line-up for "This is Hell" -- LIVE streaming begins at 10am EDT

THIS WEEK'S SHOW: Saturday, June 19th, 2004

This Is Hell airs live every Saturday from 9 AM to 1 PM (US central time) on WNUR 89.3 FM in Chicago, and live all over the rest of the world via RealPlayer and Windows Media Player. Just go to WNUR's website (http://www.wnur.org) and click on either the RealAudio or Windowsmedia button found just beneath the heading, "Listen Online."

Our guests this week include:

* Barbara Rossing, author of "The Rapture Exposed" (http://www.westviewpress.com). Barbara, according to the dust jacket, "teaches New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. She holds a doctorate from the Harvard University Divinity School and a Masters of Divinity degree from Yale University Divinity School and is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, she lives in Chicago."

* Dante Chinni, senior associate at the Project for Excellence in Journalism (http://www.journalism.org) will discuss the Project's 'State of the Media 2004' report.

* Gaby Lasky, legal advisor to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (http://www.stoptorture.org.il/)

* Managua, Nicaragua based writer and activist Toni Solo returns to This is Hell. His most recent work, "Venezuela 2004: Nicaragua's Contra War Revisited," can be found at http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=5647

* investigative journalist and historian Roger Morris who served on the senior staff of the National Security Council under Presidents Johnson and Nixon until resigning over the invasion of Cambodia. Roger recently called for similar resignations within the Bush administration over the ongoing war in Iraq in his Salon.com piece, "A call to conscience" (http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/05/21/resign/index.html)

I've got to add this book to the reading list on my liberal Christians page!

"The idea of "The Rapture"--the return of Christ to snatch born-again Christians off the earth--is an extremely popular interpretation of the Book of Revelation in the Bible and a jumping-off point for the best-selling Left Behind series of books. However, most Christian churches and biblical scholars condemn rapture theology as a distortion of Christian faith with little biblical basis. Yet this interpretation, based on a psychology of fear and destruction, guides the daily acts of thousands if not millions of North Americans and people worldwide. In The Rapture Exposed, professor of theology and ordained minister Barbara Rossing argues that the Left Behind novels' script for the world's future distorts the Bible, is disingenuous, and flat out wrong. There is neither "rapture" of Christians off the earth, nor does Revelation predict that a seven-year tribulation culminating in war in Israel and the Middle East. Rather, Rossing argues, Revelation offers a vision of God's healing love for the world--a love that will not be left behind. The Rapture Exposed makes the case for reclaiming Christianity from fundamentalists' destructive reading of the biblical story and back into God's beloved community."

and actually VERY INFORMATIVE.