Examines the readership of the contemporary best-selling series Left Behind, drawing on a qualitative study of readers. Rapture Culture asks what role an anti-worldly theory like dispensationalism plays in contemporary evangelicalism when evangelicals have gained increasing social and political power. The book argues that apocalyptic stories are a form of social relationship. They shape identity not only through agreement and a sense of belonging, but also through disagreement and dissent. The most urgent message of the rapture for readers of Left Behind is that the end of time could come soon, and therefore a decision about personal salvation is necessary. While it is true that the Left Behind series plays on readers’ fears, the primary fear is not so much a social or political fear as a personal one—a fear that the reader himself or herself might be left behind. The primary purpose of the Left Behind series is to promote evangelism. Readers feel convicted by the books of the need to tell their loved ones about Christ and to seek the conversion of others. In addition, the story of rapture and tribulation provides a lens through which readers can interpret the chaotic and sometimes disconcerting events of the world. The popularity of the Left Behind series and its diffusion into mainstream culture leads the book to conclude with the suggestion that evangelicalism is wrongly understood as a “subculture” and instead needs to be conceived as a broad and fluid part of dominant popular culture in the United States. Rapture Culture urges its readers to take seriously both the fears and the desires about social life present in the testimonies of Left Behind’s readership and to consider popular fiction reading as a complex and dynamic act of faith in American Protestantism.