End Time theology, believed by some Evangelical Protestants, and not by Orthodox and Catholics. Basically, the Rapture is a "modern" theological interpretation dating to the 1830s, that Christ will raise born-again Christians bodily into the heavens, and to avoid entirely or partially the Tribulation. The Rapture should not be confused with the Second Coming of Christ, and in some ways it could be argued represents a "so-called" Third Coming.

Theology for the Rapture is taken from a newer interpretation of some verses in the Bible, such as this: For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. ( I Thes. 4:16-17).

End Time author Tim La Haye has popularized movement, and it has been argued that partially due to him most of America's 80 million evangelicals now read St. Paul's words to the church at Thessalonica in terms that are radically different from most earlier interpretations.

Increasingly, these Born Again Christians fervently expect the Rapture to come within their lifetimes.

However, there are differences, primarily between premillennial and posmillennial dispensationalism

But the prophecy has a downside, which its adherents often fail to spell out fully.

For the prophecy to be fulfilled, for the Rapture to come, for Christ to return, the Jews must first rule all of Eretz Yisroel, the biblical Land of Israel.

This is the unstated reason why Christian Zionists give millions of dollars to help build and defend new Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, as well as opposing any serious effort to make peace in the Holy Land.

As Steve Weissman says, "no wonder so many American evangelicals support Mr. Bush's war in Babylon as a prelude to Armageddon."