CHAPTER SIX
BEAM ME UP, LORD
At the round earth's imagines corners, blow
Your trumpets, Angels, and arise, arise
From death, your numberlese infinities
Of soules, and to your scattered bodies go
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,
All whom warre, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despaire, law, chance, hath slaine, and you whose eyes,
Shall behold God, and never tast death's woe.
- - - John Donne1
Protestant fundamentalism is a powerful cultural and political force in the US, and
more so since the end of the Cold War. Its political tide may have crested with the rise
and decline of the Moral Majority and the Bush administration. Its cultural power
continues to grow as witnessed by the phenomenal sale of the Left Behind series of
books. The first eponymously named volume appeared in 1995 and by 2010 its publisher
claimed that its sixteen volumes had sold over 65 million copies. Volume 7 was the first
Christian novel to make the New York Times bestseller list. The books sell at Christian
bookstores and mass retail outlets like Costco and Sam's Club, but also at Barnes and
Noble. Christian popular culture is a $7 billion growth industry. Wal-Mart carries
something in the range of 1,200 religious titles and over 500 inspirational albums, many
of which reach the best-seller lists and pop charts.2 A 2009 Pew Foundation poll
indicated that 79 percent of American Christians await the second coming and that 20
percent believe Jesus will return in their lifetime. Thirty-four percent of American
Christians are convinced that the world situation will worsen before the second coming
and that it will unfold in accord with biblical prophecy.3
The belief of so many Americans that they are living in “the end of times” and the
success of Left Behind books are undoubtedly related. These novels portray the rapture –
the lifting to heaven of the most faithful – the subsequent rise of the Antichrist, a seven
year period of “tribulation,” Christ’s return and creation of a millennial kingdom, the
final judgment and the entry into heaven of the remaining faithful and resurrected dead.
The Left Behind books have received local support in church sermons and study groups
and have generated a successful companion children’s series, a board game and computer
game, all of which spread their message. Left Behind’s plot realizes the prophecies of
“dispensationalist premillenialism,” a religious movement that developed in the United
States in the late nineteenth century. The movement and Left Behind novels are apt
subjects for my inquiry because they build on golden age and utopian narratives. They
look back to the Garden of Eden as a model for their future utopias of the millennium and
heaven. They foster a Christian identity with the goal of having it supersede other forms
of self-identification.
For almost 150 years dispensationalists have repeatedly predicted rapture and
Christ’s return. RaptureReady.com maintains a frequently updated Rapture Index, not
unlike the famous clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Since 2004, the Index
has moved from "heavy prophetic activity" to "fasten your seatbelts."4 In August 2010,
it stood at 174, close to its all-time high of 182 in September 2001. Dispensationalists
speak of their movement as a short-term effort to prepare people for the rapture and
ensuing time of tribulation. They are nevertheless building networks and institutions that
are clearly based on the premise that the world as we know it will be here for some time
to come. There is an obvious tension between their proclaimed goal and institutional
2
activities; one that can only become more acute when no rapture occurs. Early
Christianity found itself in this kind of crisis when Jesus did not return in the lifetime of
his disciples or of their successors. Christianity successfully transformed itself into an
institutionalized religion and postponed expectations of Christ’s return into the everdistant future. It is too soon to know how Dispensationalism will respond to the failure
of its latest predictions or the extent to which this will cause a problem for believers.
To date, Dispensationalism and Left Behind books have been remarkably
successful in propagating a religious-based anti-modern identity – my strategy two -- and
their achievement must be acknowledged. Tim LaHaye, who conceived of the Left
Behind series, attributes their success to a rapidly changing and frightening world in
which “people are looking for answers.”5 The Book of Revelation makes it self-evident,
he insists, that “Christ and Christians are the ultimate winners in the game of life.”6 Left
Behind “offers confident hope in a hopeless age.”7 At the outset of the Reformation in
England, William Tyndale (c. 1494 – 1536) intended his English translation of the bible
to be absorbed by readers and shape their inner life, break the hold over them of the
society in which they lived and enable them forge new identities.8 Rage against this
society and its corruption was to be transformed into a redeeming certainty about
deliverance through access to unquestioned truths. Left Behind is a modern instantiation
of this project and its novels are intended to facilitate a different kind of interiority and
identity formation.
Left Behind must be put into theological context. I accordingly begin with a
discussion of American millennialism, of which Dispensationalism is now its dominant
expression. This sets the stage for my examination of the Left Behind novels, which
3
dramatize dispensationalist prophecy. I read their utopia as a dystopia and find striking
parallels between its millennium and the "Oceania" of George Orwell’s 1984. I conclude
with a comparative analysis of Dispensationalism and the founding texts of Marxism,
where I also find remarkable similarities. Both comparisons prompt some generalizations
about the nature of anti-modern identities and discourses.
This chapter differs from its predecessors in important ways. The texts I analyzed
in chapters 3-5 were great works of literature, music or philosophy. They were elaborate
in structure and rich in ideas, allowing, if not demanding, creative and complex readings.
The Left Behind novels are simple in concept and writing. They combine adventure with
Christian eschatology, but make no original contributions to either genre. They are full
of factual errors, some of them indicative of their authors’ naïveté about corporate life,
technology, warfare and international affairs. Their turgid prose and poorly developed
characters reflect the limited talent of Jerry Jenkins, the principal author. Errors and
undistinguished prose make its commercial success that much more impressive and
challenging to explain.
Left Behind is a mass market enterprise and must be analyzed less on its literary
or artistic merits and more on its message and appeal. I suspect that one of the principal
reasons for its success, and for that of dispensationalism more generally, is the way the
movement and its novels encourage people to derive satisfaction from the very
developments that depress and frighten them. Barrack Obama is a synecdoche for these
developments.9 Many Left Behind readers are so opposed to the President and his
policies that they consider him the Antichrist. LaHaye and Jenkins reject this
characterization, but describe the President as a “committed socialist” whose goal is to
4
bring about a world socialist dictatorship. This outcome will “fulfill biblical prophecy”
and hasten the rapture and second coming.10 Moral corruption, war and the breakdown of
order are evidence that Christ will shortly return. The "good news," LaHaye and Jenkins
proclaim, "is that the world will not end in chaos as the secularists predict."11 But life on
earth will get much worse before redemption is possible.
AMERICAN MILLENNIALISM
The big divide in millennialism is between those who believe that Christ will
return before the millennium and those who expect him only at its conclusion.
Postmillennialism, the older of the two traditions, stipulates that with God’s help,
Americans, and perhaps humanity more generally, will ultimately achieve a thousand
year period of peace and prosperity that will end with the return of Christ and his saints.
Premillennialism puts the second coming before the millennium. This difference reflects
its deeply pessimistic view of human affairs and concomitant belief that moral and
political reform is meaningless. For Premillenialism, churches that make
accommodations with modern science and society are ignorant, corrupt and part and
parcel of the existing moral decay. The only hope for humanity is Christ’s immediate
intervention in an increasingly wicked and violent world.12 Both doctrines draw their
theological legitimacy from biblical prophecies and look to “signs of the times” for
evidence that divine intervention of some kind is likely in the near-term.13
Postmillennialism dominated evangelical theology between the Revolution and
the Civil War.14 During the so-called Great Awakening (1730-60) it was popularized by
Jonathan Edwards, who maintained that Revelation’s prophecies about the Antichrist
were being fulfilled and would soon lead to the millennium. The pope was identified as
5
the Antichrist and Catholicism and other false faiths were expected to lose adherents as
people around the world were converted to the true teachings of the gospel. William
Miller used numerical references in the book of Daniel to calculate that Christ would
return in 1844.15 His followers founded their own denomination, Seventh-Day
Adventism, and subsequently updated Christ’s return to 1914.16
Premillennialism originated in Britain and became prominent in the US after the
Civil War, giving rise to the movement known as Dispensationalism. It found adherents
within the Episcopal, Presbyterian and Baptist churches and was propagated at annual
summer conferences.17 Its principal founder was John Nelson Darby, an itinerant British
preacher who traveled widely in Canada and the US from 1862 to 1877. He followed
other millenarians in developing chronological schemes, or “dispensations” that purport
to show that their prophecies of the Books of Daniel and Revelation were in the course of
being fulfilled. We are currently in the sixth such era, that of the church, also known as
the “age of grace.” Darby's great innovation was the “rapture,” the moment when the
faithful are lifted to heaven, leaving the rest of humanity behind to suffer the
“tribulation.” This is a seven year period during which the Antichrist achieves near-total
control of the earth and compels the subjugated to wear the “mark of the beast.” The
tribulation ends with the Battle of Armageddon, where Christ intervenes to destroy his
foes. He then establishes the “millennium,” a thousand-year prelude to the final
judgment and an eternity of bliss for those who have accepted Jesus as their savior.18
Darby justified the rapture with reference to the Latin vulgate translation of the
Greek text of 1Thessalonians 4:16-17. "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead
6
in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together
with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the
Lord." The English "caught up" is a translation of the Latin rapimur. Medieval Latin
coined the noun raptura from the infinitive rapio, from which our word "rapture"
derives.19 Darby's theological innovation was offered as a critique of existing churches.
The rapture would reveal the identity of true Christians; hypocrites, which included most
self-professed Christians, would be "left behind." Dispensationalism attracted people
who were alienated from their churches and for whom the concept of the rapture not only
justified their discontent but held out the promise of their heavenly reward. It also
offered the prospect of revenge in the form of suffering, but not necessarily damnation, of
all those associated with the more liberal Christian establishment.20
Dispensationalism spread its message at yearly prophecy conferences and
received wider publicity in W. J. Blackstone's Jesus is Coming, which predicted the end
of the world sometime between 1916 and 1934.21 Cyrus. I. Scofield produced a
Reference Bible for the movement and defined a dispensation as a “a period of time
during which man is tested in respect of obedience to some specific revelation of the will
of God.”22 The Scofield-Gaebelein “pretribulationists” insisted that the rapture would lift
true believers into heaven before the tribulation and won a majority for this doctrine at
the Niagara Bible Conference of 1901.23 The Scofield Reference Bible introduced
footnotes in lieu of separate commentary and used them to mark and interpret prophecies.
Distributed with funds provided by philanthropist Lyman Stewart, it became the core text
of Dispensationalism.24
7
Dispensationalism differs from other variants of millennialism in a second
important respect: it maintains that God has separate plans for Jews and Christians.
According to dispensationalists, God’s design for the Jews is spelled out in Genesis
(12:2-3), in which he promises to create a great nation from Abraham’s seed.
Dispensationalists maintain that God punishes the Jews periodically for not honoring the
terms of their contract with him but never lost faith in his chosen people. He will honor
his promise that David’s true son, the messiah, will return to rule over the earth on the
basis of a new covenant that will replace Mosaic law. Until then, Jews must suffer
Christian domination in what Daniel (7-9) calls the “times of the gentiles.” This era or
dispensation will consist of four successive empires. One of the leaders of the last empire
will order the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s temple, which will trigger the return of the
messiah and his restoration of David’s throne. Daniel measures these last events in
weeks; Jerusalem will be rebuilt in seven weeks, sixty-two weeks later the messiah will
appear and will meet a week of violent resistance during which the last emperor tries
unsuccessfully to destroy the Jews.25
This chronology caused a major problem for dispensationalists because these
prophecies should have been realized in the era of the historical Jesus. Finding wiggle
room in the double meaning of the Hebrew word for week, which also means “seven,’
dispensationalists engaged in what can only be described as a wildly figurative reading of
Daniel’s text to argue that “seventy weeks” actually meant seventy “sevens” of years.
According to this scheme the messiah would appear 490 years after a decree to rebuild
Jerusalem. Dispensationalists turned to Nehemiah 2:1-8 and rather freely interpreted a
reported decree of Artaxerxes to allow some Jews to return to Jerusalem to do repair
8
work on its crumbling walls as an order to rebuild the temple. Jesus was executed 483
years later. He should have returned seven years after that to establish his kingdom, but
this did not happen so dispensationalists now invented “postponement theory” to explain
his non-appearance. It held the Jews responsible for the failure of Daniel’s prophecy.
Because they rejected Jesus as their messiah, he directed his ministry to the gentiles,
ushering in the “church age.”26 According to C. H. Mackintosh, a major popularizer of
dispensationalist theology: “The Messiah, instead of being received, is cut off. In place
of ascending the throne of David, He goes on the cross. . . God signified His sense of this
act by suspending for a time His dispensational dealings with Israel. The course of time
is interrupted.”27
Postponement theory created as many problems as it solved. All relevant
prophecies were now Jewish, leaving Christians without any of their own and putting
their church outside of God’s initial plans. The so-called church age is a kind of
suspended existence, a gap filler between Israel’s rejection of Jesus and the ultimate
conversion of the Jews. Dispensationalists argue that God was unable or unwilling to put
his plans for Jews and gentiles into effect at the same time. It was necessary to remove
the church from the scene before God could move forward with his plan for the Jews. To
bring this about, dispensationalists moved the rapture forward to Daniel’s seventieth
week and the reign of the Antichrist. All of God’s saints would disappear from the earth,
in effect removing the church, thereby allowing God to initiate the tribulation and the rise
of the Antichrist, setting in motion his plan for the Jews. God would return at the end of
the tribulation with his saints in tow to establish the millennium.28
9
Dispensationalists become a laughing stock among more sophisticated Christians
for their inventive theology, constant efforts to map current events on to biblical
prophecies and repeated failed predictions of second comings. The first decades of the
twentieth century were difficult years for millenarians and conservative Christians, more
generally.29 They enjoyed some early successes in opposing the teaching of evolution,
which culminated in their pyrrhic victory at 1925 Scopes Trial in Tennessee. Efforts by
conservatives – now known as "fundamentalists" -- to enforce orthodoxy in churches and
seminaries generated heated conflicts, especially in the Northern Baptist Convention and
the Presbyterian Church. This catch-all term "fundamentalist," coined in 1920 by Baptist
journalist Curtis Lee Laws, is almost invariably applied to churches and movements that
do not question the historicity of the bible.30
Fundamentalists and premillenarians left to found their own churches, leaving
them increasingly isolated from the religious mainstream and public life.31 On the
defensive, they came to believe that American Christians were rejecting God, leaving
them the “faithful remnant.” Local pastors built religious schools as well as churches and
enterprising fundamentalists reached wider audiences through their use of radio. New
bible schools, the Dallas Theological Seminary and Bob Jones University became centers
of the movement, as did Wheaton College in Illinois. Bible conferences and youth
movements also proved effective vehicles for building community and spreading
millennial beliefs.32
Dispensationalists are more radical than conservative in their theology. They rely
on what can only be called primitivist readings of the bible that are ahistorical and
supernaturalist. They depart from traditional practice by deriving predictions from
10
prophecies.33 They insist that the bible is full of hidden meaning, but maintain, without
acknowledging any contradiction, that these meanings are readily accessible to ordinary
readers. In the words of one premillenarian, “the Scriptures were not [written] for the
erudite, but for the simpleminded.”34 Believers are encouraged to read the bible and take
what it says at face value.35 This approach appeals to the intellectually unsophisticated
and those attracted to simplicity and certainty. Not surprisingly, Dispensationalism
increasingly found its audience among rural and small town Protestants from northern
European backgrounds who had little education and grew up in families with Victorian
values.36 Today, judging from public opinion polls and the sales of Left Behind, it
reaches far beyond this demographic.
