What People Are Getting Wrong This Week: The Rapture

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Are you ready for The Rapture and the days of turmoil to follow? Because, if some corners of the Evangelical Christian community online are correct, it's happening today (or maybe tomorrow) just in time for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish feast of trumpets.

Whether true believers will meet Jesus up in the air this week remains to be seen, so I'm keeping an open mind, but I wanted to lay out what to expect, should the Rapture occur. According to the New King James translation of 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, "The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air."

Dramatic, but it's not the end of the world (as they say). While both living and dead believers in Christ will be gone, the unrighteous will be left behind on earth to deal with the aftermath. Nicolas Cage starred in a 2014 documentary about it.

Why do people think the Rapture is happening this week?

The basis for this wave of Rapture-mania seems to be an interview with Joshua Mhlakela, a South African man, on CENTTWINZ TV's YouTube channel and podcast a few months ago. Mr. Joshua said he knows Jesus personally, and had a dream in 2018 where The Lord said to him, "There will be no World Cup 2026." Later, Jesus appeared bodily in front of him, and said, "On the 23 and 24th of September, 2025, I will come to take My church." Seven years of tribulation will follow (hence the World Cup cancellation), After this, according to Mr. Joshua, Jesus will return to Earth, presumably to deal with us heathens.

Mr. Joshua's prediction gained popularity among some evangelical Christians, and believers began spreading the date on social media, particularly under the TikTok tags #RaptureTok and #rapture2025, where folks offered their thoughts on the matter, provided dubious evidence to back up the date, attempted to convert non-believers in fast food restaurants, and gave practical tips on how to prepare for floating up to heaven to hang out with the pretty angels. Or so it seems.

How many Christians are really preparing for the Rapture this week?

While Mr. Joshua's interview has no doubt influenced some people, the nature of social media makes it difficult to determine how many people are preparing for The Rapture and how many are taking the piss. I've spent all day morning watching Rapture-themed videos, and some folks seem sincere, but a lot of people are taking satirical shots at an easy target, and there are a ton of people who illustrate Poe's Law, because I really can't tell.

Ultimately I don't think that many people genuinely think the Rapture is going to happen. More people seem to be pointing and laughing than actually preparing, so everyone is somewhat wrong. Established Evangelical churches tend to dismiss claims of specific dates of The Rapture when they appear in the larger culture, and more importantly for Christians, there's a Biblical problem with the prediction.

If you think you know the day of the Rapture, you're wrong

If we're going by what The Bible says (and why not, right?), either Mr. Joshua and everyone on TikTok who is predicting the date of The Rapture is wrong or the Bible itself is wrong. According to the Apostle Mark, when asked when the End Times would begin, Jesus said, "About that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." He didn't carve out an exception for people on TikTok.

Mark's fellow Apostle Matthew concurred, writing, "Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming" in Matthew 24:42. "If the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect," Matthew continues.

So if you expect the Rapture, it's not going to happen; it's a self-defeating prophecy. And even if you're not willing to accept the Bible as the word of God Herself, the Rapture seems unlikely based on past predictions.

So many Raptures, so little time

Dr. Joshua and the denizens of RaptureTok aren't the first to predict the end times, and while I can't say for certain, they probably won't be the last. Hippolytus of Rome predicted the end of the world in 500 AD. German monk Michael Stifel predicted October 19, 1533 would be the last day. Baptist preacher William Miller predicted the Rapture would take place on October 22, 1844, leaving between 50,000 and 100,000 Millerites extremely disillusioned on October 23. Of more recent end-time predictors, none have been as influential as Harold Camping.

Harold Camping: King of the Biblical apocalypse

Harold Camping, an engineer and broadcaster, is probably the most high-profile modern predictor of the end of the world. He founded Family Radio in 1958 and built it into a Christian media empire broadcasting to more than 150 U.S. markets across the nation. Then, in the early 1990s, Camping became convinced the Rapture would soon be upon us. Using his own brand of Biblical numerology, Camping calculated the Last Day and published it in his 1992 book, 1994?. The date: September 6, 1994.

When the world stubbornly refused to explode in the mid 1990s, Camping recalculated. The true date, he said, was May 21, 2011. “Camping was 100% sure,” says Dr. Charles Sarno, a sociology professor at Dominican University of California and lecturer at Berkeley. “He said, ‘The Bible guarantees it,’ and what better warranty could one want?”

In the months leading up to May 21, Camping launched an enormous publicity push: billboards, endless radio broadcasts, even RVs shrink-wrapped with doomsday warnings. It worked. “On May 20, the most popular Google search in English was 'May 21st,' ABC News and other major networks reported on it, the BBC covered it; so he got nearly global traction," Sarno says.

May 21 came and went, leaving Camping fielding calls from confused listeners on his radio show asking why he'd gotten it wrong. Camping eventually moved the apocalypse again to October 21, 2011, but that one didn’t pan out either, and soon after, he suffered a debilitating stroke and faded from public view, leaving his underlings squabbling for control of the remains of his media empire.

Why do people believe in the end of the world?

We won't know for sure until later in the week, but whether you use math, history, or the Bible as your guide, you probably don’t need to cancel your weekend plans. Still, the world really is coming to an end—your world, anyway—and it will probably end with you in a hospital bed instead of flying up to Heaven to meet Jesus.

If I could swallow it, maybe I'd believe in the Rapture, too. End-of-world predictions offer certainty, drama, the joy of having secret knowledge, and the possibility of heaven without dying, so I don't begrudge TikTok's Doomsday-stans. I feel pity for them, though, because time is going to pass, and life, inconveniently, is going to keep grinding along, leaving them to try and explain why they're still down here with the rest of us mugs.

Unless they're right. In which case, don't email me; I'll be up in clouds.