The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation

Rating:
Summary: Solid theology AND enjoyable to read!
Review: This book speaks words of hope and grace in ways that I only hope that I'll someday be gifted to speak. Dr. Rossing writes theologically sound biblical exegesis -- and I am ever grateful! I have a copy for my library and will be donating copies to my churchs' libraries as well. This book is academic but not in such ways to be scary! As a pastor, I am grateful to have this book as a reference so that I will be able to best respond to church members who are puzzled about the book of Revelation.

Rating:
Summary: I had a good laugh!
Review: This book was absolutely awful! I was looking for a critical and well thought out critique of the dispensationalist teaching on the rapture but this book left much to be desired. If you are an evangelical and undecided on this matter or even slightly interested in the topic you might consider another book--unless of course you want a good laugh. Granted, the Left Behind series, which goes in for a drubbing in this book, is a bit cheesy and off in some of it's implicit theology but it hardly offends me the way it does this author. I just laugh it off. The scorn the author heaps upon proponents of this teaching by repeatedly using certain key words and their variants like "violent," and "destructive" was tiring. The most sustained piece of writing critiquing the rapture was written in the epilogue of all places. Her interpretation of Revelation, coming in the last half of the book was even worse. Two excerpts should suffice in helping you determine whether or not this book is for you.

Concerning the New Jerusalem the author writes,

"I like to ask people to say the name of their own town or city out loud. Then I invite them to re-phrase the vision of New Jerusalem in terms of their own city's renewal, like King's vision of the New Philadelphia, the New Los Angeles: "I saw the holy city, God's New (Name of Your Town) coming down out of heaven..." What would your "new" city look like envisioned in light of God's vision of hope? This is an exercise in "borrowing the eyes of God," as the German theologian Dorothee Soelle describes our mystical sight. We see our world as God sees it. This is what happens in Revelation's New Jerusalem vision,"

and,

"Look more closely at the leaves on the tree of life. Revelation tells us that these leaves are medicine....What are your wounds? What is it in your life that most needs healing? Are you carrying a terrible burden of pain? Are you grieving the death of a loved one? Are you haunted by suffering in the world? The grief I carry most deeply is our destruction of the world's environment, the death of forests and species and the impending end to so many beautiful places through the results of global warming. It is an urgent, even aching concern for me, and I long to see the healing for the planet and for all it's wounded places."

If that's the kind of stuff you go in for then have at it. If on the other hand your one of those gun-totin, arrogant, environmentally unfriendly dispensationalists, you might look elsewhere.