Spent some quality time in the garage today, deciding what was treasure to keep or junk to toss. I threw away so much. Lots of old letters, particularly. If I haven’t read them or re-read them in over five years, then why not let them go? But among the keep-worthy material was this gem … The Post Rapture Journal.
It is a four-page newspaper. It is meant to be an account of life on Earth right after the Rapture. In this interpretation, the faithful have not been swept into the air, but nave been simply disappeared, leaving the not-as-faithful to deal with the apocalyptic consequences. In a way, it works a lot like the Left Behind series does today. “Get your act together now!”
This belonged to my grandmother. I’m not entirely sure of its age, but I would guess that it is from the late 40s (based on the cars, mostly). On the last page, we’re told that additional copies can be acquired by writing John A. Leland at post office box in Jacksonville, Florida.
The only online mention I’ve found is a sermon account by Thomas A. Roan of First Congregational Church, West Tisbury, Massachusetts:
While I was in seminary, one of the adjunct faculty showed me a newspaper he had received as a sixth grader in Lexington, Virginia. It was entitled the Post Rapture Journal. This was a paper, which contained pictures, and articles about what it would be like after all of the good and righteous people were taken to heaven. One picture showed a young couple with tears in their eyes as they stood over a crib with nothing in it except a small child’s bedclothes. Their baby had been taken to heaven and they had not. Another pictured showed a man in bed and his wife was missing. She had been raptured and he had not. Finally, one picture showed a 12-car pileup on the interstate because all of the drivers had been whisked away to heaven. The professor had received this paper as he walked home from school and someone was handing them out. He told me that when the next Sunday came, and the minister asked if there was anyone who wished to accept Jesus into their hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit, he ran down the aisle as fast as he could and accepted Jesus into his heart with tears in his eyes.*
I was maybe eight years old when I found this in my grandmother’s closet. (I was a very nosey kid.) My mother didn’t want me to read it, afraid as she was that it might frighten me. And I suppose it did at the time. It wasn’t until later that I came to realize how little emphasis the methodist church would put on doom-saying. As a consequence, I’ve just never been a fan of end-time prophecy.
