Rating: 
Summary: You need to read this.
Review: I've never been comfortable with the rapture theory. After reading Rapture Trap I now know why. Paul Thigpen does a complete investigation of the secret second coming theory and destroys it. He points out that the at the heart of the rapture theory is a rejection of Christianity's mandate to go out and be salt and light in a weary, wicked world. The Bible makes it clear the Jesus won't come back in invisible stealth. It makes no promises that believers will be privately whisked away when the tribulation comes. Thigpen offers one very sobering point that really startled me: Consider the fact that the apostles all suffered and died for their Faith. Think about all the saints who were martyred in the Roman arenas. Think about the Ugandan and Vietnamese marytrs and the millions of Christians who are NOW suffering horribly in China, the Middle East and the Sudan. The rapture folks aparently believe that they are more righteous and precious to God than all these people. That is a powerful and really frightening point and it demolished any validity to the rapture theory for me. I would give the book 4 stars for that alone but Thigpen goes on to discuss where this rapture nonsense comes from. Although it has it's roots in German Europe, the full flower of the theory is a totally American thing. In short, it's not an ancient belief and is one that the early church fathers would've looked in askance of. Now, Thigpen is a little dry in his writing style and I think the book could've been shorter but that's okay. This book isn't for entertainment it's for setting the worried and confused individual straight. If you are troubled by the rapture theory, or have been pressured by friends and family to read and believe the Left Behind books you seriously need to read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: " ... no lie is of the truth." 1 John 2:21
Review: One can dismiss the doctrine of the "rapture" as an unimportant doctrine; believe it if you want or do not believe it if you want - why argue about a doctrine that is not "essential" to the faith? This book will tell you why. The doctrine of the "secret rapture" has intrigued many of my protestant brothers and sisters, and even a few of my fellow Catholics. The popular "Left Behind" books and videos are based on it. But this is a false doctrine, virtually unheard of before the 19th century, and based on a flawed interpretation of one passage of Scripture (1 Thess 4:17 - "Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air."). Dr Thigpen shows how this passage actually refers to an ancient practice of a large group of people coming out of a city or town to meet an approaching dignitary, and then escort him into the city. This is the interpretation held by many of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Dr Thigpen also goes on to describe various interpretations of "end times" texts; the "millennium", including descriptions of premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism; the "tribulation", including when Christ is to come back to earth (before, during, or after the "tribulation" - pre-trib, mid-trib, and post-trib, respectively); and some styles for interpreting the book of Revelation (futurist, preterist, historicist, spiritual/idealist, progressive parallels). The information is somewhat basic, but very useful. And finally, belief in this - or any other - false doctrine, even if one does not consider it "essential" to their faith, is dangerous for both Christians and non-Christians. One only need look at some true-life examples of those who believed falsehoods about the end-times; the great disappointment of 1844 (many never returned to their faith) is but one example. Fatal examples would be the Jonestown mass suicide, the Branch Davidians, and the Heaven's Gate suicide. All of these people were fooled by one magnetic, charismatic leader who had his own ideas. But this is the danger that anyone who stands outside of Christ's infallible Magisterium faces, and this is the danger in believing a lie - any lie - because a lie is not of the truth. Well done, Dr Thigpen.
Rating: 
Summary: Extensive Protestant Bashing
Review: This book is supposedly about the pre-tribulational Rapture theory that's popular among Fundamentalists and some Evangelicals, but about 30% of the total volume is concerned with bashing non-Catholic Christians, whitewashing the Catholic Church (apparently, homosexual rapist priests, Inquisitions, more than a millennium of church-sponsored Anti-Semitism, the U.S. Bishops' theologically-apostate statement on evangelizing Jews and the Vatican's warm overtures toward a pantheistic and Universalistic theology, and literally hundreds of thousands of pages of novel theological interpretations that run rough-shod over the plain meaning of the Bible do nothing to diminish the Church's moral authority in Thigpen's eyes), and arguing for Catholic doctrines like the Mass and Papal infallability. Thigpen even suggests that non-catholics will serve the Anti-Christ because they reject the Church Hierarchy that gave us Cardinal Law, among others. Thigpen's indictment of the Rapture, by the way, was stolen almost word-for-word from PROTESTANT theologians like Robert Gunry and R.C. Sproul, so he can't even claim that he's using the "wisdom" of the Catholic Church to refute this false doctrine.
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