FHG,
Interesting topic. I am not a pre-tribber but a post-tribber. However, I don't think this eschatology should cause division among brothers and sisters in Christ.
The early church fathers/writers spoke of a pre-tribulation rapture:
There were others like Baptist preacher, John Gill, who preached on a pre-trib rapture 80 years before the time of Margaret Macdonald and J N Darby. I've documented it in the article: The Rapture in the early church fathers.
Oz
By no means are we to cause division and that is certainly not my intent as mine is to teach that of what has already been written in the Bible from Genesis to Revelations that is truth being the doctrines of Christ for what He taught. The word rapture, although not found in scripture, does mean the feeling of intense pleasure and joy. This is exactly what we will feel when being caught up to Christ as it will be a day of great rejoicing.
Now, what causes division among the brethern is in how it is taught to be a pretrib, mid trib or post trib. Just like your article those early church fathers mainly used 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 to prove a pretrib, but as we read it there is no mention of a pretrib or a midtrib. Matthew 24:27-31 is also shown to John by Christ who sends this angel to him to reveal all the Revelations and write them to the Church. Rev 19:11-21 is the culmination of all the OT prophecies and the NT scriptures before it that shows Jesus returns on the last day destroying the beast and false prophet and all the rulers of every nation that followed after them. At that time we are caught up to Him when He returns in the air with His army of angels he sends out to gather His own to Him.
Could this teaching of a pretrib affect ones faith if they are mislead into believing a lie that the church is caught up before the seven trumpets of God's fierce wrath known as the tribulations in the end of days? It can be possible to deceive even the very elect of God, Matthew 24:24, 25. Jesus has already told us those things which will come before His return. If all we had to go by was what Jesus spoke in Matthew 24:1-31 this would be enough to know the Church being the body of Christ will endure all these things until Christ returns on the last day.
I just now read chapters 1 and 2 of what the Shepherd of Hermas wrote and the beast he saw was a shadow of the beast out of the sea who gives power to the beast out of the earth that we read about in Rev 13.
What he is saying is that if we prepare ourselves and repent with all our heart and turn to the Lord we will escape God's great tribulation during the seven trumpets as it will pass over us as God has prepared us a place in the wilderness where He will take care of us until Christ returns and we are then caught up to Him, Rev 12:6.
Irenaeus said the same thing that the church (true body of Christ) in the end will suddenly be caught up as he quoted what Jesus already said in His Olivet discourse with the disciples, Matthew 24:21, and what God gave Paul to write in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.