Dispensationalists have always been the voice of cultural pessimism, if not
downright doom, in contrast to most other evangelicals. In the early decades of the
twentieth century, their most prominent spokesman was Arno C. Gaebelein, a German
immigrant, Methodist minister, editor of Our Hope and author of Revelation, among
other books. He taught himself Hebrew and Yiddish so he could debate rabbis on the
Lower East side and proselytize its heavily Jewish population, Not meeting success, he
turned to writing.37 Another leading figure, Isaac M. Haldeman, was pastor of the First
Baptist Church in Manhattan. His The Signs of Our Times was a steady best seller within
the dispensationalist community. It described earthquakes, military buildups and
unheralded displays of luxury as evidence of the coming end of the world. It develops a
convoluted argument typical of premillenarian tracts. The world is literally going to hell,
and attempts to reform it will inevitably fail because they are inspired by the devil.
Satan, Haldeman insists somewhat illogically, “would be glad to see prohibition
11
successful" even though his real objective is to lead Christians “into a drunken orgy of sin
and shame and outbreaking vice.” He hoped that moral decay would have the unintended
effect of producing a religious revival.38
Preachers expanded on the political-religious arguments of Moody, Gaebelein and
Haldeman. Sermons in dispensationalist churches condemned more liberal churches for
their apostasy, which allegedly explained their declining influence and the corresponding
rise of immorality and crime. LaHaye and Jenkins attribute the move away from "true"
readings of the bible in the late nineteenth century to Satan. "The devil knew the best
way to inject his apostate doctrine into the churches was to infiltrate the seminaries,
indoctrinate young ministers, and send them into the churches to spread his false concepts
across the land." The devil's allies were the "pro-Communist" Federal Council of
Churches and its successor, the National Council of Churches.39
Dispensationalists are fond of citing Jeremiah 30:7, which describes “the time of
Jacob’s trouble,” widely interpreted by them to mean intensified persecution of the Jews.
Beginning in the late nineteenth century dispensationalists began to predict that antiSemitism would prompt Jewish immigration to Palestine and the creation of the state of
Israel. Working with Satan, the Antichrist would unify the world’s religions, reestablish
the Roman empire, dramatically extend its domain and make a friendship pact with Israel
he would later disavow. The rapture would come, followed by the seven year tribulation,
during which millions of people would die but many Jews would recognize Jesus as the
messiah. Armageddon in Israel would become the site of history’s last great battle,
where the Antichrist would face down his last earthly rivals. Christ would intervene,
annihilate both armies, save the Jews and establish the Millennium. Allenby's entrance
12
into Jerusalem, Mussolini's rise to power, the Great Depression, World War II, Shoah,
and the creation of Israel were each in turn offered as proof of these prophecies.40
From the beginning, dispensationalist anti-modernism was associated with
reactionary social and political views. Premillenarians opposed Progressivism, which
they condemned as the work of the devil.41 In the Depression, dispensationalists derided
the blue eagle symbol of the National Recovery Act as “the mark of the beast,” and the
New Deal as paving the way for the Antichrist.42 During the Cold War, fundamentalist
preachers Fred Schwartz, Carol McIntire and Billy James Hargis lead rabid anticommunist crusades. The Cold War and its aftermath spawned efforts to read the rapture
and end of history in the tea leaves of current events. In 1982, Pat Robertson, not a
strongly identified millenarian, predicted an apocalyptic war between the superpowers
that would bring the world to an end.43 In 2006 he made repeated predictions of storms
and tsunamis that God would send against America’s west coast.44 The most important
voice of doom was the dispensationalist novel Late Great Planet Earth. Published in
1970, it offered a fictional account of the world’s destruction.
LEFT BEHIND
The first dispensationalist novel was published in 1905.45 Prophetic literature
began to sell well in the 1970s. Hal Lindsey and Carole Carlson's The Late Great Planet
Earth, was distributed largely through Christian bookstores and churches and had sold
over thirty million copies by the end of the century. In 1978, a documentary film about
the book played in commercial theaters across the country. Drawing freely on Daniel,
Ezekiel and Revelation, The Late Great Planet predicted the return of Christ sometime in
the 1980s. In line with the dispensationalist world view, it portrays humanity in a state of
13
moral decline that will lead to the collapse of law, order, the economy and military
organizations. Churches coalesce to form “religious conglomerates” and the pope is
increasingly active politically as a world church and world government merge. “Real
Christians” are openly persecuted by the Antichrist, head of the "European Economic
Community." The EEC [sic] dramatically expands its membership and power and comes
to resemble a modern-day Roman empire. The only hope for America, Lindsey and
Carlson insist, is “a widespread spiritual awakening.”46 In 1980, Lindsey, a graduate of
the Dallas Theological Seminary, authored a second book in which he argued that the
1980s could represent the last decade of history.47 Judging from the sales of his books,
readers appear unperturbed by apparent contradiction between Lindsey’s deterministic
belief in the end of the world and the hope it might be prevented by a spiritual
reawakening.
The Left Behind series copies and expands on Lindsey’s scenario and has been an
ever bigger success. To date, Left Behind consists of sixteen novels, several volumes of
commentary a series for the military and a mini-series for children. The authors maintain
an active website that solicits commentary and questions from readers. The project was
conceived by Tim LaHaye, a self-described “prophecy scholar,” minister and educator.
He was active in the John Birch Society in the 1960s, was an original board member of
the Moral Majority and a founder of or active in a score of right-wing social and political
organizations. His wife Beverly is co-founder of Concerned Women for America, a
prominent anti-feminist organization. LaHaye is convinced that the Chinese Communists
bought the 1996 election for Bill Clinton.48 The series principal author, Jerry B. Jenkins,
claims to have authored over a hundred books.
14
Following Lindsey and Carlson, Left Behind is based on prophecies elaborated by
Ezra, Daniel and Revelation. Their prophecies provide the plot for all the volumes,
which opens with the Rapture, moves forward through the tribulation, Christ's return and
establishment of the millennium and resurrection of the dead and the final ascent to
heaven. Like all good dispensationalists, the authors believe that we are living in “the
final days” because of humanity’s corruption and loss of faith in God. Traditionally,
dispensationalists look for correspondence between contemporary events and biblical
prophecies. Left Behind does the reverse; it writes a history of the near future to make it
conform to its authors' readings of selected prophecies. Judging from web site posts,
many readers find this approach appealing.49
The Plot: The Left Behind novels have an integrated if elaborate plot that realizes
the prophecies of the Book of Revelation, as understood by LaHaye and Johnson..
Volume I opens with the rapture, which lifts some half-million believers to heaven at the
same moment. Those aboard airplanes simply disappear, with God thoughtfully leaving
their clothes neatly folded on their seats. The sudden disappearance of so many people
comes as a shock to those “left behind” and only a few have the intelligence and faith to
recognize what has happened. Among the first of these is Rayford Steele, a senior pilot
at TransCom Airlines. He is contemplating an affair with a cabin attendant, an attractive
woman who has signaled her availability. The rapture puts this plan on hold as Rayford’s
wife and younger son have disappeared, drawing him closer to his daughter Chloe and
soon to God. Father and daughter make the acquaintance of Buck Williams, a virile,
socially adept, worldly-wise and phenomenally successful New York journalist who has
somehow never had sex with a woman. He and Chloe, another virgin, fall in love, marry,
15
and become part of the “Tribulation Force” organized by Rayford’s Illinois pastor Bruce
Barnes. Its goal is to win people to Christ, oppose the Antichrist and simply survive the
tribulation.50
Pastor Barnes is killed in the earthquake. Following the rapture he becomes an
assiduous student of the Book of Revelation and leaves extensive notes for the faithful
about what to expect. 51 He predicts the opening of the seven seals and bowls and their
respective judgments and chaos to which this leads. One quarter of the earth’s population
will die, as it soon does, from earthquakes, war, famine, pestilence and meteor impact.
Thanks to Bruce’s notes and his own belief in scripture, Rayford and other members of
the Tribulation Force know just what to expect and this gives them a leg up in the
survival game.52
From time to time the heroes reflect on the relationship between prophecy and the
narrative they instantiate. They quote Revelation to illuminate the plot and presumably to
demonstrate how the developments they confront should be taken as evidence of its
prophecies. Bruce quotes Revelation 6:9-11 to the effect that the fifth of the seven seal
judgments concerns martyrs who plead with God for vengeance but are required to wait
because more martyrs will join them. He reasons that these martyrs are Christians who
will die during the tribulation and its catastrophes.53
As the Jews and Israel are so central to dispensationalist theology, so they are to
Left Behind. Revelation describes “two witnesses” and the novels depict two Jewish
messengers in Jerusalem who preach the return of the messiah and the conversion of
144,000 Jews (1000 times the twelve tribes of Israel squared). To make conversion
possible, the authors create the character of Rabbi Tsion Ben-Judah. After lengthy study
16
of the old and new testaments he concludes that Jesus fulfilled all the requirements of the
messiah. He was about “to receive” Jesus when the rapture occurred.54 He subsequently
goes on television to make his pitch for Jesus, is forced to flee Israel and with Buck's help
succeeds in converting many Jews. In one of the later volumes, he meets archangel
Michael and hears the voice of God.55
The principal “bad guy” is Antichrist Nicolae Carpathia. By means of deception,
hypnosis, intrigue and murder he becomes head of Romania, Secretary General of the
United Nations and then dictator of the world. Carpathia is the product of genetic
engineering and artificial insemination. He is alleged to have Roman antecedents,
necessary to square the narrative with the prophecy that the Antichrist will take the form
of a Roman emperor. The plot line also follows the contemporary millenarian belief that
the Antichrist will be associated with the European Union – as he was in The Late, Great
Planet Earth, which characterizes what was then the European Community as the “New
Roman Empire” of the Book of Revelation. Carpathia’s handlers, agents of the devil,
eliminate his mother and Nicolae removes his father, who blocks his rise to power. With
the devil’s help, Carpathia makes millions in import-export and at age twenty-four enters
the lower house of Romania’s parliament. Effectively blackmailed, Romania’s president
stands aside in favor of Carpathia, who is elected with the unanimous support of both
houses of parliament. Not long after, he is appointed Secretary General of the United
Nations. He effectively feigns humility and convinces others of his selflessness and
sincere commitment to world peace. In a defining moment, he shoots two powerful
figures in a meeting, but hypnotizes everyone in the room, Buck aside, into believing that
one of them committed suicide and inadvertently killed the other in the process.
17
Nicolae uncaps and prepares to exploit Alaska’s vast reserve, which until now, we
are told incorrectly, had been prevented by environmental legislation. As Carpathia
already commands the Middle East's oil, he comes to control two-thirds of the world’s oil
supply, allowing him to introduce steady price hikes to bring him revenue upwards of a
trillion dollars a year.56 In the course of the 1990s, Carpathia restructures international
politics and economics. He makes "Carpathianism" the only legal religion on Earth and
compels everyone to bear a mark [the biblical Mark of the Beast] to attest their loyalty to
him and the Global Community, the successor to the UN. Those who refuse face the
guillotine.
A rebellion is launched by American militia forces under the command of former
American President Fitzhugh in alliance with England and Egypt and armed with a secret
stash of conventional and nuclear weapons.57 Carpathia launches a preemptive strike,
making his adversaries look responsible for the nuclear destruction it brings to many
cities. World War III produces famine, the great “Wrath of the Lamb” Earthquake,
meteor strikes, maritime disasters, contamination of waterways, global darkening and
cooling, swarms of locusts and plagues of fire, smoke and sulphur. These calamities
destroy a third of the population, but not Carpathia's regime.58 He is assassinated by
Chaim Rosenzweig, the Israeli botanist whose invention made it possible to farm the
deserts. After three days, Carpathia is resurrected by Satan and his ability to rise from the
dead proves an enormous political asset that allows him to further consolidate his
power.59
The millennium is brought about by the return of Jesus. He casts Carpathia, his
advisors and all their henchmen into the Lake of Fire, where they will suffer for all
18
eternity. Satan emerges from Carpathia’s body and is compelled to kneel before Christ
and acknowledge him as Lord. He confesses that everything he ever did was for personal
gain and that his entire life was a waste. A thousand years later we have a glimpse of
Carpathia still writhing in agony as he is tortured by fire and sulphur, repeating his new
mantra that Jesus is Lord. All of these events, beginning with Carpathia’s improbable
rise to world power, are necessary to make the world resemble dispensationalist readings
of biblical prophecy.
Left Behind is more about adventure than character development. There is
endless description of the mayhem caused by the Antichrist, the human and physical
disruption and destruction to which this leads and the efforts of the tribulation force to
survive and win converts to Christ. Little effort is made to demonstrate the spiritual
rewards heroes derive from their commitment to Jesus. They occasionally speak of these
benefits, but this is not a convincing method of demonstrating them. It is, of course,
much easier to describe chaos and destruction than it is to portray spiritual evolution and
its psychological and behavioral consequences.
