Thread by @dogemperor

As apparently there's another Whisenant-style Rosh Hashanah Rapture Panic ongoing in what is apparently now a yearly tradition in "NAR-lineage" Christian Nationalist circles, here's my thread on last year's Rapture Panic

1/xthreadreaderapp.com/thread/1574364…

And Rapture Panics are a phenomena that honestly has gone on since almost the time "Rapture Doctrine" became a Thing in Dispensationalist circles, and the original "Great Disappointment" that spawned Seventh Day Adventism

But today we'll focus on NAR-lineage flavor

2/x

So at least *historically* (and likely to avoid another Great Disappointment) Christian Nationalists in "NAR Lineage" circles have tended to shy away from setting a date, but starting around the early 80s you started seeing some rather odd cultural appropriation...

3/x

This was a particular point where NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists were starting to particularly aggressively target Jewish people (especially from Russian emigre communities) and engage in a lot of cultural appropriation of facets of Ashkenazi Jewish religious culture

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And, interestingly, this is also right around the time that you started having a phenomena of "we're not gonna say it outright but here's a whole bunch of reasons that because Rosh Hashanah and years Israel has been around that the Rapture Is Extremely Nigh"

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NAR-lineage Christian Nationalism has always had...a rather eccentric interest in numeric symbolism (a trait it shares with its parent movement Lanhamism) and so there's huge importance put to 3, and 4, and 7, and 40, and 49, and 50 (the jubilee year)

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And the combination of Israel hitting its 40th year of existence as an independent state (which is considered a sacred and religiously significant number in NAR-lineage Christian Nationalism) which was causing a lot of Rapture Speculation as it was seen as a Sign...

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combined with the increasing apocalypticism around Rosh Hashanah (you were having "outpourings" effectively being manipulated into existence around Rosh Hashanah which were seen as Signs and Wonders too)...led to a fairly major Rapture Panic in 1988

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So in 1987, a guy by the name of Ed Whisenant published "88 Reasons Jesus Is Coming Back In 1988" which effectively claimed the Rapture was going to happen around Rosh Hashanah in 1988 because...of, well, a Crapload Of Reasons

And people kind of went guanopsychotic

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People literally quit their jobs, sold their belongings or even gave them away, and were preparing to be lifted up to Glory in late September 1988.

This....did not happen, and a lot of people ended up destitute and even a few ended up homeless as a result

10/x

This unfortunately didn't stop Whisenant, this didn't stop Rosh Hashanah Apocalypticism (as we'll get into), and if anything Rosh Hashanah Rapture Panics have turned less into a schadenfreude festival and more as...a decidedly nastier thing in NAR circles

11/x

One of the things that's little appreciated is that at least SOME of the push to elect The Former Guy in NAR-lineage Christian Nationalist circles actually stems from a Rosh Hashanah Rapture Panic. (Yes, seriously.)

So, let's go back to 2015-2016, folks...

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So, again, you had a combination of how (by this point) NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists were whipping themselves into a froth pretty much *every* Rosh Hashanah at this point, combined with Israel approaching its 49th anniversary of existence as an independent state...

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and, well, a particular astronomical phenomena in which in 2014 and 2015 there were a sequence of four consecutive lunar eclipses...the fourth of which was to happen on Rosh Hashanah in 2015

This was HEAVILY promoted by NAR preacher John Hagee



14/xen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_moo…

And to make things even more toxic, this "blood moon prophecy" that was being pushed HEAVILY in NAR circles and even NAR-adjacent "NAR Lineage" Christian Nationalist circles (even Pat Robertson egged it on) was based on a specific context in Joel...

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which *meteorologically* speaking can describe the results of a volcanic eruption, but...which NAR-lineage sorts interpreted this in terms of the prior branding of the NAR ("Joel's Army"), and the general pattern of interpretation of verses out of context,

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and the whole pattern of stitching unrelated Bible verses together that's kind of the core of the theology of NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists since the Scofield Reference Bible, and a tendency to see "signs and wonders" in literally everything

17/xdailykos.com/stories/2007/8…

Well...this, TOO, caused a bit of a Rapture Panic, and not just a Rapture Panic but even one of those Rapture Panics that ended up having enough exposure outside of the NAR community that actual astronomy sites were writing on it

18/xspace.com/25409-four-blo…

And--importantly for US politics--this was also a period where a *segment* of NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists were starting to embrace the idea that *they themselves* were the Second Coming as a "Corporate Christ" and thus they had to take control;

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and even the majority of NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists (who weren't thinking of themselves as the Jesus Juhumuriya) had also gotten the idea that the whole reason Jesus hadn't returned is that the US had not been sufficiently "Named and Claimed" yet

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THIS is why there was SO much apocalypticism and Weirdness regarding Trump among NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists, so much calling him out as Cyrus, all but deifying him at points

And it ultimately paved the way for a much worse Rosh Hashanah Panic

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Yes, The Former Guy being essentially elected in a wave of literal apocalypticism by NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists convinced he was going to pave the way for what they REALLY wanted...literally set up the stage for #J6.

Yes, the Great Sedition is involved in this.

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On Rosh Hashanah 2019, Christian Nationalists started priming the pumps, and as early as March 2020 the Jericho Marches were organized...to start the day after Yom Kippur, and 40 days before election, and 400th anniversary of the Mayflower's landing

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And by Rosh Hashanah 2020, NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists were already whipped up in another apocalyptic frenzy...claiming the election had already been lost, and they had to violently (if necessary) secure their position of power

This led DIRECTLY to #J6 folks

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I've written a much longer thread on how #J6 was (at its core) a violent NAR-lineage Christian Nationalist revolt against the constitutional republic, and how it was effectively the culmination of a series of Rosh Hashanah Rapture Panics

25/xthreadreaderapp.com/thread/1546663…

So it's a little harder for me to laugh at some of it, though I'd love to--I do remember (even though I was breaking free from cult programming) even being kind of Scared in 1988 of "what if I'm wrong", and I knew people who pretty much lost it all back then

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And more to the point: This particular flavour of apocalyptic cultural appropriation (and it is, very much, cultural appropriation) is, increasingly, radicalizing NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists with every Little Disappointment, because it is essentially eliminationist

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So it's pretty much a good thing for political activists and community organizers--and, yes, public safety officials and others who would like to protect the constitutional republic against enemies foreign and domestic--to learn re Rosh Hashanah Rapture Panics

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So the best lessons we can learn are the bits of loaded language that signal a threat (like #J6) and...being willing to listen to some old war stories and some advice from some of us who grew up in our own private Gilead before we got the hell out

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