One Man's Walk Through Armageddon

Zack Hunt, Unraptured: How End Times Theology Gets It Wrong

You ever notice how it seems some people really, really want the world to end a week from next Tuesday? Pastor Zack Hunt used to be one of them. A youth spent studying end-times theology convinced him that Jesus would return promptly, if you read the signs. He admits having been one of those eschatological enthusiasts who steered every discussion to Christ’s imminent return. And he apologizes for that.

This book is half memoir, half deep-dive into Biblical literacy. Pastor Hunt unpacks the moral certainties that defined his youth, and the growing complexity that forced him to amend his beliefs. For a time, he apparently questioned whether he could remain a Christian without the absolute conviction of end-times theology. It took time and growth before Pastor Hunt realized faith is about the here and now, not the great hereafter.

Starting in his teenage years, Hunt found himself torn between two religious extremes. He grew up in the Church of the Nazarene, part of the Holiness tradition in American Christianity, a faith that requires “total sanctification.” In theory, this means that relationship with Jesus makes your soul as spotless as new Victorian lace. In practice, it often means that you spend your life tallying your own sins to make sure you haven’t strayed from God’s path. Hunt describes himself answering lots of altar calls and getting saved every Sunday.

Such constant soul scrutiny led, Hunt describes, to embracing a theology of vindication. The end-times eschatology described by theologians like Hal Lindsay and Tim LaHaye let Hunt rest calmly on the expectation that, when Jesus returns quickly, He’ll exonerate the righteous. In order to “win,” he needed only to memorize the right prooftexts, perform the prescribed rituals, and evangelize to anyone and everyone.

Hunt walks us through his spiritual journey, one he admits remains incomplete. Like many young Christians, he accepted his parents’ religion, not only without question, but also without restraint. He became a more absolute, more performative version of whatever his parents told him to believe, to the point where, in his telling, his own pastors and spiritual mentors rolled their eyes at his extreme certainties.

Zack Hunt

His encounters with Scripture as a young adult, however, forced him into impossible situations. He attended college to become a “youth pastor,” a title often associated with the worst excesses of populist Christianity. But his exegetical professors and Bible mentors showed him a scriptural reading that didn’t accord with his moral absolutes. He found himself backed into a corner: change his beliefs, or admit he favored preachers over Christ.

Although Hunt does use extensive personal narrative, and centers his own spiritual journey, he doesn’t pooh-pooh scholarship. He quotes extensively from prior theologians on topics like eschatology, exegesis, and homiletics. Augustine and Origen, C.S. Lewis and Barbara Rossing, all serve to bolster Hunt’s position. He passed through his crisis of faith and became a pastor, obviously, bringing all the scholarship that title implies.

But simultaneously, he realizes most people don’t believe in end-times theology for scholarly, scriptural purposes. They believe because it satisfies a need in their personal spiritual journey. Facts seldom persuade people from their religious or philosophical beliefs; if they did, most people would be paralyzed by the doubt stemming from conflicting facts and moral ambiguity. True Believers need a vision, and that’s what Hunt’s memoir provides.

As an adult, Hunt basically believes that end-times theology provides adherents a fast pass out of life. By believing the world will end soon, and one’s only solution is to individually get right with God, Left Behind readers are exempted from boring old requirements to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Why band together to relieve this world’s suffering, when this world won’t exist next week?

Jesus Christ, though, doesn’t support this position. Hunt notes that Jesus ties the Parable of the Sheep and Goats to his “Little Apocalypse,” his only direct end-times narrative. Jesus’ own explication of how to face the eschaton directly ties to how we live this life. Salvation, Hunt writes as an adult, isn’t an escape from this life. It’s a new life, a new kingdom, a new way of living in this physical world.

Not everyone will appreciate such conclusions. Hunt admits his teenage self would’ve hated them. But they’re no less real despite some believers’ resistance. Salvation and grace, Hunt believes now, are about being more fully alive right now. And we can’t find that, Hunt now insists, by fleeing from the real and messy life God gave us.

 

See also: The End Is Nigh (Again)