[aruanan]

A two-stage rapture, sorta like flying United with a stopover at Chicago/O'Hare? You get raptured half-way into Heaven, and then you have to change concourses through a long, echoing tunnel to catch your connecting rapture...

Well, I should have said "two stage second coming". Jesus returns to whisk away the Christians secretly first, followed by seven years of anti-Christ rule, followed by the second stage of his return to kick the anti-Christ's butt, followed (or not followed) by a 1000 year reign.

[Joseph DeMaistre]

A patristic interpretation of the Antichrist is that he isn't a person, but anyone who strives against Christ could be an antichrist. Not to mention their belief that the antichrist is the spirit of the anti-Christian age.