Rapture Ready

Rapture Ready is one of the largest and oldest Evangelical Christian sites on the Internet. It was founded in 1987 by Todd 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 the Rapture will soon occur. Rapture Ready has been featured by the news media, both in the United States and in Europe, in print, such as in Rolling Stone, Newsweek, New York Times, Playboy, on television news channels including CNN, and in Robert 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 the rapture that they still have hope in Jesus Christ if they repent of their sins and turn to God 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 as Daniel's 70th Week, Jacob's Time of Trouble or The Tribulation Period which terminates with the Second 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 on Bible prophecy regarding the end 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]