on ignoring other passages.
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Interpretations of the Rapture, the end times, the Tribulation, and that whole bundle of events are as varied as the interpretations of any subject of scripture. This is only made more so by the fact that the few Biblical descriptions we have are enormously vague.
Convincing someone who believes with utter certainty in the Rapture that it has happened and she has not been “taken up” is extraordinarily cruel. I’m not a devout believer in the Rapture, but I can only imagine the pain I would feel if I realized that somehow my faith wasn’t good enough. Making fun of other people’s belief is never an acceptable thing, and when fellow Christians are the ones doing it, it only serves to exacerbate the division within the church, division that we should be trying to overcome, not cause.
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Wow….that’s not funny.
I am not a devout christian…shoot, calling myself a christian is probably an insult to those who think they are…but I would never do something that mean to someone. That girl looked completely distraught. And the people who did call themselves both “Christians” and her friend.
Wow….
OK, maybe not all Christians buy into the rapture, and maybe in the words of the introducer, they are trying to get people to focus on the here and now, but that was evil.
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Jesi said:
“Convincing someone who believes with utter certainty in the Rapture that it has happened and she has not been “taken up†is extraordinarily cruel. I’m not a devout believer in the Rapture, but I can only imagine the pain I would feel if I realized that somehow my faith wasn’t good enough.”
QFT
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
All good thoughts. Glad to hear some info on the Rapture.
However, I still think it’s funny in that “Punk’d” sort of way.
November 14th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I have been writing about Christians transforming culture at – Faith and Facts. We must overcome cultural Christianity and influence not only the church but also politics, media, news, etc.
Prank 3:16 is the kind of culturally engaging commentary we need to show the relevance of Christianity.