I want to be very clear here: interpretations of the Book of Revelations are far-reaching and incredibly varied. Even amongst Evangelicals, there are different opinions about when exactly the Rapture will take place, whether or not any Christians will be on Earth during any part of the tribulations, whether the events in Revelations are more literal or more metaphoricalâŚ
So if you criticize any given Christian (even specifically Evangelicals) for believing in XYZ specific event from the Book of Revelations, thereâs a non-zero chance they will laugh and say they donât believe it will happen like that, and they will be telling the truth.
But all that means is that you have found a part that they donât believe in literally, and you could go down the same page or chapter and find another part they DO believe in literally. The whole reason there are different Christian denominations is because Evangelicals and Lutherans and Seven-Day Adventists and Baptists and Assemblies of God all have different opinions on what the Bible says and means, on how to structure religious rituals (like church services), and on how the events of the end times (not even exclusively described in Revelations) will take place.
One thing that IS important to know, though, is that a LOT of U.S. Protestant pastors take a premillennialist view of Jesusâ Second Coming.
(source link, yes it is a Christian site, but it seems like these are pretty real percentages of the pastors they surveyed)
Now what does that mean? Welp, letâs refer to this handy chart.
The cross marks the Death of Christ, which happened somewhere around 29 C.E. In the Book of Revelations, it mentions a millennium of peace on earth that will occur before the final judgment, and eeeeeverybody has differing opinions on when that millennium will happen.
The Amillennialist view considers the thousand years to be figurative, rather than literal, and occurring right now. This is the second most popular view amongst U.S. Protestant Pastors (73% of whom say that their congregations agree entirely or mostly with them), but it trails Premillenialism by⌠a lot.
The Postmillennialist view claims that Jesus will return after the thousand years of peace, and in general, that it is actively a part of oneâs Christian duty to make the world better.
The Premillennialist view claims that Jesus will return before the millennium and usher in the age of peace himself, but people are split on whether the current Christian church will be raptured before the times of discord immediately preceding the thousand years of peace, or whether the Christian church must suffer through the tribulations and be raptured afterwards.
This is the most popular view, and it is the main reason why the Christian Right is so invested in supporting Israel to set up Jerusalem as Jesusâ seat for when he returns. No matter what, nothing will matter, and there is no lose scenario for a Christian with this view: if they die before the Second Coming, theyâll go to Heaven. If they survive, theyâll be raptured. And the world will enter an age of peace because Jesus supposedly can hit some sort of reset button, which will render all climate issues pointless.
These people believe they can influence when Jesus returns by preparing for the Tribulations. They do not care who they have to hurt or what they have to spend to do it. The literal End justifies the means.
Christians may all have slightly different interpretations and beliefs about what will happen and when, making it incredibly hard to criticize them with one brush, but regardless, the general attitude of âwhy should I care, Iâll be gone anyway?â pervadesâeven though a common Christian teaching is that they are called to be good stewards of the Earth theyâve been given to live on.
Focus on the constant hypocrisy no matter their personal views, and donât get distracted by painting them as a monolith.
(An interesting article I found on the decline in Postmillennialism and rise in Premillennialism over the last few centuries: LINK)