Bill Moyers and the Rapture

I'm extremely disturbed about the ideas Bill Moyers put forth in a recent speech about belief in the rapture and policies that ensure (or fail to ensure) a better world for our children. (Our minister spoke on this subject this Sunday.) The crux of the rapture is this:

Once Israel has occupied the rest of its 'biblical lands,' legions of the anti-Christ will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts, and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.

If you believe in the rapture then there is no need to take care of the earth, to work for social justice, or to do anything else that ensures a better world for the future. And many of our leading politicians are born again Christians who presumably believe in the rapture. The politics are detailed in an article by Glenn Scherer in Grist. Scared yet?

I believe this topic needs to come out of the closet. If people thought that W started war in Iraq to fulfill some biblical prophecy providing the necessary preconditions for the rapture, would he have been re-elected? And if so, then what does that say about our country?

And at the very least, we should deny rapture-believers driver's licenses. If they believe that at any moment they are going to fly out of their cars, clearly they are a danger to the rest of us, much as an epileptic with uncontrolled seizures is.