Theology: Dispensationalists claim to read God’s word directly without
introducing any interpretation of their own. Here too, Dispensationalism harks back to
the early days of English Protestantism when Tyndale insisted that the bible should be
understood in what he calls "its literal sense." Like Tyndale, dispensationalists assert that
meaning lies directly in front of us and requires no special education or search for hidden
meanings.60
Texts never speak for themselves and the bible least of all. Old and new
testament are composites of multiple texts written by many people, in some cases over
19
many generations. Most of these books existed in different textual versions, making it
impossible to reconstruct an “original.” Editors subsequently decided which texts, and
which versions of them, to include in the scriptures.61 The old testament is written in
Hebrew and the new in Greek. Fundamentalists read the bible in English translation and
there are over 500 translations available. The translation problem is exacerbated by the
fact that many Hebrew and Greek words and phrases have lost their original meanings
and taken on new ones. Words and phrases intended to evoke specific responses from
contemporary readers are unlikely to do this with modern ones.62 This is particularly true
of Revelation which makes free use of fanciful metaphors and symbols. Do swords
really come out of mouths or millions of giant horsemen race across the face of the earth?
Is the lamb simply an animal or a symbol for Jesus? Most readings, including those of
dispensationalists, opt for the latter understanding of the lamb, which, of course,
represents a figurative, not literal reading.
Fundamentalists try to get around the first of these problems by insisting that the
bible was written and edited under the direct guidance of God so perfectly reflects his
intentions. They do not address the problems of how we can fathom God’s meaning from
words that conjure up diverse meanings. Left Behind defends literalism, quite a challenge
for a movement whose bible readings are remarkably imaginative and labored. The
journalist Verna Zee, one of the minor characters, plays devil’s advocate by suggesting
that Revelation resembles Nostradamus: “Can’t these prophecies be read into?,” she asks.
“Can’t they mean anything you want them to mean?” Chloe responds by telling her
about pastor Bruce’s predictions based on his reading of Revelation. “If the treaty
between the United Nations and Israel was the covenant referred to in the bible, it would
20
usher in the sever-year tribulation period. First there would be the seven Seal Judgments.
The four Horsemen of the Apocalypse would be the horse of peace -- for eighteen months
-- the horse of war, the horse of plague and famine, and the horse of death.” 63 Verna Zee
a disbeliever, who has been further discredited by being outed as lesbian, says that
nothing that has happened so far has convinced her of Chloe’s interpretation. For some
unexplained reason she volunteers that the predicted earthquake would do this.64 As the
plot of the novels are based on Revelation, the earthquake, like the other prophecies of
this book of the bible comes to pass. Proof is provided tautologically.
Another defense of literalism is offered by Rabbi Tsion Ben-Judah. “For
centuries,” he tells us, “scholars believed prophetic literature was figurative, open to
endless interpretation. That could not have been what God intended. Why would he
make it so difficult? I believe when the Scriptures say the writer saw something in a
vision, it is symbolic of something else. But when the writer simply says that certain
things happen, I take those literally. So far I have been proven right.”65 He later explains
that John, Revelation’s author, saw 200 million horsemen in a vision so they will not be
literal, but that something will happen with an equivalent impact.66 To his surprise, the
horsemen appear, but are only visible to their faithful. They are giant horses with flames
shooting out of their nostrils and mouths and kicking up thick yellow smoke. Their giant
riders are ten feet tall and are said to weigh 500 pounds. Horses and riders destroy nonbelievers, conveniently allowing Rayford and his party to escape being shot by irate
guards.67
Tsion confesses he was wrong in assuming the horsemen would be spiritual, not
physical creatures.68 Reconfirmed in the value of prophecy, he now looks to Revelation
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for numbers that allow him to calculate how many people will survive tribulation.69 Such
an approach violates long-standing rabbinical approaches to the bible. They reflect the
concept of Peshat, which literally means “to strip away” to reveal the underlying
meaning, which cannot always be equated with the literal meaning. The Talmud makes it
evident that this process is based on the recognition that the “The words of the Torah are
expressed in human language.”70 Interpretation accordingly requires historical and
philological awareness because meanings are almost always culture and time-specific.71
Like Chloe, Rabbi Tsion Ben-Judah relies on fiction -- the novel’s plot -- to
confirm prophecy. His arguments and Chloe’s require correspondence between some
prophecy and real world events or developments. Chloe reveals that Bruce’s predictions
that the treaty between Israel and the UN will trigger the tribulation, and it therefore must
be the covenant described in Revelation. LaHaye and Jenkins defend this parallel in a
separate coauthored defense of prophecy, in which they read these and other
developments as evidence that we are living in "the end times." These other
developments include the hatred of Israel by Russia and its Arab allies, the emergence of
China and the increasingly frenetic nature of modern society. The importance of Russia
for prophecy is deduced from Ezekiel who says:
Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of
Rosh, Meschech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, 'Thus
says the Lord God: "Behold, I am against you, O Gog. . . . I will turn you
around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out, with all your army,
horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with
bucklers and shields, all of the handling swords. Persia, Ethiopia, and
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Libya are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Gomer and all its
troops; and house of Togarmah from the far north and all its troops – many
people are with you.72
LaHaye and Jenkins insist that "etymologically," Gog and Magog "can only mean
modern-day Russia. Magog was the second son of Japeth who, the Roman [sic Jewish]
historian Josephus reports, settled along the northern coast of the Black Sea. The tribes
from this area were known to Greek historians as Scythians. As for an army from the
north, "Any map will show that Russia is indeed north of Israel." What is more
remarkable, LaHaye and Jenkins insist is Ezekiel's identification of Gog's allies – Persia,
Libya, Gomer [which they infer is Turkey], Ethiopia and Togarmar [?] "are all Arab
countries."73 This reading of Ezekiel is anything but literal, as it nowhere mentions the
then non-existent Russia. The connection between Japeth and the Scythians is tenuous
and that between the Scythians and Russians historically absurd as they are two different
peoples. Russia is indeed north of Israel, but so are Lebanon, ,Syria and Turkey. LaHaye
and Jenkins err in describing Ethiopia as a Muslim country, as its population is largely
Christian. Their equation of Gomer with Turkey is without support, and another
indication of the authors' ignorance as Muslim Turkey, until very recently, had been
quietly pro-Israel.
There is no way around the fact that any parallels between prophecy and the real
world are based on a figurative readings as the bible makes no mention of international
treaties, let alone of Russia and the United Nations. Reading biblical tea leaves is no
different from interpreting Nostradamus. And no more successful, as every prediction of
Jesus’ return, from the first century onwards, has failed to materialize. Dispensationalist
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predictions of doomsday and the second coming, which began in the nineteenth century,
extend this zero batting average. LaHaye and Jenkins offer the lame defense that people
who made these failed predictions were at least attentive to scripture. They acknowledge
that "reading the times" is difficult and will not succeed, according to Daniel, until "many
shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased."74 They then leap to the
conclusion that the increase in secular knowledge in the twentieth century has fulfilled
this condition and that "The ability to rightly evaluate the signs in our times is increasing
almost daily." They acknowledge that they "cannot guarantee that Christ will come in
our generation," but we have more reason than ever before to believe that he will.75
Fundamentalists and dispensationalists, LaHaye and Jenkins among them, are guilty of
eisegesis: the reading of one's own ideas into a text.76
Continuity: Regardless of genre, most fiction authors make an effort to get their
facts right. James Michener was the first of many best-selling novelists to have an army
of researchers to dig out and check facts for him. Given the financial success of Left
Behind, this option is readily available but has not been exploited. Left Behind novels are
full of factual errors and unrealistic situations, most of them avoidable without
undercutting the plot line or authors’ commitment to biblical prophecy. Actual errors
aside, the authors offer wildly unrealistic portrayals of warfare and the workings of the
media, corporations, governments and the United Nations.
Much of the narrative is about the conversion and subsequent adventures of
leading pilot Rayford Steele. The novel begins aloft, and air travel features prominently
in almost every volume. The authors are ill-informed about its commercial and technical
aspects. Buck, an accomplished world traveler, asks his assistant to book him a flight --
24
which she does -- to London from LaGuardia, an airport that only handles short and
medium range flights. Buck makes sure he has his passport and United Kingdom visa –
the latter unnecessary for US tourists.77 Rayford flies his Learjet 60 west to Easton, Pa.
to take on fuel for a non-stop flight to Tel Aviv.78 The Learjet 60 has less than half that
range. In one of Buck’s many escapes, he flees Israel, taking Rabbi Ben-Judah with him
to Egypt. Pursued by Egyptian police in a James Bond-like chase they shake off their
pursuers by setting fire to their vehicle and hop onto the same Lear Jet, waiting to taxi
down the runaway. It now flies non-stop flight to Illinois, which would qualify as
another miracle.79
Other howlers include references to the “Common Market.” The Common
Market was founded in 1958 and generally referred to as the European Community after
its enlargement in 1967. The European Community became the European Union in 1993.
,Left Behind, published in 1995, is left behind in its terminology as it still refers to the
European Common Market and implies, incorrectly, that it embraces all of the continent
save Russia.80 In Left Behind, Israeli teenagers go to Hebrew school.81 They have no
need to learn Hebrew, as it is their native language, immigrants aside. Most Israelis are
in any case secular and those who are religious, especially boys, would begin their studies
well before their teenage years in preparation for bar mitzvah at age thirteen.
Less forgivable is the incipient racism and stereotypes that pervade the text. AntiChrist Nicolae Carpathia of Romania has blond hair and blue eyes because, were are told,
Romanians are descendants of the Romans, who were “Aryans,” as were the Romanians
“before the Mongols affected their race.”82 This is utter nonsense. So too is the claim
that before the conversion of the 144,000 Jewish witnesses from around the world, and
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the millions of additional converts they bring to Christianity, “most [people] assumed
they could identify a Christian. Now, of course, only true believers know each other on
sight, due to the mark visible only to them.”83 Could the authors really be so parochial
not to know that members of their faith are drawn from every race and ethnic group?
Their observation also assumes that Jews are identifiably different in appearance from
Christians of European origin.
Early in the first volume we learn that Israel scientist Chaim Rosenzweig has
developed a synthetic fertilizer that enables deserts to bloom like a greenhouse without
any need of irrigation. With its newly acquired wealth Israel makes peace with its
neighbors and becomes the world’s richest state when it licenses the formula for export.84
With this fertilizer Russia grows grain in Siberia and destitute African nations become
net exporters of food.85 It has not occurred to the authors that if every nation can grow its
own food, none will require imports. In a subsequent volume, it rains in Jerusalem,
bringing joyous Israelis outside to scream in delight and stick out their tongues to taste
the falling water. They are so happy because of “what this miracle will mean for their
crops.”86 Rain and snow are hardly novel to Jerusalem, which is in an arid climate but
not a desert. More importantly, as Israeli’s economic success is attributed to its ability to
raise crops without irrigation, why would a rain shower be significant?
The rebellion against the anti-Christ is led by the most unlikely coalition of
American patriotic militias, England and Egypt.87 England presumably means at least
Britain, if not the United Kingdom. Egypt, otherwise an unlikely ally, is included
because in dispensationalist readings of prophecy it joins with a northern confederacy
during the tribulation to attack Israel. With an eye to practical politics, North Korea, Iran
26
or other states unlikely to buckle under to UN diktats would have made more realistic
rebels. So-called patriotic militias despise the UN as some claim it is trying to take over
the United States with the covert assistance of government officials. The Left Behind
series builds on this belief, although it never suggests complicity on the part of office
holders. The President is portrayed as a decent enough if not terribly clever fellow who
is deftly outmaneuvered and marginalized by Nicolae Carpathia. The UN establishes its
authority over the US once it and all the other countries of the world agree, quickly and
inconceivably, to turn over most of their weapons to the world body.
The patriotic militias nevertheless get their hands on sophisticated assault
weapons, nuclear warheads, their delivery systems and the tightly-held codes necessary
to arm their warheads. More unrealistic still, they possess the transporters, radars,
computers, communications and trained personnel necessary to transport and fire missiles
with nuclear and conventional warheads against Carpathia and his forces. They are
overwhelmed, although it is just as unrealistic to imagine that in the short time the UN
has acquired its vast and diverse arsenal it has been able to recruit and train forces
capable of using its weapons effectively. Carpathia, whose intelligence system also
materializes from nowhere, is forewarned and able to escape the missile meant to
vaporize him and his aircraft. He retaliates massively and many American and other
cities are hit by conventional and nuclear weapons. Incredibly, America continues to
function normally outside these circles of destruction.
The authors have little understanding of the destructiveness of nuclear weapons.
London Heathrow airport is destroyed by a 100 megaton hydrogen bomb, but the rest of
London is relatively unscathed. The largest nuclear explosion on record is a 50 megaton
27
device the Soviet Union detonated on the Arctic island of Novaya Zemlya in October
1961. In later decades the superpowers built large arsenals of relatively low-yield
weapons in the kiloton range because of the greater accuracy of their delivery systems. If
a 100 megaton bomb had somehow been built and exploded over Heathrow it would have
destroyed greater London and have done considerable damage well beyond the
metropolitan area. The smaller weapons dropped on New York and Chicago would also
have been devastating. In the Big Apple, we are told, nobody knows if the bomb dropped
on Manhattan was conventional or nuclear. This is also unrealistic given the nature of the
nuclear and conventional weapons of the 1990s.
Historical detail lends verisimilitude to fiction but is not necessary for all genres.
For readers of Christian fiction, as for readers of romance, it may be the rhetorical value
of detail that counts; the very fact that it is there, accurate or not, makes the narrative
credible. Counterfactual narratives illustrate the validity of this rhetorical truth; the more
vivid they are the more credible they become to readers.88 This is in sharp contrast to
science fiction, whose writers must invest time and effort to get their detail right to satisfy
a more knowledgeable audience.89 Star Trek can be distinguished by Star Wars in this
respect. The latter is more fantasy than science fiction even though it is set in space and
the future. It can get away with such gross anomalies as Luke Skywalker and his
enemies aiming their ships’ weapons by hand rather than by computer.
