Infinity War Must’ve Been Extra Horrifying for Evangelicals in the MCU

I was brought up in a strict Southern Baptist home and The Rapture was something that we were constantly told WAS going to happen and PROBABLY before we reached adult hood. The interpretation of the Bible that true believers would be suddenly whisked away to heaven was not even really a thing for the first 1,600 years of Christianity. But, it is a thing now that most evangelicals believe as not only a possible interpretation but the LITERAL truth. So, we were told by every adult we trusted that this was what was absolutely going to happen. One day, probably soon, all Christians would disappear and those left behind would have to live through The Tribulation which, we were told, was going to be a horrible type of hell-on-earth.

The rest of this article is a big Avengers: Infinity War SPOILER! 

I was telling my co-workers about how a huge portion of my childhood was consumed with paranoia because I truly feared all my family and friends were going to suddenly disappear and I would be left behind, paradoxically, I wasn't a TRUE true believer. So I didn't believe enough to get Rapture'd but I DID believe enough that it gave me an ulcer by the time I was 12.

Suddenly, it dawned on me: Is Infinity War an allegory for the Christian Rapture? If Thanos can make anything happen, doesn't that technically make him God (despite Loki telling him he would never be one)?

So any evangelicals who live in the fictional Avengers Earth would have absolutely assumed that the Rapture was happening when they saw people suddenly disappearing. More frightening, the evangelicals who didn't die must've been horrified when they thought they'd been...duhn, duhn, DUHN...Left Behind! Can you imagine being a real devout believer...in church every Sunday, praying every day and doing your best to please God. Then, you see your co-worker who swears, cheats on his wife and never goes to church, suddenly disappear and all you can assume is that, for some reason, he got to go to heaven and you didn't. What if you saw a Muslim or Jew disappear? Then you'd really believe you'd backed the wrong horse. What ELSE would you think?

So, as horrified as the people left behind must've been it had to have been even MORE of an existential crisis for Marvel Universe evangelicals.

Who wants to bet that at least half of them immediately converted to Thanoism and started condemning the remaining Avengers for subverting His will? I can totally picture Joel Osteen replacing the giant cross in his church with a huge gauntlet.