What is the Mark of the Beast?
Why Evangelicals Fear the Mark of the Beast More than They Fear Death From Covid
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If you’ve been paying attention, you know that some right-wing politicians and preachers are trying to convince constituents that the Covid vaccine is the Mark of the Beast. This is a dangerous provocation, as the one thing evangelicals fear more than a cancelled SEC football season is 666 (the numerical designation of the mark). Despite the insistence by many Biblical scholars that the vaccine can’t be the Mark of the Beast, fear-mongerers branding it such will cause the most strident evangelicals to dig in their heels and continue to refuse the vaccine, even if it leads to their own death and hospitilization. Even if it leads to the death of their children. Why would they be willing to put their lives and the lives of their families at risk this way? Because for evangelicals, the Mark of the Beast is way worse than death. Let me try to explain.
I grew up Southern Baptist in Alabama. I was not allowed to watch Star Wars, on account of it being too graphic and possibly frightening, but I was steeped from an early age in the blood-curdling imagery of the Rapture and Tribulation. As a child in a strict Southern Baptist household, fed a steady diet of Revelations on a reliable schedule (Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night), I lived in fear of the day the graves would open up and the skeletons of the saved would start rocketing skyward.
I pictured the waking dead like puppets on strings, a grisly group choreography dancing its way toward eternal life. Of course, it wasn’t just the dead who would suddenly be lifted heavenward. The living born-again would also be among the raptured. Rapture was a noun, but it was also a verb. To be raptured was divine, to be left behind was hellish.
One of the ironies of the Rapture is that it’s supposed to be a celebratory moment for Christians, the moment when all of their spiritual dreams come to fruition, the moment when they are rewarded for their belief and their evangelizing. But I didn’t know a single child who looked forward to the Rapture, and I always suspected the adults were just pretending. Because there was always that nagging question: what if I am not among the raptured? What if I’m left behind? (And yes, I know which Bible verses well-meaning evangelicals will quote in answer to this question: during my years at Greystone Christian school, I participated in lots of Bible drills).
Rapture was a noun, but it was also a verb. To be raptured was divine, to be left behind was hellish.
We all have our childhood rituals. Some people went to Tahoe, some went to the Russian River, a lucky few went to Europe. I, on the other hand, went to Vacation Bible School, and to lock-ins at DauphinWay Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama. The pizza was okay, the bowling was great (yes, our church had a bowling alley), but the movies were a downer. At some point in every lock-in, the lights went off, the movie projector ticked and hummed, and some low-budget film about the end times began to play.
One key scene of all of these movies was the scene in which the cars start crashing and careening off the road, as unsuspecting drivers disappear from behind their steering wheels. I had nightmares of suddenly being alone in the backseat of a speeding car as my mother went the way of the righteous. Other nightmares involved waking up in the morning to find the house empty. Left to my own devices, I wondered, would I submit to the Mark of the Beast–the numbers 666 stamped on my forehead? It was a choice that anyone who was left behind would have to make. Accept the Mark of the Beast, and burn in hell forever. Refuse it, and meet a horrific worldly fate during the Tribulation.
If you weren’t raised in the shadow of the Rapture, you may not know about the Tribulation. I asked my husband, the product of twelve years of Catholic schooling, and he’d never heard of it. Evangelicals believe The Rapture will be followed by seven years of hell on earth following Christ’s second departure: war, famine, all the worst doomsday scenarios one can imagine…and, okay, ALL of the climate and natural disasters that are happening now: blood red skies, fires, floods, plagues, pestilence. During those years, those who have been left behind have the opportunity to repent and publicly announce their belief in Christ. Doing so, and refusing the Mark of the Beast, means you can’t buy groceries, find work, or feed your children. You’ll probably be tortured, and there’s a good chance you’ll go to prison. But at the end of the seven years, you get to go to heaven.
Evangelicals who buy into the conspiracy theory that the vaccine is the Mark of the Beast believe that by refusing it, they are saving their souls. They see themselves as martyrs to a greater spiritual cause. If the unvaccinated can’t go to work or eat in restaurants, they imagine, if the unvaccinated are persecuted by government and society at large, then the vaccine must be the dreaded Mark of the Beast. But these evangelicals haven’t read their Revelations very closely, because the mark comes after the Rapture, not before. Once the Mark of the Beast arrives, the Rapture has already happened.The timeline goes something like this: Rapture, Antichrist, 7-year Tribulation begins, Mark of the Beast is mandated during the Tribulation, Tribulation ends with the epic Battle of Armageddon, Jesus establishes a 1,000-year reign on earth (after which it gets fuzzy, but I think everybody at the end of the 1,000 years goes to their final homestead: heaven or hell, depending).
Don’t take it from me. Take it from a pastor who writes a pretty clear timeline of the Rapture, the Tribulation, and the Mark of the Beast for The Daily Advocate: “Sometime during the tribulation period, the proclamation of the mark occurs. Most prophecy gurus believe the mark will come at, or near, the halfway point,three and a half years into the Tribulation (Revelation 13:16).”
Which leads us to the logic the Vaccine-As-Mark-of-The-Beast conspiracy theorists aren’t following: By refusing the vaccine on the grounds that it is the Mark of the Beast, they are inadvertently admitting a)the Rapture happened and b)they didn’t get a ride to heaven, which means that c)they weren’t saved after all and have really just been pretending. Also: ahem, the elephant in the room: if many generations of the living and the dead had suddenly been lifted into heaven, don’t you think someone might have noticed?
One of the basic tenets of the Rapture is that no one can know when it will happen. We do know it will prompt the appearance of the Antichrist, a false prophet who wreaks havoc on the world order and convinces millions around the world that he is the Messiah (no word on whether or not said Antichrist is orange). But anyone who claims to predict the date is to be viewed as a false prophet (Harold Camping, I’m talking to you). According to the Bible, Jesus will arrive “like a thief in the night,” when you’re least expecting it. You don’t get to save the date, you don’t get to dress for the occasion. You don’t get the turn on the TV at 6 p.m. and watch the earthquakes roll toward you. The Rapture may be televised, but it won’t be scheduled.