Howlers also abound in the non-fictional writings of LaHaye and Jenkins. Are
We Living in the End Times? repeats the canard that the Balfour Declaration of
November 1917, in which Britain recognized Palestine as the homeland of the Jews, was
a payment to Chaim Weizmann for his scientific contributions to the war effort. One of
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the authors reports knowing from first-hand experience that at the end of World War II
the US had its fighter aircraft in Germany destroyed lest they fall into Russian hands
following an invasion of the western zones of occupation. These fictions are offered as
evidence of Ezekiel's prophecy of "noise and shaking" as the TNT allegedly used to
destroy these aircraft was loud and shook the earth.90
Are We Living in the End Times? compounds factual errors with paranoia. The
rather conservative New York-based Council on Foreign Relations is alleged to promote
"one-world government." The US is said to be disarming, when in fact its military
spending has increased in the post-Cold War era. "At the rate America is disarming and
the UN is increasing its stature and power," LaHaye and Jenkins allege," it is only a
matter of time until the UN is capable of controlling the world."91 China is controlled by
"some of the most dedicated communists in the world." They are "a ruthless group of
elite gangsters who have never wavered in their plan to use China as a military platform
from which to conquer the world." These political judgments are wedded to
demonstrably bad geography. Speaking of the "Red Chinese" demand for the Spratly
islands, LaHaye and Jenkins assert that "Whoever controls the Spratlys controls not only
the oil checkpoints to the oil-dependent countries of the Far East. . . but also Australia,
Indonesia and Singapore." A simple look at the map reveals the Spratlys to be 750 small,
largely uninhabitable reefs, atolls and islets in the South China Sea that have economic
but no military value. They are nowhere near the trade routes between the oil producing
countries of the Middle East and the US, Australia, Indonesia and Singapore.92 Finally,
Are We Living in the End Times? reveals remarkable intolerance. To cite only one
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example, its authors assert that "so long as a Muslim mosque occupies the Temple
Mount, we believe our holy place is being defiled."93
The Millennium: The last volume, Kingdom Come, opens with the Millennium
and closes with the ascent of the faithful to Heaven. It showcases the rewards of the
committed Christian life, but also foregrounds the horrible fate meted out to the wicked.
As is true with many extremist sects, the wicked include not only those who commit
crimes but non-believers, even those who have lead virtuous lives. LaHaye and Jenkins
go so far as to include Christians who do not internalize their belief to the point where
they have fully committed themselves to Jesus. The authors offer their millennium as a
close approximation of paradise; their Jesus will recreate the Garden of Eden.94 This
millennium is obviously expected to appeal to readers and provide another incentive for
them to commit themselves to Jesus. LaHaye and Jenkin's vision of the millennium is,
however, disturbingly reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984.
One of the most striking features of Orwell’s dystopia is the extent to which Big
Brother demands loyalty beyond outward conformity to state directives. People must
believe in Big Brother and his cause, and the state uses propaganda and more nefarious
methods of mind control to achieve this goal. Oceania is the quintessential totalitarian
regime. In Kingdom Come, Jesus is a Christian Big Brother. His presence, actual or
depicted, is everywhere and completely dominates social and personal life. He demands
total loyalty from citizens and, like Big Brother, attempts to achieve it through mind
control. Children attend nursery schools where they are indoctrinated by true believing
teachers who function as a mind police. Buck’s son Kenny, who runs such a school,
helps a little girl of ten find Jesus and pledge herself to him. Nursery teachers are
30
summarily dispatched to hell if they do not perform their proselytizing mission
conscientiously and successfully. Young men --in the millennium, this can mean 80 or
90 years of age -- who refuse to participate in activities designed to indoctrinate the
young are eliminated by lightning strikes in front of their friends.95 In 1984, the Party
constantly reminds citizens that “Thought crime does not entail death. Thought crime is
death." This is also true of Jesus World.
In 1984, there is opposition to Big Brother and some citizens believe there is an
underground. Winston Smith gradually becomes disillusioned with Big Brother and falls
in love with Julia, who gives the appearance of being a fanatical member of the Junior
Anti-Sex League and is adorned with its red sash. They have an affair, are caught in
flagrante delicto by the Love Police and Winston is hauled off to prison where he is
systematically beaten and brainwashed and ultimately betrays Julia. In Kingdom Come,
sex is equally verboten and there is a Love Police of sorts, authorities who snoop on
young people and arrest them for various crimes that include going to underground night
clubs, rumored to exist in France and Turkey. There are alleged to be black markets and
brothels.96 As in 1984, it is unclear if such things actually exist or are inventions of the
regime intended to entrap the Winston Smiths of this world.
Emmanuel Goldstein, Big Brother's wily enemy, has his counterpart in Left
Behind’s Satan. Goldstein fled Oceania and may be dead, and Satan is tightly bound and
locked up in the nether world. But his evil, like Goldstein's, still suffuses the society and
takes the form of sin; people are tempted by sex and material goods.97 There are rumors
of an underground anti-Jesus movement known as the ‘Other Light,” whose proponents
allegedly claim that study of the scriptures has made them “fans of Lucifer and not
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Jesus.”98 The plot of the novel, to the extent there is one, revolves around the efforts of
Kenny and his friends to form a "millennium force," modeled on his father's earlier
"tribulation force." Its goal is to win over the faithless before they cause more trouble
and are zapped by Jesus' lightning bolts. All crimes, which includes blasphemy, are
punishable by death.99
"Other Light" supposedly produces a manifesto in which they do not deny Jesus,
but object to his theocracy and mind control. “He has left men and women no choice but
to believe in Him and serve Him, denying our free will." They favor pluralism, insisting
that they "have no quarrel with those who believe and follow Him and consider
themselves devout. We simply insist on the right to decide for ourselves.” They lament
that Jesus "will not countenance an alternate point of view.”100 Left Behind portrays
Other Light as a pack of thugs with a few deliciously evil leaders and a coterie of easily
misled followers. Rumors spread that they tried to rape a “glorified” [see below] woman
to impregnate her in the hope of producing a mongrel race of converts who would survive
beyond the age of one hundred. The rapist, we learn, was destroyed by lightning, while
the woman, who resisted him, was unharmed.101
Other Light dissenters are seemingly undeterred by knowledge that they will with
certainty die at age one hundred, if not before. They hope, or so we are told, to find
enough recruits to pass the opposition along to subsequent generations and have large
forces at the end of the Millennium to join up with Satan against Jesus.102 The rebels
Rayford encounters in Egypt consider themselves freedom fighters against Jesus, who
they describe as heading an “occupying army." Although outnumbered they will not give
up hope. Egypt is once more the rotten apple in the bunch. On this occasion it makes the
32
mistake of electing some young people as judges and they vote against sending
representatives to honor God at the feast of the tabernacles. King David reports that the
lord is mighty miffed and intent on destroying all the wicked of the land.103 His revenge,
which includes a drought, seems to punish everyone, not just a few perpetrators, but this
overkill conveniently helps Rayford to proselytize.104
The millennium gives a new twist to the meaning of opposition. The population
is divided into two groups: the "glorified,” who were raptured and spent time in heaven
before the millennium, and "naturals," who were left behind but have since seen the light.
The glorified have been genetically altered and do not age.105 For some reason, the
authors feel the need to come up with a physical account for this phenomenon. They
devise the fanciful notion that just like the long-lived biblical patriarchs, the millennium’s
population lead long, healthy lives because “The world actually exists now, as it did back
then, under a canopy of water that blocks the most harmful effects of the sun.”106
True believers, whether glorified or natural, are allowed to remain alive through
the millennium and afterwards gain eternity in heaven. Those who do not follow the
rules, or fail to make an inward commitment to Jesus, not only die at age one hundred,
they spend eternity in the Lake of Fire.107 Cendrillon Jospin, a young woman of French
origin, is the first person to die following the purge of millions of non-believers at the
outset of the millennium. She gave every appearance of being a believer but must have
inwardly rejected Jesus. 108 Left Behind's Big Brother is truly omniscient.
The millennium resembles totalitarian regimes in other ways, not the least of
which are its leader's architectural plans. Jesus goes in for large, kitschy temples and
squares of the kind found on Cecil B. De Mille bible movie sets, presumably to impress
33
people with his power. He rebuilds Jerusalem on a monumental scale with lengthy
causeways, large esplanades and off-scale buildings reminiscent of Hitler’s plans for
postwar Berlin. The quarter reserved for priests and Levites encompasses an area of forty
by fifty miles, “more than six time the size of greater London and ten times the
circumference of the original ancient, walled city.”109 According to the authors, this
megalopolis is more than ten times the circumference of the original walled city of
Jerusalem.110 Such a city would in fact have a circumference thousands of time larger.
Heaven is tackier still. Following Revelation 21.12-14, 21, it has a great high
wall with twelve gates and with an angel positioned in front of each. Every gate is
inscribed with the name of a tribe of Israel. The wall of the city has twelve
“foundations,” each with the name of an apostle. The city is laid out as a perfect square
with jasper walls adorned with precious stones. Each of the twelve gates is fashioned
from a giant pearl. The streets, we are told in a description that makes no visual sense,
were "also pure gold, like transparent glass”111 Jesus rivals Hitler, Stalin and Saddam
Hussein in his architectural pretension.
More frightening still is Jesus’ callous disregard for life. Here too, comparisons
to Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot spring to mind. Collectively, these dictators killed
something in the range of 100 million people. Chaim Rosenzweig tells us that half a
billion people were raptured, and that half the remaining population was killed during the
Seal and Trumpet Judgments, more were lost during the Vial Judgments and millions
were subsequently martyred. Only one-quarter survived the seven years of tribulation.
This would put the death toll, directly or indirectly attributable to God and Jesus, in the
billions.
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Millions of non-believers die at the outset of the millennium.112 The martyrs cry
out: “When will You avenge our blood against those living on the earth?”113 Jesus hears
their plea and turns angrily to non-believers and other wicked-doers: “Depart from Me,
you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”114 The
condemned plead for mercy but Jesus is unyielding. He raises one of his hands a few
inches and “a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to
swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was
soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again.”115 Rayford Steele,
the principal hero of the series, is by now so brainwashed that he refuses to hold Jesus in
any way responsible for mass murder. Jesus did not send anyone to hell, he explains:
“They chose their own paths.”116
Jesus World is bizarre in other ways. Rayford is united with both his wives, his
raptured son Raymie and many former friends. Having two wives is no problem as
romance and sex are allegedly non-existent and triangles of this kind live happily ever
after. Conveniently, we are told nothing about the sleeping arrangements of the Rayford
threesome, or those of anyone else.117 Perhaps, like Hollywood movies of the production
code era, married couples sleep in separate beds? Everyone soon speaks fluent Hebrew,
even if they did not know a word upon arrival.118 This linguistic transformation is based
on the authors' reading of Zephaniah 3:9: “For them I will restore to the peoples a pure
language, that they all may call on the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one accord.”
For dispensationalists, who insist they read the bible literally, this is another wild
inference based on an a typically ambiguous text.
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Everyone becomes vegetarian as humans lose any desire to eat meat. Animals
also give up eating one another, which makes it possible for the lion lie down with the
lamb. On feast days, however, the yen for flesh returns and people eat meat.119 Sex is
definitely out of the question. Chloe confides to Buck: “It’s bizarre. I still love and
admire and respect you and want to be near you, but it’s as if I’ve been prescribed some
medicine that has cured me of any other distracting feelings.”120 Raymie too is pleased to
be freed of sex and parenthood so he can devote himself fully to the service of Christ.121
It is revealing that these characters describes romance and sex as distractions, as indeed
they are in a society where Jesus demands total attention, affection and loyalty. Chloe’s
son Kenny is nevertheless smitten by a demure young woman named Kat, who has come
to work in his nursery.122 He does his best to control his surging hormones – and it is
unclear why he still has them when his parents do not. Abstinence is another sacrifice
Jesus imposes on his subjects to test their loyalty to him. It is a practice entirely at odds
with Jewish tradition, which Left Behind’s millennium in other ways tries to instantiate.
It appears to reflect the hostility to sex of Pauline Christianity and American Puritanism.
The ban on sex also contradicts the novel's narrative as children continue to be born
throughout the millennium, and there is no hint that they are the result of virgin births.
Stalin’s Soviet Union, Hitler’s Germany and Orwell's 1984 were also markedly
puritanical.
Other forms of recreation are proscribed. When not working with children, Buck
spends his time praising Jesus with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.123 There is no
hint of sports, children’s games aside. Teenagers rightly complain they cannot have any
fun. As one of them puts it, we want to go “Somewhere where people like this nursery
36
guy won’t condemn you to hell if you [don’t] do anything but worship.”124 The authors
cannot allow such complaints to go unanswered so try to depict the youths who voice
these complaints as irrational. They allegedly want to become martyrs because “They
find that glamorous.”125 Stalin and Hitler were far more astute than LaHaye and Jenkins;
their regimes made major efforts to organize highly regimented outdoor and sporting
activities for youth to keep them off the streets, indoctrinate them ideologically and
distract them from sex.
When the millennium ends Satan is unbound and gathers his armed supporters
around him. This is a dumb strategy in light of what happened to the massed armies at
Armageddon. David and Jesus observe Satan from an undisclosed location. At a critical
moment, Jesus steps out from his hiding place raises his hand and opens his palm. “A
seam in the cosmos opened before Satan. Flames and black smoke poured from where
the Beast and False Prophet writhed on their knees screaming.” Satan belatedly
acknowledges that ‘Jesus is Lord.’” Jesus is understandably unmoved, closes his fingers
and Satan and his host disappear into the abyss which swallows them up and muffles
their screams. Surviving Christians are instantly clothed in gleaming white robes and fly
up to heaven. They are joined by all the dead faithful, who are resurrected.126
The Jews: Throughout the nineteenth century millenarians predicted the return of
the Jews to Palestine, although not their conversion. They were fascinated by Zionism
and General Allenby’s conquest of Jerusalem during the First World War.127
Millenarians expected Jews are to play a major, if not decisive, role in the events leading
up to the rapture, tribulation and second coming. In the 1920s, Charles Trumbull, a bible
teacher and contributor to the Fundamentals, declared that "God's greatest sign through
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the ages has been, and will continue to be the Jews."128 Fellow millenarian Arthur Brown
proclaimed that "the Jew enables us to tell time on God's clock."129 Some
dispensationalists were decidedly less friendly to Jews. Arno Gaebelein, influenced by
the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” associated communism with Jews in his widely
circulated books. This was after his failure to convert them.130 In the millennium
Christians are at the bottom of the pecking order.131 Tsion Ben-Judah, the leading Jew
for Jesus, finds this situation amusing, but not surprising. He explains that the new
testament says that the government starts with Christ and extends through his prince,
King David, to the apostles, now judges over the twelve tribes, to counselors and finally,
to “foreigners.” Gentile Christians count as foreigners as they are the adopted children of
God.132
Dispensationalists are especially interested in Jews because they read the old and
new Testament as parts of a unified scripture and expect God to fulfill his promises to his
chosen people. God's relationship with the Jews they believe to have been put on hold
once Christianity emerged. The so-called church age, from Jesus to the present,
represents a “parenthesis,” a dispensation in which the gospels are offered to Jew and
gentile alike. Following the rapture, God’s continued love for the Jewish nation will be
evident and many Jews will accept Jesus as their messiah. All of Israel’s enemies will be
defeated and Jesus will sit on the throne of David.133
Left Behind's authors have been excoriated for their fictional exploitation of Jews.
