- Rapture Ready
Rapture Ready is one of the largest and oldest Evangelical
Christian sites on theInternet . It was founded in1987 byTodd Strandberg. In the late 1980s, there were no websites as we know them today. Most people accessed the internet through text only displays. This site started with the Rapture Index. The weekly updates were posted in newsgroups like: alt.bible.prophecy or alt.christnet.second-coming.real-soon-now. The first data center to host Rapture Ready's news content was an Omaha dial-up service called
Hawg Wild. In 1995, RR's moved to its first web format and was hosted by Novia.net. At the time, RR only had seven articles - today that number is over 18,000. Because most people could only access the net at 1200 baud, there was no room for graphics. RR is always changing, as its members post articles, and as world events unfold.
In 2003, prophecy author
Terry James join the team. Rapture Ready is dedicated to the idea that theRapture will soon occur. Rapture Ready has been featured by the news media, both in theUnited States and inEurope , in print, such as inRolling Stone , Newsweek, New York Times, Playboy, on television news channels includingCNN , and inRobert Lanham 's book "The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right".Since any member can open a thread, the Rapture Ready site is monitored by an active group of moderators, who ensure that the rules of the site are followed. Given the depth of faith that Christians often have, it is not a surprise that there are occasional disagreements. This has led expatriate members to form other Christian bulletin boards, an internet way of spreading the gospel to all, consistent with the
Great Commission .Purpose
Rapture Ready's stated purposes include warning those non-Christians who, according to the Pre-tribulation system of Evangelical
Christian eschatology , will be left behind after therapture that they still have hope inJesus Christ if they repent of theirsin s and turn toGod through Jesus Christ his Son. It also has as a stated purpose to explain what will happen during the period of time after the rapture including the seven-year period commonly known asDaniel's 70th Week ,Jacob's Time of Trouble or The Tribulation Period which terminates with theSecond Coming of Jesus Christ.To help the site survive the crush of traffic that it is assumed will follow the Rapture it has a number of mirror sites that include [http://www.raptureme.com raptureme.com] , [http://www.tribulation.us tribulation.us] , [http://rr-rapture.com rr-rapture.com] , [http://www.raptureready.net raptureready.net] , and [http://anti-antichrist.com anti-antichrist.com] .
The site was featured prominently in a "Time" magazine article about the growing belief in the
Rapture .Rapture Ready is mainly written in English; however, it also contains articles in Spanish, German, French, and Japanese.
Website features
* The Rapture Index keeps track of activities which could be indicators of a time when the
Rapture might occur. The index includes a numerical measurement of world events and trends in light of conservative Christian views onBible prophecy regarding theend times . This index lists a number of events and subjects, comments thereon, their influence (in points) and statistics of highs and lows by years and records.* Nearing Midnight is a weekly commentary on world events.
ee also
*
Doomsday Clock
*Rapture External links
* [http://raptureready.com Rapture Ready]
* [http://www.rr-bb.com/ Rapture Ready forums]
* [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1002759,00.html Time Magazine interview]
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