I grew up in a Baptist home, preacher’s kid, where there was a moderate interest in the rapture. No date setting, but we did sing “wish we’d all been ready” sometimes in church. As a 10-year-old I read some other end-times novel (not the Left Behind series, but a precursor) that imagined Christians who had come to belief after the rapture being killed in shiny, modern guillotines. Scared me to death. Sometimes if I would come home from school and everyone would be gone — dad at church, mom on an errand, my teenage siblings off somewhere — I would worry it had happened. The rapture came and I was left behind. I’d frantically call people from church until I found someone at home.

Good times.