The Rapture and the Scofield Bible

Millions of Americans grew up with a clear picture of the end. One day, without warning, believers vanish: cars without drivers, clothes left on the seat. Those left behind face seven years of horror while the world collapses. Jesus did speak about his return. The question is what he said he wanted to find when he came.

If you lay awake as a kid afraid your parents had been taken without you, you're not imagining how strange that was. The secret Rapture is a system first taught in the 1830s, and it was taught to children as if Jesus had said it. He didn't. And its picture of a doomed world gave people a reason to stop caring for this one.

Measured against the center