Yes, I know the date of the rapture

No, I'm not telling any of you people

One of the most powerful things you can do for your evangelical brand is become an expert in the End Times. This is called ecclesiology, which is Greek for the book of Ecclesiastes, which is a book that was written by Bing Crosby’s band The Byrds, who also did a song called “Mr. Tambourine Man” which was about Bob Dylan, Bob was the tambourine man, he got kicked out of a Church of Christ because the tambourine counts as a musical instrument, and that’s why he became Jewish for a while, but I think he’s Christian again. That’s called preserves of the saints, which is also theology.

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When you look at the Bible, Jesus gave us many clear, unambiguous commands for Christian living and ministry. But here’s what Jesus didn’t think about: those things are hard. Would he have told us to do them if he had realized this? I’m just asking questions. On the other hand, you have the book of Revelation, which was written by John the Baptist when he got shipwrecked on an island and tried to build a fire but there was a snake in the firewood and it bit his hand. John started having visions about wars and monsters and angels and he made it into a book of the Bible. Later on, the theology nerds were like “how much of this book is literal, and how much is symbolic?” but John was like

because he was dead, he got his head chopped off because King Herod got horny from watching his own niece dance, this is why my youth pastor says Christians shouldn’t go to dances, because they’ll get horny and ask for head, just like Herod.

The point is this: it’s a lot easier to debate the end times than to do ministry in the present time. It’s also lucrative for your brand. This is why you see people occasionally announce that they’ve figured out the date that Jesus is coming back. Unfortunately, these people are morons. They have no clue how to grow their brand! Let’s look at their mistakes:

Don’t announce the date

Do I know when Jesus is coming back? Of course I do. Am I going to tell any of you? Not a chance. When the trumpet sounds, I will nod wisely and say “yep, I was right,” and my engagement numbers will go through the roof. If you tell people a date that is too far off, they will ignore you and go off to find a dance and ask for head. If you tell them a date that is too close, they will become very spiritual and spend a lot of time in prayer, and that means less attention for you, which isn’t good for your engagements.

Reference current events

Too often, would-be influencers simply blurt out end time takes that sound good. Another rookie mistake. You must always tie your take to whatever is happening in the world. This is like when my Sunday School teacher told us that he had found verses in Revelation about the war in Yugoslavia, and this meant that the Rapture was going to happen before the year 2000, because, uh, reasons. At the time, we didn’t realize that our teacher was crazy; we were too upset that Slobodan Milošević was going to keep us from ever seeing a real life bosom. That’s brand power.

Leverage

Sometimes you need to make your fellow Christians do things, for their own good. Some people might call this abuse, but that’s telling me something I don’t want to hear, which is textbook gaslighting.

Some thought leaders try to use their end time takes to scare their followers into giving money or buying holy water or whatever. This is very unethical! Why not use your end time takes for good, such as poisoning your followers against rival thought leaders and influencers? This is like in 2021 when I told everyone that I don’t fellowship with Alan Noble because he is a premillennial dispensationalist. I don’t know what either of those two words mean, but they are very big, and another thing my youth pastor said is if you’re thinking about a pair of big ones, then maybe you need to rededicate yourself to radical purity. There were pledge cards we could sign.

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