[jact]

>In heaven the body has no more purpose

This is not the biblical teaching about the body. The hope emphasized in the Bible is for the resurrection of the body. This is why Jesus is resurrected bodily, and not as some kind of ghost. If the body was some kind of superfluous thing like clothes, this would make no sense. This is also why the Nicene Creed says “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the World to Come.” The World to Come likewise is a renewed version of this world, where Heaven and Earth are united, in the same way that the body and soul are. This idea of the soul shedding the body is Platonic, not Christian.

As for the rapture itself, it is considered to be nonsense by virtually all biblical scholars, both secular and religious, but how it became such a widespread belief among Americans is probably for another website.

[jandrese]

The Rapture is more of a pop culture thing than a widespread belief among Americans, but there is one notable exception: Evangelicals. For some reason Evangelicals latch on to some of the weirder parts of Christianity.