Tim LaHaye responded in a special preface to Kingdom Come in which he asserts that “it
should be plain from our treatment of this great future period that we are the opposite of
anti-Semites. Indeed, we hold that the entire Bible contains God’s love letter to and plan
38
for His Chosen people. If Israel had no place within the future Kingdom of God, we
could no longer trust the bible.”134 LaHaye and Jenkins are not anti-Semites in the
traditional sense, but the Left Behind series is offensive to Jews. Its fictional Jews
willingly convert in large numbers, something they have never done in the historical past,
and often in the face of extreme pressures to do so. An imaginary Israeli biblical scholar
validates biblical prophecy and Christ as the Messiah. Abraham, Sarah, Moses and
David are made to kneel humbly before Jesus and acknowledge his divinity.135 Noah,
Abraham and David become part of Jesus’ entourage and David sends Noah out to
lecture, on the Sabbath no less.136 Despite the high positions and respect accorded
historical Jews and modern converts, the bottom line is terrifying: Jews who do not
convert are sent directly to hell. Left Behind's self-proclaimed philo-Semitism is utterly
hollow; as has happened so often in the past, Jews are confronted with the choice of
conversion or death. And those who die, moreover, do not merely cease to exist, they
burn in hell for all eternity.
Anti-Semitism is compounded by other forms of racism. Earlier I noted the
description of Nicolae Carpathia as an "Aryan." Throughout the Left Behind series, we
do not encounter virtuous representatives of minority groups or non-Christians, the odd
Jew aside. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants lead the Tribulation Force while AfricanAmericans, Arabs and Asians convert or go to hell. Some conversions can only be read
as humiliating portrayals of capitulation.137
Gender: Amy Johnson Frykholm notes that women are the first to be taken into
heaven in traditional rapture narratives. They are women who have proved their faith,
steadfastness and loyalty to alcoholic and abusive husbands. They are stereotypic, long-
39
suffering and forgiving women. They sustain the church, are theologically privileged but
socially powerless. Once they are raptured, their disbelieving spouses commit suicide or
descend further into sin. Every so often, rapture is the catalyst for a sinful husband to
repent and embrace Jesus.138 Left Behind adheres to this tradition in important ways but
is more modern in others. Rayford's first wife, Irene, whom we do not meet until the
millennium, is devout, domestic and loyal. She and her youngest son Raymie are
raptured. Rayford found her intense faith annoying when they lived together but her
rapture opens his eyes to Christianity, which is the first step toward his rebirth.
Throughout the series men make decisions and act courageously while women maintain
the faith, perform domestic chores and sustain their men emotionally.
Much of Left Behind takes place in the largely masculine world of aviation.
Planes are portrayed as phallic objects. In the opening scene of Left Behind, Rayford,
piloting a "fully loaded 747" fantasizes about the sexual flight he intends to have in
London with a cabin attendant. Unlike most husbands of raptured wives, Rayford rises to
the challenge emotionally and part of his journey involves bridging traditional gender
roles. He shops, cooks and performs other routine domestic chores and increasingly
identifies with his former wife and his daughter. He becomes gentler, kinder and more
expressive, traits encouraged by the Christian men's movement. Rayford nevertheless
remains engaged in the world of business and power, which violates traditional portrayals
of Christian heroes and martyrs. His daughter Chloe also undergoes a transformation in
the course of the novels. When we first meet her she is a feisty Stanford graduate with a
quick wit and able to hold here own in conversation with men. She softens in the course
of her relationship with Buck and becomes increasingly domestic and deferential. She
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submits to here husband but asserts herself behind the scenes in ways acceptable to
conservative Christianity. She finds the perfect compromise as director of the Christian
Cooperative, which she runs from the underground bunker built by the Tribulation Force
in Illinois. Later on, however, she undertakes a mission in Greece while Buck stays
home with their child.139
Who Reads Left Behind? Amy Johnson Frykholm conducted thirty-five in-dept
interviews, primarily in the American South. Roughly the same number were conducted
in and around Columbus, Ohio by Alexander L. Stephan. The most typical readers are
self-identified "evangelicals" who sought out, and generally found, churches in which
they felt "at home." They are relatively unconcerned with the denomination or
theological orientation of these churches Most are uncomfortable with the label
"fundamentalist," and do not feel the need, as did many earlier dispensationalists, to
separate themselves from the broader society. They read non-Christian fiction and watch
a wide range of television programs, but feel strong about what they consider the moral
decline of America. They identify homosexuality and crime as leading indicators of this
decline. Frykholm reports men and women equally attracted to Left Behind, and the
novels tend to appeal across racial and class divides.140 Frykholm and Stephan both find
their church-going readers to be embedded in dense social-religious networks where
common reading and worship are important ways of building and sustaining community.
Left Behind is read aloud in churches and frequently on Christian radio stations. Church
members pass copies around and buy additional ones to give to family members, friends
and other people they identify as possible recruits.141
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A May 2005 study of 1008 randomly selected American adults by the Barna
Group found that nearly half of all Americans had read a religious book other than the
bible during the last two years. Women, college graduates and church members were
overrepresented among these readers. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code topped the list,
followed by Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life. Volumes of the Left Behind series
come third. Left Behind attracts a surprisingly broad base of Protestant readers from
churches of all sizes. More women than men are drawn to the series and most readers of
both genders described themselves as politically conservative and born again
Christians.142 A May 2001 study of 1008 adults conducted by pollster George Barna
found that Left Behind has its greatest following among adults in the 35 to 55 age group,
born again Christians and residents of the South and West. The people least likely to
read these books were Catholics, non-Christians and adults in the Northeast.143 Left
Behind may have something of a cross-over effect as one study, published in Christian
Century, indicates that almost half its readers are non-evangelicals.144
We have no survey data on the political views of Left Behind readers, but it is
reasonable to assume that they are similar to those of self-identified "evangelicals." A
2006 Barna survey indicated that 66 percent of evangelicals favored a constitutional
amendment to make Christianity the official religion of the US and that 67 percent
described themselves as politically conservative.145 This figure is substantially higher
when adjusted for race. This is because two-thirds of African-Americans identify
themselves as evangelical or born again, and most are Democrats. White American
evangelicals are significantly more conservative than indicated by the Barna survey.
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One way we make sense of narratives is to classify them by genre. Each genre
has its own set of conventions governing content, characters and narrative style that help
us understand and evaluate individual texts. Genre represents an implicit contract
between author and readers that the former will adhere to a set of conventions when
writing and the latter when reading.146 Tragedies are expected to end with all their
principal characters dead. In comedies, they must marry, as they do in Cosi fan Tutte.147
Readers and viewers generally develop an intuitive understanding of these conventions,
and if not, find guidance in the labeling of sections (e.g., crime, travel, adventure) in
libraries, bookstores and CD rental shops. Creative authors mix or bridge genres, as
Homer does in the Odyssey, Mozart and Da Ponte in Don Giovanni and Philip Roth in A
Plot Against America.148 Left Behind also bridges genres and the first challenge is
identifying those it represents. This in turn depends on the assumptions we bring to these
texts.
Left Behind is undeniably Christian literature. Like other books of its kind it
encourages people to make a commitment to Jesus and to live a Christian life.
Contemporary Christian texts generally approach this goal in a positive way by telling
inspirational stories that encourage readers to embrace Jesus because of the spiritual and
other benefits they will receive. Early Christians pioneered this strategy; they offered
membership in a community and the promise of eternal after-life in heaven. Throughout
the middle ages, and until quite recently, the Roman Catholic Church and many
Protestant denominations relied more on deterrence than reassurance; they aimed to
frighten people to obey their dictates -- or at least conform outwardly to them -- or suffer
the fire and brimstone of eternal damnation. Left Behind deploys carrots and sticks in the
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hope of making converts and strengthening the commitments of believers. Like many
contemporary Christian books, its characters find meaning in their lives through their
religious commitments. The novels offer graphic portrayals of the dreadful fate in store
for those who spurn Jesus.
Left Behind can be described as an adventure series. Tales of this kind are
populated by three distinct kinds of characters: admirable heroes, hateful villains and
ordinary folk. Hero and heroine must display pluck and skill to surmount life-threatening
challenges and generally come to aid of the downtrodden. Adventure tales have an
ancient provenance; the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid are early examples. Christianity
adapted the genre to its own ends, as in its elaboration of the myth of St. George and later
stories about chivalry.149 Such tales come in varying degrees of sophistication. Nancy
Drew novels, Superhero comics, The Seven Samurai and early James Bond movies are
straight-forward exemplars aimed at mass audiences. The Magic Flute, today considered
high culture, nevertheless includes a stereotypical hero and heroine and life-threatening
challenges for them to overcome. More sophisticated adventure tales, like John Le Carré
spy novels, blur distinctions between good and evil characters and highlight conflicts
within the camps of good and bad guys, not only between them. They meet the criteria
for page turners but make us wonder if their contests have any broader meaning or moral
significance.
Left Behind follows the format of classic, unsophisticated adventure novels. Its
novels string together episodes, many of which involve narrow escapes from death. At
the outset, the “believers” confront the rapture, which takes away family members
without explanation. During the tribulation that unfolds in the first nine novels, they face
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an escalating series of life-threatening challenges from the forces of "evil," represented
by corrupt capitalists and the Antichrist and his followers. Star journalist Cameron
"Buck" Williams and senior pilot Rayford Steele have enough close escapes -- from cops,
border guards, assassins, thugs, bombs, missiles, radiation and the Antichrist himself -- to
make Bruce Willis jealous. Unlike Buck and Rayford, not all the heroes survive, but
those who do prove their mettle and move closer to one another and Jesus. In some
adventure tales heroes receive help from supernatural figures (e.g., the Lady of the Lake
in Arthurian legend) or humans with extraordinary powers (e.g., Merlin in the same
saga). In Left Behind, God himself lurks in the background waiting to provide assistance.
Like Billy Batson shouting “Shazzam” so Zeus will transform him into Captain Marvel,
its characters mouth quick prayers for God to make them capable of otherwise incredible
feats and escapes.
Left Behind qualifies as counterfactual history. When its first novel appeared in
1995, the rapture was set in the near future, as was the tribulation and second coming.
They are depicted in the follow-on novels that appeared in the course of the next decade.
Like all previous predictions of rapture or Jesus' return these failed to materialize.
Although not conceived as counterfactual history, with the passage of time these novels
have become counterfactual history. There has been no rapture or second coming, no
amalgamation of religions and states and no World War III. Our corrupt world staggers
on affected by nothing so dramatic as the events described in these novels.
Left Behind violates key conventions of counterfactual history. Novels in this
genre most often employ “minimal rewrites “of history: small, credible changes
(antecedents) that bring about major changes (consequents) in the world. The antecedent
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is connected to the consequent by a chain of logic that shows how the former ineluctably
leads to the latter. Credible counterfactuals involve believable rewrites of history and
provide compelling chains of logic consistent with the evidence and our expectations
about how people behave.150 A quintessential example is the prevention of World War I
by forestalling the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo. The
Archduke should never have come to Sarajevo in light of warnings of trouble and should
certainly have been whisked out of town when the first assassination attempt against him
on the Appel Quay failed. As he was the major spokesman within Austria-Hungary for
peace with Russia, and the Emperor Franz Josef only became bellicose because of his
assassination, the Archduke’s survival would have prevented war in the short-term and
quite possibly in the longer term as well.151
A variant of counterfactual history uses so-called miracle counterfactuals, which
make inherently implausible changes in reality.152 Some novels use miracle
counterfactuals to telling effect. In Philip K. Dick’s Fatherland, the United States is
governed by President Joseph P. Kennedy and an isolationist administration happy to do
business with the Nazis. The Nazis see the Holocaust through to its completion in
Europe. In its aftermath they destroy the death camps and succeed in keeping their
extermination of the Jews a secret. Germany’s victory rests on their development of an
atomic bomb and a missile capable of carrying a large warhead to New York City. Given
what we know about Germany's difficulty in developing a nuclear program and the limits
of rocket technology of the time, both bomb and delivery system are miracle
counterfactuals.153 Such unrealism does not undermine the novel but rather makes it
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possible by setting up the premise -- a German victory in World War II – the
consequences of which the author explores with chilling realism.154
Part of the challenge of counterfactual fiction is to use as few interventions in
history as possible to create the world in which their narratives take place. Clever authors
can bring radically different worlds into being through one or a few small changes in
reality that have radically amplifying consequences. To lend verisimilitude to their
counterfactual worlds, most authors try to make them adhere to reality in other ways, and
especially to our expectations about how people and their institutions behave. Surgical
counterfactuals are no more possible than surgical air strikes, so even minimal rewrite
counterfactuals can introduce changes in addition the desired ones. These “second order”
counterfactuals can confound scenarios authors are trying to construct and sophisticated
counterfactual fiction takes at least some of them into account.155
Counterfactual fiction is often used to change the outcome of wars and other
major political events and to problematize national or ethnic identities. Philip Roth does
this effectively in The Plot Against America as does Michael Chabon in The Yiddish
Policeman’s Union. Counterfactuals are not new to Christian literature. D. James
Kennedy's What if Jesus Had Never Been Born describes a miserable and unhappy world
with the aim of demonstrating how Christ and Christianity are responsibility for
economic development, cultural advancement, science and even civil liberties.156 The
Left Behind series makes use of literal miracle counterfactual: God raptures the faithful
and leaves behind everyone else to face seven years of tribulation. This conceit is
perfectly legitimate for counterfactual fiction, but the authors introduce numerous
additional miracle counterfactuals rather than limiting themselves to exploring the
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consequences of the whopper that sets off their tale. The rapture is preceded by Israel’s
incredible survival without casualties of an all-out Russian nuclear attack. It is followed
by, among other miracle counterfactuals, the rise to world dictatorship in a matter of
months of an unknown Romanian politician, universal near-disarmament, unification of
the world’s religions, the creation of a world-wide dictatorship and the appearance at the
Wailing Wall of two Jewish Christians with supernatural powers who destroy adversaries
by breathing fire on them. LaHaye and Jenkins resort to these and additional
counterfactuals to tell a story that follows the plot line of biblical prophecy. As miracle
counterfactuals are by definition unrealistic, Left Behind’s use of multiple miracle
counterfactuals makes its narrative redundantly unrealistic.
