The first time Cole ever heard of rapture children was at the orphanage, where there were three: a boy and two girls. Rapture children had been around before, but since the pandemic there were lots more of them. Rapture children were children who’d been sent by God to be lights in the coming dark. They would be among the first of the living to be caught up to Jesus’ side (right after the holy dead). God had endowed them with special spiritual powers so that they could lead others in the countdown to the Final Battle. Though Pastor Wyatt says there is nothing in the Bible to justify this, his wife Tracy is among those who believe it.

What is the Rapture, in Christian theology? And why are the people of Salvation City so ready to welcome it?

Many Christians believe that, just before the Apocalypse, the saved will ascend bodily to heaven and thus be spared the tribulations of the final battle between good and evil. Christians like those in Salvation City believe that the world has become so perverse and corrupt that it’s clearly time for it to end and for Christ’s reign—which will bring eternal peace and joy to the saved and reunite them with dead loved ones—to begin.