From A Thief In The Night to Tim LaHayes’s Left Behind series, representations of the Rapture in America have traditionally been promoted by Christians who read the Book of Revelation literally. It’s an interpretation I know well: I grew up fundamentalist in the Appalachians. The Rapture – and the fear and anticipation I felt for it – seeped into the bones of my faith.

My parents are followers of John Nelson Darby, the 19th century British theologian responsible for popularizing the idea of the Rapture. His doctrine is now a mainstay in many Protestant denominations: Halloween at my youth group meant showings of apocalyptic films. Later, as a student at a conservative Baptist college, I had to complete a chronological chart of the end times in order pass a mandatory Bible class.



Since I passed the test, I’ll give you the gist: when Christ returns, true believers are caught up to meet him in the air. They go to heaven, while everyone else is left behind to endure what comes next. The discarded sinners look forward to seven years of bloodshed until everything ends in a final conflagration. It’s a tale meant to terrify, but in my case, it didn’t succeed. Eventually I left the church, and the threat of Rapture, behind.



Or so I thought. It hasn’t been easy to forget as its mythology is embedded deep in American culture. The Leftovers is well into its first season on HBO and a Left Behind reboot is on the horizon. Once again, Armageddon is on my mind. But although The Leftovers owes a debt to the films I watched at youth group, it deviates significantly from them with plots that treat spirituality and skepticism as related instincts, not opposing forces.

The show, which premiered June 29 on HBO, is based on Tom Perrotta’s novel of the same name. Produced by Damon Lindelof, The Leftovers is billed as a secular take on the Rapture or, as the novel and the show refer to it, the “sudden departure.” In the pilot, society is still reeling from the loss of 2% of its total population three years earlier. Here, unlike earlier entries in the genre, the world’s organized religions find themselves unable to satisfactorily explain the event. Even John Nelson Darby would be at a loss: popes are heretical to his modern-day followers, and yet there’s Benedict among The Leftovers' dearly departed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest "It’s still unclear if the Guilty Remnant is on to something, or if they’re another Jonestown in the making". (AP Photo/HBO) HBO The Leftovers 2014 Photograph: AP

Having failed to solve the world's biggest mystery, organized religion finds itself adjusting to a more passive social role. We see this most clearly in the character of the Rev Matt Jamison, whose church now lies empty. He rushes to save it from foreclosure and purchase by a hedge fund, only to fail and find out the fund is owned by another, newer, religious movement: the Guilty Remnant. In a side plot, there’s some evidence that the show’s troubled protagonist, police chief Kevin Garvey, is experiencing supernatural phenomena. But even there, the boundary between madness and magic is blurry. There’s still no definitive proof that he’s actually tapped into some cosmic psychic hotline.

And don’t look to science, either: from the pilot forward, the scientific community is as bewildered as the world’s religions. The conflict between faith and reason has always been a fiction, promoted by hardliners on either side of the debate, and in The Leftovers that conflict has finally been put to rest. Here, at last, the great antagonists are allied – by their shared confusion and collective trauma.

The world of The Leftovers is defined by doubt. This is what truly sets the show apart from other portrayals of the Rapture in television or film. There is no certainty here: the manual no longer applies. Viewers are given no evidence that God has interfered, or that science can solve the problem. Jamison’s faith is bankrupt. Garvey’s visions could be mental illness. And it’s still unclear if the Guilty Remnant is on to something, or if they’re another Jonestown in the making.



It’s particularly apt that The Leftovers premieres now, to an audience in drastic flux. I’m hardly the only religious exile watching the show. The number of Americans who describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated is rising at an unprecedented rate, particularly among young people. These unaffiliated Americans aren’t necessarily atheists; most report having some supernatural beliefs. But they’re also less reliant on the moral certainty that’s driven the so-called culture war for the past several decades.



To culture war’s discontents, myself included, there’s something familiar about The Leftovers’ post-apocalyptic world, despite its fantastical premise. By discarding black and white tropes in favor for something a bit grayer, the plot mirrors an intellectual journey that I, and so many others, have made. The Leftovers might not satisfy fans of Left Behind, but its version of the apocalypse isn’t meant to appeal to true believers. This is an Armageddon for a generation making peace with its doubt.