The determination of what constitutes a realistic versus a miracle counterfactual is
a matter of interpretation. We can all probably agree that supraliminal travel is a miracle
counterfactual because the laws of physics, as currently understood, prohibit velocities
beyond the speed of light. Most of us would also concur that providing laser-guided,
stand-off weapons to Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo is a miracle counterfactual
because it violates many times over the scientific and engineering capabilities of the era.
The rapture, a multi-lived antichrist, unification of the world’s religions and political
units are equally problematic for anyone like me -- a secular international relations
scholar. For a true believer, the rapture would be a miracle but not a miracle
counterfactual. Such people believe that miracles (e.g., the parting of the Dead Sea, the
virgin birth, resurrection) have occurred in the past and will happen again. True believers
readily acknowledge the unrealism of religious and political unification but attribute
these developments to divine intervention. For dispensationalists, the only incredible
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miracle counterfactuals are those that untrack the historicity of the bible or what they
believe are God’s plans for the future. Left Behind considered in counterfactual terms is a
religious Rorschach Test.
Left Behind might also be characterized as science fiction or fantasy. Rod
Serling, creator of the TV series Twilight Zone, is alleged to have said that “Science
fiction consists of improbable possibilities, fantasy of plausible impossibilities.”157 A
laudable bon mot, it does not provide the basis for a good working definition because
science fiction routinely employs impossibilities like supraliminal velocities, hyperspace, time travel and immortality. Guy Kay may be closer to the mark with his
characterization of fantasy as “the literature of longing; instead of writing about the world
as it might someday become, it writes about the world as we wish it could be or have
been.”158 Michael Swanwich identifies another important feature of fantasy; more often
than not it is a morality tale in which good conquers evil, order is restored and wise and
benign rulers returned to power.159 Unlike science fiction, fantasy, affectionately known
as "sword and sorcery," routinely features characters with special powers or heroes who
gain such powers through their mastery of arcane lore or texts that are safeguarded,
interpreted and shared by their guardians. From this lore or texts heroes often learn the
true names of people and things, which can be invoked for their protection. In Tolkien’s
Lord of the Rings, men and dwarves are aided by wizards in their cosmic struggle against
evil.160 Science fiction characters, by contrast, gain power or authority by means of their
pluck, but almost always combined with an impressive use of reason and understanding
of natural laws.161
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Left Behind nicely meets the conditions of fantasy. It is an adventure tale that
takes place in four fictional worlds, which for the scientifically minded, could never exist.
First, there is our world, but made counterfactual by God's visible intervention in wars,
rapturing of some half-million people and unification of the world’s religions and
government through the machinations and near-magical powers of the Antichrist. The
second world is the millennial kingdom, inhabited by the faithful, who live forever, and
others who make it only to one hundred. Serious evil doers (including drinkers, dancers,
adulterers) are eliminated by lightning strikes. The third world is heaven, to which the
faithful ascend at the end of the millennium. Hell, the fourth world, has the standard
lakes of fire and other unpleasant venues where people suffer for an eternity without
dying or losing consciousness from the pain and hopelessness of it all.
The starting point of all fantasy is serious departure from reality, and here there
are undoubtedly differences of opinion about what is unrealistic and qualifies as a miracle
counterfactual. For people awaiting the rapture, Left Behind is not fantasy, and they may
constitute the majority of its readers. For the secular among us, believers and novels
alike inhabit a fantasy world.
Left Behind is unquestionably a morality tale. At the individual level, the good
are rewarded handsomely, the evil suffer terribly and the faithful who die in wars,
plagues and earthquakes are reincarnated and ascend to heaven. Following the rapture,
corrupt religions and godless regimes give way to the more horrendous dictatorship of the
Antichrist. At the onset of the millennium, the Antichrist and his empire are swept away
and replaced by the kingship of Jesus. At the cosmic level, God triumphs over Satan.
Left Behind also qualifies as fantasy because of its invocation of special powers. God,
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Satan, the Antichrist and Jesus all have such powers and use them to protect their
followers and advance their goals. These powers range in scope from mass hypnosis,
mind reading, telepathy and teleportation to the ability to knock bombers and missiles out
of the sky to the even more impressive capability to trigger earthquakes and meteor
strikes, terraform the earth, reconfigure human physiology and confer immortality.
Ordinary humans do not possess these powers, but Nicolae Carpathia, the Antichrist, can
manipulate human minds and memories through hypnosis and has more than one life. In
a prequel, we learn that he is the genetically engineered offspring of two gay men. The
truly awesome superpowers are reserved for the three divines: Jesus, God and Satan.
Fantasy has incredible plots in a double sense: they involve supernatural feats and
preordained story lines. We never doubt that Prince Valiant or Superman will triumph in
the end and this is true of Jesus in Left Behind. For thoughtful readers, these novels raise
the question of why we must reach happy endings by circuitous routes that entail so much
suffering. There is an obvious commercial answer: suspense and adventure sell books.
There is also a psychological answer: people enjoy suspense and adventure all the more
when they know the good guys ultimately emerge triumphant. For many Christians,
there is a theological answer. Our beliefs and behavior determine our fate; temptation
and suffering confront us with moral choices and provide the opportunity to accept or
reject Jesus in a meaningful way.
Fantasy’s good and evil characters are readily identifiable. There are no shades
of gray, although characters of uncertain allegiance are allowed, as are those who switch
sides as the plot unfolds. Left Behind is true to form. Some of its volumes include a
glossary up front that identifies characters under headings of “believers,” “enemies” and
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“undecided.”162 Left Behind is stereotypic in that its good characters are very good and
its bad characters very bad. The Antichrist and Satan are evil incarnate just as God and
Jesus are portrayed as entirely benign. So are our panoply of mortal heroes, who are
chaste, generous, self-effacing and put their families at risk to serve Jesus. Their morality
is all the more impressive given the “wickedness” of society. Non-believers, who make
up the lion’s share of society, “worship idols and demons, commit murder, sexual
immorality and theft.” Rabbi Tsion Ben-Judah, one of the heroes, explains that “demon
worship, sorcery, and illicit sex” are applauded in the new tolerant society of the
West.”163
MAKING SENSE OF DISPENSATIONALISM
American millenarians have little in common with their Roman, medieval and
early modern European precursors beyond their confidence that Christ will soon
reappear. Many Medieval and early modern premillenarian sects were proto-socialist;
they believed that property and other forms of wealth, including women for some, should
be held in common. Many movements engaged in direct political action that took the
form of violence against local authorities. Contemporary premillenarians are
conservative in their social values, decidedly non-violent and many are apolitical. This is
not true of Tim LaHaye, coauthor of the Left Behind series, who is a cofounder of the
Moral Majority and vocal opponent of the "socialist" President Obama who believes that
“government can control everything” and “take from those who have to give to have
nots.”164
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A more extreme expression of these views is propounded by the Christian
Deconstructionist Movement, also known as Theonomy or Dominion Theology.
Founded by Rousas J. Rushdoony, an ultra-conservative Presbyterian, Reconstructionism
advocates a theocracy based on old testament civil law and a laissez-faire economic
order. It would stone to death people found guilty of homosexuality, adultery,
blasphemy, spreading of false doctrine -- and here going well beyond scripture -- children
who consistently misbehave.165 Pat Robertson, who made a bid for the presidency in
1988, advocates a version of this theology. His several books have premillennial
premises, government that withdraws from all international organizations and is guided
by fundamentalist Christian teachings.166 Reconstructionism’s depiction of its ideal
theocratic state is remarkably similar to the Millennium as imagined by LaHaye and
Jenkins.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century fundamentalists distanced
themselves intellectually and institutionally from other Christians. Many heeded Reuben
Torrey's call to lead a “separated life," a defining move of strategy two.167 They imposed
a moral code on themselves and their families that was considerably stricter than the
usual evangelical requirements of modesty, chastity, temperance and avoidance of
theater, dancing, makeup, card playing, smoking and other objectionable practices.
Separation was enforced by separate schools, daily prayer, bible reading, patriarchal rule
and a social life restricted to fellow believers.168 Even today, premillenarians are more
likely to withdraw from political life than to participate in it. Many do not vote.
Psychological studies indicate that religious people tend to be conservative, but unlike
most conservatives have greater than average trust in governmental authority.169
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Dispensationalists differ from other conservative Christians in this respect, as they have
no trust whatsoever in government.
American premillenarians also differ from their medieval and early modern
predecessors in their adherents. For the most part they do not come from the least welloff groups in society. Like other American fundamentalists, they are from AngloAmerican and Northern European backgrounds and often middle class, although
generally from its less prosperous and less well-educated sections. These movements
nevertheless attract proportionately more followers from the working class and less from
the professional classes than do mainstream Protestant churches.170
Timothy Weber contends that turn of the century premillenarians had much in
common with the Progressives. Both sought versions of the millennium, although
millenarians believed this would occur through the personal intervention of Christ and
accordingly regarded reform movements as distractions.171 I find this a forced
comparison as the Progressive movement encompassed a wide range of groups with quite
diverse goals. Its left wing had the most far-reaching ambitions, but they were still
relatively cautious in the expectations, hoping at best to ameliorate conditions for the
poor and introduce other positive changes in society. They believed in progress but had
few illusions about any figurative millennium lurking around the corner.172
A more appropriate comparison is to Marxism. This is not all that surprising as
both movements have roots in Christianity. Marxism has often been described as a
secularized version of Christianity as it seeks to regain paradise, in secular form and by
political means.173 Jesus’ teachings and early Christianity had a strong anti-wealth
ideology and medieval millennial movements frequently had proto-socialist ideologies.
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Some nineteenth and twentieth century Christian political movements and parties built on
this tradition and offered a blend of Christianity and socialism. This is certainly not true
of Dispensationalism, which is strongly conservative. If we look beyond these obvious
political differences, we encounter striking similarities in outlook and style of argument
between Dispensationalism and the brand of socialism espoused by Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels. Both ideologies describe the world as impossible to reform, expect and
espouse violent upheavals, advance arguments with the same kinds of contradictions and
confront the problem of failed predictions. There is some evidence to suggest that they
attract similar personality types: people who feel threatened by ambiguity and are drawn
to movements that offer a comprehensive, black-and-white view of the world and
demand submission to authority from on high.
Christianity and Marxism have a parallel view of history. The world was good at
the outset, quickly became corrupt, but has the potential to become good again. For
Christians, Eden was a paradise without sin, until the devil, through his agent Eve,
encouraged Adam to eat from the tree of knowledge. This led to the expulsion of the
couple from Eden and all the misery that followed. Through commitment to Jesus, Eden
can be regained in the form of an eternal afterlife in heaven. In the Marxist narrative
people once enjoyed a happy life, living under a primitive form of communism. Society
was corrupted by the introduction of property, the equivalent of original sin, which
brought increasing misery to humankind. The situation became worse under capitalism.
The young Marx declared that "it is only [Germany's] desperate situation that fills me
with hope."174 Redemption is possible through socialist revolution as it will lead us away
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from private property and to a form of communism in which human fulfillment and
happiness are again possible.
Marxism was never a monolithic ideology or movement, and by the late
nineteenth century had many variants. A principal cleavage was between those who
believed that socialism could be achieved through the ballot box – so-called revisionists - and those who insisted that only revolution could attain this end. The latter were
convinced that the condition of the working class in industrial countries was
deteriorating, not improving, and that compromise with capitalism was a dead end.
American evangelicals experienced a similar split. Postmillenarians assumed the role of
revisionists; they supported reforms and many believed that the millennium could be
realized in America through continued reform of the country’s moral and economic life.
Premillenarians, of whom dispensationalists became the dominant faction, believed the
world was becoming ever more corrupt and impossible to reform. Just as Lenin
condemned the revisionism of Eduard Bernstein as a sell-out to capitalism,
dispensationalists like Gaebelein and Haldeman condemned evangelical involvement in
reform as the devil’s work.
For Marx, and for his Bolshevik successors, socialist revolution was necessary to
overthrow capitalism, transfer power to the proletariat and institute the transformation of
people and society that would pave the way to communism. Marx and Engels never fully
elaborated their understanding of the post-revolutionary era or their plans for this
transitional period, but expected it to be a violent and turbulent as capitalist resistance
would survive the revolution.175 Dispensationalists also look forward to a turbulent era,
the seven-year-long tribulation, during which the devil and his supporters will extend
56
their control over the earth and persecute true believers. Even the millennium would not
put an end their opposition because the devil will return at its conclusion to make a final
and unsuccessful bid at world domination.
Marxism and Dispensationalism foreground clever villains with no saving graces.
