End times? Friends in the evangelical world talk seriously about the Rapture. Our world is in turmoil, and the social and political structures we have trusted seem to be coming undone. This is not the first time I have experienced so unsettling a change in the fabric of my universe. In my childhood, I lived…

On “Rapture Saturday,” I crossed old town Nicosia’s Green Line to wander the Turkish side of this divided city: a shabbier copy of its Cypriot twin, boasting a similar rabbit warren of half-shuttered shops but a higher density of dumpsters and fake leather goods, and so more potent wafts of these sharp perfumes. The wares…