Does History Create Truth?

I've been reading this book - The Rapture Exposed - and have started pondering the beliefs that we take for granted. A few years back, when the Left Behind series of books came out, I read the first few, along with most of my evangelical Christian friends. I thought they were based on truth, because I had always been taught that the Bible explicitly described the Rapture... that it was TRUE.

I'm not a historian, nor a theologian. I'm a consumer of history and theology. So I don't have the breadth of knowledge required to identify what is TRUE vs. what is HISTORY. Do you understand the difference? TRUTH - in it's purest form - is not dependent on what a person says or does or believes. Outside of seeing something first-hand, none of us really know what is TRUE. We only know what we believe to be true based on our personal experiences and the particular version of history we've been taught. As eye-witness accounts reveal, even first-hand can be iffy. And I would assert that NO ONE knows the truth about things that haven't happened yet. I know; I'm a visionary.

I accepted the Rapture as truth because everyone around me did. What I didn't know, was that the theory of the Rapture was INVENTED. (And up until the point that my pastor mentioned it, I never gave it a second thought.) The Rapture is a theory based on suppositions and inferences made by theologians who lived in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The theory is nowhere near as old as the Bible. According to Wikipedia, "Pre-tribulation rapture theology was developed in the 1830s by John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren, and popularized in the United States in the early 20th century by the wide circulation of the Scofield Reference Bible." I've now read this twice - both in the book The Rapture Exposed and online. Does that make it TRUE? There are facts stated that support it. So I'm thinking, "Yes. It's true. The Rapture is made up."

Now you may not care one whit about the Rapture or any other type of theology. But do you care about truth? I would think most of us aim to believe in what is true, what is right, what we know. We probably try not to lie or repeat things that are false. But what about when we don't know that we are procreating a falsehood?

The question posed in the title to this blog entry was this: Does history create truth? In other words, is the Rapture true because people around us in our recent history believe it and have taught it to us as truth? No. Just because someone teaches you something doesn't make it true. 

Although we like to think that the things we've always believed are true, don't take it for granted. Look into it. If there's no absolute, decide for yourself what you want to believe. But don't just believe because your parents did. 

I think that many of my Christian friends and relatives would balk at the notion that the Rapture is false. Many of them would probably gasp, point in my general direction and whisper, "Liberal!" 

If by "liberal" you mean "willing to question things" then slap that label on me, baby!

PS: The Rapture is not the only widely-accepted Christian opinion that I don't take at face value. Take a second look at gay marriage, for example. *gasp* (again) Here's a couple of articles worth considering: When Same-Sex Marriage Was a Christian Rite | Homosexuality Is Not a Sin