The rapture is tomorrow, or so the prophecy blogs say. Which raises a practical question: if the righteous are ascending, what happens to all their earthly stuff?

The economics of the rapture

Think about it. If the chosen are beamed up to heaven, they won’t need cars, mortgages, or flat-screen TVs. Their new digs are supposed to be in the kingdom of the Lord, furnished with clouds and choirs. Which means every earthly possession gets left behind. Call it the world’s largest estate sale, hosted by God himself.

What happens to all the stuff?

Imagine the housing crisis solved in an instant: half the homes suddenly vacant. Parking lots full of abandoned vehicles, keys still in the ignition. If you’ve been locked out of the American dream, maybe salvation doesn’t come by rapture—it comes by redistribution of all the leftovers. It’s a reminder that fairness isn’t about miracles, but about building systems—whether through policy or technology—that actually deliver, as argued in Using Blockchain to Solve the Inefficiencies of Socialist Functions.

Even sinners can get in on this

And if you don’t think you’re making the cut upstairs, there’s still time to score some last-minute points. Proverbs 19:17 says, “Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed.” You might not sprout angel wings, but you can at least leave a legacy of generosity—and maybe lighten your karmic debt before the buzzer sounds.

The scripture says it plain

The deeper joke, of course, is that we shouldn’t need an apocalypse to practice redistribution. Because when desperation meets concentrated wealth, we know from When Markets Fail, Strongmen Rise that authoritarianism isn’t far behind.