Depending on who’s data you believe, there are perhaps more than 20,000 different Christian denominations in America today. While the actual number is not that important, it does strike me that Christianity has hit that critical mass where it possesses enough iterations to insure that anyone considering the faith will have no trouble finding a version that will agree with his or her own sensibilities. 

For Christianity, this happy accident was the result of far too many things to cover here, but important among them are centuries of in-fighting, inevitable theological schisms, the protestant reformation, and a generous number of egotistical shysters constantly inventing new and improved methods to grow (and ultimately fleece) their respective flocks. Add to the mix the religious freedoms guaranteed by our first amendment, which have acted as the fertilizer for much of this amazing growth in the United States, and the resulting explosion in the number of Christian denominations became inevitable

Whether or not by design, this explosion of Cafeteria Christianity has proven to be an excellent business model: while there was only a single product named Coca-Cola up until the introduction of Diet Coke in 1982; since that time at least a dozen different products have worn the Coca-Cola name.

One of the most interesting recent developments in Cafeteria Christianity is  the arrival of the concept of the rapture as a basic tenant of most evangelicals and Christian fundamentalists. In hindsight, this was a necessary development in light of some rather problematic writings in the New Testament. I’ll begin with the synoptic gospels.

In Mark, the oldest of the synoptic gospels, the writer quotes Christ in Mark 9.1:

   And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.

The only logical interpretation here is that the Kingdom of God will arrive during the lifetimes of some of the people present.  This pronouncement exists also in Matthew 16.27-28, as well as in my favorite of the gospels, Luke (9.27).

Placing Christ in proper context, a first-century apocalyptic preacher, brings clarity to the purpose of his statement. His expectation is that the apocalypse is imminent, and he is preparing his followers for its arrival and assuring them that it will be happening so soon that some of them will still be alive when it occurs. This is made crystal clear in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, Chapter 4 verses 14-18, where Paul makes it clear that the people who have died prior to Christ’s return will be risen from the dead to accompany those who are still alive:

   For since we  believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.
For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died.
For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.

Note that when Paul says ” … we who are alive …”, his expectation is that the end times would arrive during his own lifetime.

The difficulty here is that Christ, like all others who have walked the theological plank of predicting the end times, fell off the plank.

It was not until the early 19th century that Christianity decided it was necessary to twist the words of Christ and the writings of Paul in order to overcome this problem. English theologian John Darby is most often credited with inventing the pre-tribulationalist rapture circa 1827. Cafeteria Christianity was served a new entrèe to feast on, and it hasn’t been the same since.