I’m Ready for the Rapture

I wrote this about eight or nine years ago, never posted it, and statistics are probably different today. But considering the rapture is supposed to happen tomorrow, I figured it was time.

The rapture. Mass ascension into heaven to join God. Or whomever it is people join. Only the chosen, of course. Self chosen, of course. The believers will ascend, and I’m ready.

The believers are, by and large, evangelicals. In the US alone there are about ninety-two million people who proclaim to be evangelical. Nearly one-third of the world’s evangelicals live here in the US, among us. 

It’s not like we in Arizona are surrounded, as most evangelicals live in Tennessee, Oklahoma and Alabama. Places far east of us. The West, in comparison, doesn’t have a lot of evangelicals except for Montana and Wyoming and I am willing to disregard them.

But evangelicals are ready for the rapture and so am I.

Think of it! Ninety-two million fewer people in the US in one split second! And since the major states in the US that are evangelical are also racist states, I can’t help but believe there could be a little overlap there. I’m all for the rapture if it could help reduce racism.

Politically, I would guess most evangelicals are not Democrats nor are they Greens. Probably not even Libertarians. That leaves the R word. Can you imagine ninety-two million fewer Republicans in the US? Okay, okay, a lot of them may not be voting age yet. So maybe forty or fifty million fewer Republicans. If that’s true, I’m ready for the rapture to take them all.

More than twenty percent of Arizonans proclaim to be evangelical. The bulk of them live in the north Phoenix area and in the White Mountains. Consider the voting shift in our beautiful state if all the evangelicals raptured up!

Since the White Mountains would be free of a large percent of the high country population, we’d be more free to visit. Women would be welcome. Gays would be welcome. Blacks and even Muslims would be welcome in the White Mountains after the rapture. I’m ready.

I don’t have any idea how many people are in the average evangelical family, but if it’s five, that means there would instantly be about eighteen and a half million vacant houses throughout our country. And those houses would be full of furniture, kitchen equipment, bedding and artwork. 

Some of those houses could be turned over to homeless families. And the rest? Well, with all those suddenly-empty homes, housing prices would fall and all of a sudden, many who currently can’t qualify to own a home would be able to afford a lovely one. Perhaps I could pick up a second home in the White Mountains.

And jobs! Millions of jobs – good paying ones, often – would open up. The unemployed could find work, and the under employed could find better work. 

Water – less use of it means our watersheds would be restored. There’d be fewer ATVs running around off road, and those who’ve always wanted one could pick from the many that had been abandoned. Perhaps I could add an almost new Porsche to my garage, too. Or, like Janis, a Mercedes Benz.

More water. Better environment. Far less need to drill for gas and oil, and the Dakota Pipeline situation would be instantly resolved. City populations would drop, so there’d be less traffic and less smog.

Even Congress would change and we’d have a much better chance of filling sudden vacancies with progressive candidates. A wonderful slap in the face to the orange one who is about to be sworn in as Tweeter in Chief.

So many benefits! Just thinking of it makes my head spin, so please. It must be time for the rapture. The four hundred million evangelicals on the planet surely can’t be wrong, can they? They believe it is time for the rapture, and I, for one, am ready!