Satan and capitalists are fiendishly clever but myopically shortsighted. They can imagine
and execute complex plans and conspiracies but cannot see how counterproductive they
are in the long run. For capitalists, this contradiction is made more difficult to fathom by
virtue of Marx's writings and the rise of a socialist movement. If socialists can see the
end of history in sight as well as the means by which this will assuredly come about,
clever capitalists ought to be able to do the same. At the very least they could profit from
insights of their socialist adversaries and figure out ways to preserving the economic
order just as they came up with advertising and planned obsolescence as a means of
sustaining production of often unnecessary goods. Indeed, such learning may have
occurred and provide a partial explanation for why socialist revolutions did not occur in
most developed countries. Satan is even smarter and more scheming than capitalist
plutocrats and for millennia has successfully leading much of the human race astray. He
is nevertheless blind to the inevitable outcome of his resistance to god, and this despite
dispensationalist efforts to decode biblical prophecy and publicize just what will happen
during the tribulation and millennium. The poor devil must be defeated at Armageddon
and then again at the end of the Millennium, and on both occasions as the result of the
same unsuccessful military strategy.
Marxists and dispensationalists differ somewhat in their assignment of agency.
Marx and Engels believed that socialist revolution was the inevitable outcome of
57
capitalism and in a deeper sense the product of historical developments that began with
the introduction of property. The revolution has to be man-made, so agency is important,
but it can only succeed when conditions were ripe. Capitalism has to reach its most
mature stage of development. Dispensationalists see the millennium as inevitable and in
a deeper sense the outcome of a moral decline that began with the introduction of sin in
the Garden of Eden. The millennium will not be manmade, but come about through the
direct intervention of Jesus. Emphasis on inevitability creates the same conundrum for
both movements. If socialist revolution is inevitable, why is it necessary to organize the
vanguard of the proletariat and an international socialist movement? If the millennium
was inevitable, why invest huge resources in revival meetings and conversion?
Bolsheviks believed that organization and agitation could make socialist revolution
happen sooner rather than later. Billy Graham, who accepted the premillennial
eschatology, justified his crusades for Christ by suggesting that good Christians might
hasten the millennium along a bit.
Dispensationalists and Marxists make parallel arguments about history. For both,
the world is full of seeming contradictions, but contradictions that can be reconciled at a
deeper level of understanding. For Marxists, the dialectic provides the analytical tool to
make sense of contradictions and to show how the tensions they generate move history
forward. Contradiction are welcome for this reason. Although dispensationalists do not
employ the dialectic, but they resort to a kind of dialectical reasoning. They revel in
contradictions and see them as signs of change. Like Marxists, they believe that world
must get much worse and seemingly more inexplicable because of its contradictions
before any transformation is likely. Again like Marxists, they see few, if any,
58
developments as purely accidental. Everything, no matter how disturbing or perplexing,
serves a general and higher purpose.176
Dispensationalists and Marxists make predictions based on their study of
prophecy. They infer the unfolding and end of history from current events and their
respective texts. Both sets of predictions have been confounded by events and both
movements have responded to failure in somewhat similar ways. Early Christians
expected Christ to return in their lifetime and were forced to revise their expectations.
Later Christians came to accept the idea that Christ’s return was in the more distant
future. Millennial sects periodically arose in troubled times, their participants convinced
that the current events were fulfilling biblical prophecies. For many thoughtful
Christians the millennium has come to represent a vision that should not be taken literally
but rather used as a source of guidance for confronting everyday life. Like their
millennial predecessors, dispensationalists reject figurative readings of the second
coming and expect Christ to return in the near term, and are undeterred by repeated
failures of their past predictions. There is no hint in their writings that these failures
should prompt a rethinking of their position. Imminent rapture, followed by the
tribulation and millennium remains the message propagated in their churches and the Left
Behind series.
Marxism has a shorter history than Christianity, but its predictions of world
revolution in 1914 and 1945 were unsuccessful, as were later expectations by Chinese,
North Korean and Vietnamese communists of at least an East that was Red. These
failures, and more importantly, the collapse of the Soviet Union and China's embrace of
capitalism, encouraged remaining socialists to rethink their understanding of the
59
millennium. Many became disillusioned while others came around to an understanding,
not unlike their sophisticated Christian counterparts, that reframes a socialist paradise as
a long-term goal and benchmark for present-day political behavior and judgment. In
sharp contrast to Dispensationalism, relatively few Marxists, to my knowledge, predict
imminent revolution. It may be that after repeated setbacks, there will be fewer
dispensationalists or a move among them to defer the rapture to a more distant future.
Marxists and dispensationalists are very different kinds of people ideologically
and demographically. Historically, in Europe and North America at least, Marxists have
been more educated, secular, urban and intellectual than the general population. Minority
groups were overrepresented among their followers. This was particularly true of Jews,
who also tended to be better educated, more secular, urban and intellectual than their
fellow citizens. Jewish participation was greatest in countries where they were rejected
or marginalized by the national culture. Dispensationalists are less well-educated that the
population as whole, more religious and rural, and decidedly non-intellectual. In contrast
to dispensationalists, who shun modern culture, Marxists found many recruits among the
culture producing and consuming classes and the intellectual elite. Very few professors
are attracted to Dispensationalism, and those who are almost invariably teach in churchrun institutions that are millenarian in their orientation.
In personality type there may be more similarity. There is some research
indicating that people attracted to extremist movements of all kinds have a need for
psychological closure. They need, or want, to believe, that the world is ordered and
predictable, and are receptive to ideologies based on totalizing and determinist visions of
society.177 Other research indicates that left and right-wing authoritarians differ from
60
other people in their cognitive styles and motivational needs. Else Frenkel-Brunswick,
who did pioneering work on this subject in conjunction with the development of the
authoritarian personality concept, found that authoritarians display low tolerance for
ambiguity and have a preference for simplistic clichés and stereotypes.178 Summarizing
subsequent research on intolerance of ambiguity, Furnham and Rochester report that it is
associated with a portfolio of related tendencies, including refusal to believe that
individuals can have both good and bad traits, rigid dichotomization of people and
practices, need for certainty and premature closure in information search and
decisionmaking.179
Other researchers maintain that cognitive closure is a means of reducing fear,
anxiety, dissonance, uncertainty and instability.180 Webster and Kruglanski developed a
42-item "Need for Closure Scale" that purports to capture five elements of closure:
preference for order and structure, emotional discomfort arising from ambiguity,
impatience and impulsivity with regard to decision making, desire for security and
predictability and closed-mindedness.181 I have no data on dispensationalists as a whole,
but the Christians in Left Behind display all five elements of closure. The society Jesus
creates in its envisaged millennium encourages and caters to all these traits. It is fair to
assume that LaHaye and Jenkins have an astute understanding of their readership and
have tried to create characters that they will find appealing because they can readily
identify with them.
Similarities in cognitive style and motivated belief may account in part for why
many disillusioned communists became Catholics or joined conservative movements.
Premillennialism has had the same appeal for some former political activists. The poster
61
child may be Christabel Pankhurst, the principal strategist and leader of the British
suffragist movement in the early twentieth century. She initially believed the problems of
the world would be solved once women were enfranchised. World War I and its
aftermath disabused her of these expectations and the hope that a secular paradise was
around the corner. She found, as she put it, a "refuge" in the promised return of Jesus. In
the early 1920s, she became a speaker for the premillenial movement.182
Marx and Engel's version of socialism and Dispensationalism are hostile to
modernity. In this respect, they differ sharply from most socialists and many other
Christians. Socialists and Christians criticized what they saw as the negative economic
and social consequences of industrialization, the self-centered and materialistic values of
the bourgeoisie and the anomie of industrial society. Non-revolutionary socialists have
tended to be optimistic about the future and committed to political action intended to
improve the conditions of the working class. Some Christian movements shared this
outlook, including American evangelicals up to 1914. They espoused reformist agendas
and sponsored a panoply of educational and charitable initiatives. Revolutionary
Marxists and Dispensationalism spurn reform programs because they consider society
utterly corrupt and incapable of reform. Both aspire to destroy it and replace it with
something that is fundamentally pre-modern in its values and practices.
I say pre-modern because, while Marxist images of communism vary, the future
envisaged by Marx and Engels rolls back history by doing away with the industrial
revolution and most of its consequences. Factories are replaced by workshops and
artisanal production restores the intimate relationship between workers and their products
that capitalism destroyed. Bureaucracy is never mentioned and can be assumed to have
62
disappeared. Social relations are face-to-face and a high value is put on leisure and
recreational activities.183 In chapter two, I described how William Morris, a reformoriented socialist, picked up and fleshed out this vision in his utopian writing. Like the
pre-Raphaelites, he imagined a socialist London that is medieval in its economy, customs
and costumes.184 From its inception, Dispensationalism envisaged a millennium that also
does away with industrialization and its consequences. The political order of Left
Behind's millennium is a hierarchy with a leader surrounded by a coterie of faithful
followers. Christ is at its apex but, in contrast to the Soviet Union, and more like Morris'
utopia, there is no bureaucracy or any form of government beyond councils. Laws,
religion and social values are based strictly on the old testament and civil society in all its
manifestations is eliminated. All forms of modern entertainment are expressly forbidden.
There is no hint of an educational system beyond nurseries whose primary job is not so
much to teach as to indoctrinate children. We are told nothing about the economic
underpinnings of the society and must assume it rests on the produce of small,
independent farmers. Differences about religion aside, Marx and the dispensationalists
have a surprisingly similar vision of paradise.
Marxism and Dispensationalism make silk purses out of sows’ ears. The very
features of modernity they abhor – capitalism and moral decline respectively – are
offered as evidence that revolutionary change is around the corner. For both movements,
conditions need to get worse before they can get better. Workers must become poorer
and more desperate, but also brought together in larger productive units for the socialist
revolution to break out. People must become corrupt and greedy enough for the
Antichrist to establish his dominion over them if biblical prophecies are to be fulfilled.
63
This is a psychologically sophisticated strategy because it encourages followers to take
pleasure in the very developments that would otherwise frighten and depress them.
ESCAPING MODERNITY
It is no coincidence that Marxism and Dispensationalism arose in the second half
of the nineteenth century. This was the time when the industrial revolution had revealed
its worst features but not yet its positive promise. It is significant too that
Dispensationalism experienced a remarkable surge in its appeal in the aftermath of the
Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union and its informal empire. The communist
enemy, that Americans held responsible for so much evil and suffering disappeared but
evil and suffering did not. By many they are seen be on the rise as a result of society’s
tolerance of practices abhorrent to religious social conservatives, including sexual
freedom, homosexuality and abortion.
Marxism and Dispensationalism represent different routes for escaping modernity
in the hope of finding human fulfillment. They nevertheless share important
psychological similarities. Dispensationalism is a quintessential representation of
strategy one in that it seeks to reduce interiority and reflexivity through an all-embracing
religious order in which individual differences are minimized and a collective identity
substituted for individual ones. Like Tyndale, Dispensationalists envisage this as a two
stage process. The initial step is creation of a Christian community that lives within but
outside of the larger social order. It is to be followed by a take over of the larger society,
in this instance facilitated by the Tribulation, which all but destroys existing societies,
and the return of Jesus and his establishment of the millennium. In the Introduction, I
64
alluded briefly to Dispensationalism and Marxism as combining elements of both
strategies. Like Dispensationalism, it aspires to reduce interiority and reflexivity through
a collective class-based identity whose adherents, the vanguard of the proletariat and
committed workers form a community within a community, but through revolution
ultimately take over the larger society and remake it in their image. Early Marx
especially, appears consistent with strategy one in that he expected communism to
liberate human potential, a goal that acknowledges individual distinctions and requires
retaining some degree of interiority and reflexivity.185 Stalin's Soviet Union and other
self-proclaimed communist states – most notably North Korea – appear closer to strategy
two in their goals and practices.
Marxists and Dispensationalists share a second important psychological
dimension. Throughout the twentieth century, communist movements structured
themselves as similarly rewarding counter-cultures. In addition to political activities,
they sponsored reading rooms and other educational institutions, self-help activities and
even summer camps. These associations provided entry into a circle of like-minded
comrades who reinforced one's world view and self-esteem. Marx was deeply impressed
the solidarity of socialist workers in Paris:
When communist artisans form associations, education and propaganda
are their first aims. But they very act of associating creates a new need –
the need for a society – and what appeared to be a means has become an
end. The most striking results of this practical development are to be seen
when French socialist workers meet together. Smoking, eating and
drinking are no linger simply means of bringing people together.
65
Company, association, entertainment which also has society as its aim, are
sufficient for them; the brotherhood of man is no empty phrase but a
reality, and the nobility of man shines forth upon us from their toil-worn
bodies."186
Dispensationalists are convinced that the world is coming to an end in the
near future but until then, like their socialist predecessors, encourage believers to
find solace in their Christian community. Such a strategy is emotionally
rewarding but can only be sustained by maintaining a faith strong enough to deny
threatening, if not disconfirming, external realities. In 1960, psychologist Milton
Rokeach warned of the dilemma of dogmatism.
All belief-disbelief systems serve two powerful and conflicting sets of
motives at the same time: the need for a cognitive framework to know and
to understand and the need to ward off threatening aspects of reality. To
the extent that the cognitive need to know is predominant and the need to
ward off threat is absent, open system should result, . . . . But as the need
to ward off threat becomes stronger, the cognitive need to know should
become weaker, resulting in more closed belief systems.187
Dispensationalism provides assurances against threat and offers immediate
emotional rewards and promises of even greater ones following the return of Jesus.
Repeated failures of the rapture or second coming -- most recently those predicted by Left
Behind – do not seem to have shaken the conviction of many believers. Judging from the
history of Marxism, repeated failure inevitably brings disillusionment in its wake. Those
most likely to remain true believers are people for whom belief has become a way of life.
66
Renouncing their faith would necessitate extracting themselves from a community with
which they strongly identify and from which they derive positive emotional and other
rewards. Dispensationalists have tried hard to build and sustain such communities. It
remains to be seen how long and by what means the pull of identity will succeed in the
face of repeated predictive failures.
REFERENCES
1
Donne, "Divine Poems," § 7.
2
Radosh, Rapture Ready!, p. 3.
3
Pew Research Center Publications, When Will Jesus Return?
4
RaptureReady.com Rapture Index, http://www.raptureready.com/rap2.html
5
Rachel Madow Show, “Left Behind Authors Meet Madow,” MSNBC, 27 February
2010, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29496421
6
LaHaye, Revelation Unveiled, p. 10.
7
La Haye, Understanding Bible Prophecy, p. 20.
8
Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, pp. 84-85.
