Mormons don’t really believe in a rapture, but we also obsess about the end times

There’s an old Mormon joke: A cardinal says to the pope, “I have good news and bad news.” The pope replies, “Good news first.” The cardinal says, “Christ has returned.” The pope says, ‘What could be the bad news?” The cardinal replies,” He’s in Salt Lake City.”

Come on, it’s funny. I used to chuckle hearing it. I was thinking of that “joke” when reading a piece from Religious News Service on multimedia preacher Tim LaHaye, co-author of the wildly successful “Left Behind” series of books. The books are entertaining but violent religious “gorenography” that contain more violence than all the “Saw” movies combined and feature Jesus Christ as an “End Times” Godzilla who slaughters millions, creating rivers of blood. 

Afterwards, LaHaye’s prose lovingly focuses on the immersion of the Antichrist and his false prophet in a lake of molten fire that will eventually consume billions of others who fail to heed the lessons of “Left Behind.” The weirdest thing about this fairy tale — that would be too obscene for the Brothers Grimm — is that its most devoted readers are southern housewives with children.

Back to Latter-day Saints and the End Times. We’re not that grim, or eager for retribution, as LaHaye is. In fact, a little-known fact about Mormonism is that we teach near universal salvation. Our version of Hell, called Perdition, has no fire. From what I can garner from 50-plus years in the LDS Church, Perdition is perpetually overcast place where “Sons of Perdition” (apparently there’s no daughters) will be forced to listen to impotent debates between Cain and Judas, with Lucifer the moderator. In other words, boring.

Mormons throw a quantum twist to all this, though. We believe that God knows everything that we will do while we are alive, which presents the non-theological but still mulled-upon idea that perhaps everything has already happened and life as we know it is a re-run. (That is definitely not LDS Church doctrine)

But Mormons obsess about the End Times as much as anyone else, even if we don’t believe in a rapture. How else to explain the consistent popularity of Glenn Beck? The “Beck influence,” — and this used to be called the “Skousen influence,” is evident anytime I have a conversation with a member who refuses to believe that anything is going to get better in the next undetermined years or decades before the second coming of Christ. Pessimism is a requirement for a Beckian.

There’s also the dubious legend of the prophet Joseph Smith claiming that the Constitution will hang by a thread before the Second Coming. There’s also the prophecy of three missionaries who will be murdered in Israel and resurrect. This is a variation of the Left Behind Apostles of Christ who do the same during “the tribulation,” or apocalyse. And of course we fervently believe that the Three Nephite apostles, along with the Apostle John, are hanging around providing perfect directions to bewildered LDS travelers.

LaHaye and scores of millions of others believe that the rapture can occur at anytime. Mormons and scores of millions of others believe that Christ can return at any time. True or not, there’s a wonderful hook if all this is actually a con. 

Bad things always exist, and bad news can always be used as proof these are the End Times. In the meantime, we better all pay our tithing.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardNet in 2010.