Left Behind, Left Over, Left to do

Here's the AmCon connection:  102 discussion of the Second Great Awakening got us to invite Amy Frykholm to talk to us about her book Rapture Culture as we were thinking about American Democratic Vistas.  Always lurking in the back ground, as we consider dreams for America (in contrast to just my dream for myself in America), are utopian experiments from Plymouth Plantation to Pullman, Illinois to Woodstock Nation and the Great Society.  So. . . a couple of recent opportunities to notice the apocalyptic-inspired reflections on American life.

Friday evening my book group discussed Tom Perrotta's novel The Leftovers. [NYT review] When the book first came out I heard him interviewed and got a sense that while this story is set in post-rapture America it is only vaguely a response to the Left Behind series.  All the action of the book takes place after a rapture-like event.  Rapture-like because those who disappear are not only the Christian faithful of a certain sort, nor do all of those sort of Christians disappear.  This leads to a real question about whether what happened was the rapture so anticipated by that sort of Christian.  However, the book is less about that question and more an exploration of how the left-overs respond to the expected, unexplained loss.

Then on Saturday night I heard my colleague David Booth preview the songs for Promises, to be recorded next month.  Among them was "After the Rapture."  It responded to the rapture that did not happen in May 2011 by positing that the event had taken place and considering the work left to be done once the saints are gone.  (For the purpose of this song I will leave aside a response to this limited use of the term saint.)  One haunting, repeated line called on those remaining to "make this fallen world a paradise."  Among my several responses: wondering why we wouldn't just get to that work now.  Knowing David I suspect that was among the points he was making.  It's a hopeful American point, one with some antecedents in a different sort of Christianity.

by Jyoti Sahi

While I'm leery always about the illusion that either paradise, or an American utopia, or the rule of God can be achieved by human effort, I was moved by this song to think that even if the effort were wasted, it would be worth trying a little harder to do what is left to do toward a more just world.   And then, this morning's gospel lesson for the fourth Sunday in Advent: the magnificent, Mary's song about how God's rule turns the world up-side-down.

p.s.  If you are interested in the sort of leftovers in your 'frig, you might enjoy Stump the Cook.