9
Boyer, When Times Shall Be No More, pp. 178, 275-76, notes that a slew of other
figures have periodically been identified as the Antichrist, among them Juan Carlos of
Spain, Moshe Dayan, Mikhail Gorbachev, John F. Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Ronald
Reagan, Sun Myung Moon and Saddam Hussein.
10
“Left Behind Authors Meet Madow."
11
LaHaye and Jenkins, Are We Living in the End Times?, p. 26.
67
12
Clouse, Meaning of the Millennium; Blackstone, Jesus is Coming; Sandeen, Roots of
Fundamentalism, pp. xv-xviii, 162; Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming,
pp. 15-17.
13
Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming, pp. 9-11 for the varieties of
millennialism.
14
15
Hatch, “Millennialism and Popular Religion in the Early Republic.”
Newport, Apocalypse and Millennium, pp. 163-64; Weber, Living in the Shadow of the
Second Coming, pp. 13-16.
16
Newport, Apocalypse and Millennium, p. 166; Weber, Living in the Shadow of the
Second Coming, pp. 43-44.
17
Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, pp. 50-51.
18
Sandeen, Roots of Fundamentalism, pp. 62-70; Scofield, notes to the Scofield
Reference Bible, for the classic exposition of this belief.
19
Hoekma, "Bible and the Future."
20
Sandeen, Roots of Fundamentalism, p. 73; Frykholm,. Rapture Culture, p. 17.
21
Blackstone, Jesus is Coming, pp. 231-33.
22
Scofield, Scofield Reference Bible, and Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth, p. 18.
23
Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, p. 93.
24
Sandeen, Roots of Fundamentalism, pp. 191, 222.; Marsden, Fundamentalism and
American Culture, pp. 55-62
25
McCain, Daniel’s Prophecy, pp. 12-15; Scofield Reference Bible, 915; Weber, Living
in the Shadow of the Second Coming, pp. 17-24; Clouse, Meaning of the Millennium;
68
Glass, “Fundamentalism’s Prophetic Vision of the Jews”; Ross, So It Was True;
Carpenter, Revive Us Again, pp. 97-100; Cooper, Prophetic Fulfillments in Palestine.
26
Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming, pp. 19-20.
27
Mackintosh, Papers on the Lord’s Coming, pp. 101-02.
28
Haldeman, Coming of Christ, pp. 297-325; Munhall, Lord’s Return, pp. 179-80;
Mackintosh, “Double Phase of the Second Advent”; Weber, Living in the Shadow of the
Second Coming, pp. 19-24.
29
30
Ibid., pp. 16-17.
Laws, “Convention Side Lights.” Carpenter, Revive Us Again, pp. 4-5; Marsden,
Fundamentalism and American Culture, p. 4, and “Fundamentalism”; Sandeen, Roots of
Fundamentalism, pp. xiii-xvi.
31
Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, pp. 164-84.
32
Ibid.,, pp. 193-94; Carpenter, Revive Us Again, pp. 33-88, 206.
33
Noll, Princeton Defense of Plenary Verbal Inspiration; Marsden, Fundamentalism and
American Culture, pp. 63-65; Carpenter, Revive Us Again, pp. 70-71.
34
Mauro, Seventy Weeks and the Great Tribulation, pp. 9-12; Weber, Living in the
Shadow of the Second Coming, pp. 9-24, 36-42; Sandeen, Roots of Fundamentalism, pp.
48-66; Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, p. 108.
35
36
37
Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming, pp. 36-37.
Carpenter, Revive Us Again, pp. 9-10.
Sandeen, Roots of Fundamentalism, pp. 214-15; Weber, Living in the Shadow of the
Second Coming, pp. 143-44.
69
38
Haldeman, Signs of the Times, p. 128; Marsden, Fundamentalism and American
Culture, pp. 125-27.
39
LaHaye and Jenkins, Are We Living in the End Times?, p. 74
40
Clouse, Meaning of the Millennium ; Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second
Coming, pp. 9-24, 128-29; Glass, “Fundamentalism’s Prophetic Vision of the Jews”;
Ross, So It Was True; Carpenter, Revive Us Again, pp. 97-100; LaHaye and Jenkins, Are
We Living in the End Times?, pp. 95-120.
41
Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming, pp. 94-97.
42
Carpenter, Revive Us Again, pp. 93-94, citing Louis Bauman, “The Blue Eagle and
Our Duty as Christians,” Sunday School Times, 16 September 1933, pp. 583-84; Walter
P. Knight, “The Mark of the Beast, or is the AntiChrist at Hand?, Moody Monthly 34
(July 1934), p. 493, and “The Blue Eagle,” Revelation 3 (September 1933), p. 329.
43
44
“A Brief History of the Apocalypse,” http://www.abhota.info/end3.htm
“God is Warning of Big Storms, Robertson Says,” Seattle Times, 19 May 2006,
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003004452_pat19.html
45
Burroughs, Titan, Son of Saturn.
46
Lindsey, Late Great Planet Earth, and The 1908s; Boyer, When Times Shall Be No
More, p. 5; “The Great Cosmic Countdown: Hal Lindsey and the Future,” Eternity,
January 1977, p. 21.
47
Lindsey, 1980s.
48
Radosh, Rapture Ready!, p. 81.
49
http://www.leftbehind.com/
50
Ibid., p. 13.
70
51
LaHaye and Jenkins, Rise of the Antichrist Nicolae, pp. 319-20.
52
Ibid., p. 108.
53
Ibid, p. 324.
54
Ibid, p. 144.
55
LaHaye and Jenkins, Indwelling, pp. 242-45.
56
LaHaye and Jenkins, Rise of the Antichrist Nicolae, p. 127.
57
Ibid, p. 73.
58
LaHaye and Jenkins, Assassins, p. 378.
59
LaHaye and Jenkins, Indwelling, pp. 364-68.
60
Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, p. 100.
61
Morgan, “New Testament”; Davies, “Qumran Studies.”; Elwolde, “Language and
Translation of the Old Testament."
62
Elwolde, "Language and Translation of the Old Testament"; Gibson, Language and
Imagery in the Old Testament"; Knibb, "Language, Translation, Versions, and Text of the
Apocrypha"; Porter, "Language and Translation of the New Testament"; Norton,
"Ancient Versions and Textual Transmission of the Old Testament"; Birdsall, "Textual
Transmission and Versions of the New Testament"; Van der Kooij, "Textual Criticism."
63
LaHaye and Jenkins, Rise of the Antichrist Nicolae, pp. 347-48.
64
Ibid., p. 348.
65
LaHaye and Jenkins, Assassins, p. xv.
66
Ibid, p. 90.
67
Ibid, p. 127-31.
68
Ibid, p. 173.
71
69
Ibid, pp. 173-74.
70
Berakhot 31b; Sanhedrin 85a; Nedarim 3a.
71
Kasher, “Interpretation of Scripture in Rabbinic Literature”; Magonet, “Jewish
Interpretation of the Bible"; Gibson, Language and Imagery in the Old Testament.
72
Ezekiel 38:8.
73
LaHaye and Jenkins, Are We Living the End of Times?, pp. 83-87.
74
Ibid pp. ix-x; Daniel 12:4.
75
Ibid., pp. x-xi, 23-24.
76
Bauckham, Theology of the Book of Revelation, p. 152; Currie, Rapture; Rossing,
Rapture Exposed.
77
LaHaye and Jenkins, Left Behind, pp. 159, 171.
78
LaHaye and Jenkins, Rise of the Antichrist Nicolae, p. 133.
79
Ibid, p. 273.
80
LaHaye and Jenkins, Left Behind, p. 274.
81
LaHaye and Jenkins, Rise of the Antichrist Nicolae, p. 145.
82
LaHaye and Jenkins, Left Behind, pp. 70, 436.
83
LaHaye and Jenkins, Assassins, p. 103.
84
LaHaye and Jenkins, Left Behind, pp. 7-8, Rise of the Antichrist Nicolae, p. 140.
85
LaHaye and Jenkins, Rise of the Antichrist Nicolae, p. 143.
86
LaHaye and Jenkins, Soul Harvest, pp. 419-20.
87
LaHaye and Jenkins, Rise of the Antichrist Nicolae, p. 143.
72
88
Kahneman, Slovic and Tversky, Judgment Under Uncertainty, p. 226, and
“Extensional versus Intuitive Reason; Koehler, “Explanation, Imagination, and
Confidence in Judgment”; Lebow, Forbidden Fruit, ch. 6.
89
Jones, Deconstructing the Starships, p. 16.
90
LaHaye and Jenkins, Are We Living the End of Times?, pp. 50-52.
91
Ibid., pp. 168-69.
92
Ibid., pp. 210-11.
93
Ibid., p. 121.
94
Ibid., p. 119.
95
Ibid., pp. 79, 111-112..
96
Ibid., pp. 52-54.
97
Ibid., pp. 50-53.
98
Ibid., p. 53.
99
LaHaye and Jenkins, Kingdom Come, p. xlii.
100
Ibid., p. 120.
101
Ibid., pp. 122-23, 232.
102
Ibid., pp. 71-72.
103
Ibid., pp. 89-90.
104
Ibid., p. 144.
105
Ibid., p. 61.
106
Ibid., p. 156.
107
Ibid., p. 59.
108
Ibid., pp. 46-47.
73
109
Ibid., pp. xlii-xliv.
110
Ibid, p. xliv.
111
Ibid., p. 353.
112
Ibid, p. xxii.
113
Ibid., p. xxiii; Revelation, 6.10.
114
LaHaye and Jenkins, Kingdom Come, p. xiv; Matthew, 25.41.
115
Ibid, pp. xxiv-xxvii.
116
Ibid., p. 352.
117
Ibid., pp. xxxvi-vii.
118
Ibid., p. xli.
119
Ibid., pp. 1, 38- 39.
120
Ibid., p. 3.
121
Ibid., p. 50.
122
Ibid., p. 129.
123
Ibid., p. 4.
124
Ibid., p. 65.
125
Ibid, p. 95.
126
Ibid, p. 319.
127
Sandeen, Roots of Fundamentalism, p. 234.
128
Trumbull, Prophecy's Light, p. 67
129
Brown, Light on the Hills, p. 21.
130
Gaebelein, Conflict of the Ages, pp. 72-99.
131
Ibid, pp. 35-36.
74
132
Ibid, pp. 35-36, 68.
133
Isaiah 9:6-7, 11, 65:17-25, 66:22-24, Zechariah 14:9, Acts 1:6-7, Matthew 25:31-34,
Revelation 5:10, 20:4-6; LaHaye and Jenkins, Are We Living in the End Times?, pp. 4563.
134
LaHaye, “Note” to LaHaye and Jenkins, Kingdom Come, p. xv.
135
LaHaye and Jenkins, Kingdom Come, p. xxix.
136
Ibid., p. 141.
137
LaHaye and Jenkins, Appollyon, pp. 110-13; Mark, pp. 24-28, Indwelling, p. 70.
138
Frykholm, Rapture Culture, pp. 30-31.
139
Ibid., pp. 32-33, for a good discussion of gender roles in Left Behind.
140
Frykholm, Rapture Culture, pp. 24-26; Alexander L. Stephan, conversations with the
author, March 2007.
141
Ibid., pp. 39-40, 77-78; Alexander L. Stephan, conversations with the author, April
2007.
142
Barna Group Research Report, 28 June 2005, "Religious Books Attract a Diverse
Audience Dominated by Women and Boomers," http://www.barna.org/barnaupdate/article/5-barna-update/176-religious-books-attract-a-diverse-audience-dominatedby-women-and-boomers?q=left+behind
143
Barna Group Research Report, "Different Groups Follow Harry Potte, Left Behind
and Jabez," 22 October 2001 http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barnaupdate/61-different-groups-follow-harry-potter-left-behind-and-jabez?q=left+behind
144
Dart, "'Beam Me Up' Theology."
145
Cited in Radosh, Rapture Ready!, p. 7
75
146
On this point, Burridge, "Gospels."
147
This is one reason why some productions of the opera marry off Don Alfonso and
Despina in addition to the two couples.
148
149
On Roth, see Lebow, Forbidden Fruit, ch. 8.
Hanning, Individual in Twelfth-Century Romance, pp. 11-15.
150
Lebow, Forbidden Fruit, for elaboration.
151
Ibid. ch. 3 for this case.
152
Tetlock and Belkin, “Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics.”
153
Dick, Fatherland.
154
Sanchez, Pope Gabriel, for another interesting example.
155
Lebow, Forbidden Fruit, ch. 2 for elaboration.
156
Kennedy, What if Jesus Had Never Been Born?
157
Wikipedia, “Science Fiction,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fantasy
158
Guy Gavriel Kay, “Fiction versus Fantasy,”
http://www.treitel.org/Richard/sf/fantasy.html
159
Nick Gevers, “The Literary Alchemist: An Interview with Michael Swanwick,”
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intms.htm
160
Tolkien, Lord of the Rings.
161
Kay, “Fiction versus Fantasy,”
162
LaHaye and Jenkins, Indwelling, for example.
163
LaHaye and Jenkins, Assassins, pp. 174-75.
164
Rachel Madow Show, “Left Behind Authors Meet Madow,” MSNBC, 27 February
2010, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29496421
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165
Lienesch, Redeeming America, p. 177; Martin, With God on Our Side, pp. 354-55.
166
Robertson, Secret Kingdom, New Millennium and New World Order.
167
Torrey, Return of the Lord Jesus, p. 126.
168
Carpenter, Revive Us Again, pp. 57-75; Ammerman, Bible Believers; Peshkin, God’s
Choices; Bereton, Formation of the Bible Schools; Barkun, "Divided Apocalypse." Rice,
Home, for a guidebook of fundamentalist practices.
169
Wisneski, Lytle and Skitka, “Gut Reactions.”
170
Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, pp. 202-04.
171
Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming, pp. 102-104, for this parallel.
172
Lippmann, Drift and Mastery; Croly, Promise of American Life; Hofstadter, Age of
Reform; Eisenach, Lost Promise of Progressivism.
173
Löwith, Meaning in History; Popitz, entfremdete Mensch, p. 99; Wackenheim,
Faillite de la religion d'après Karl Marx, p. 200, contends that via Hegel, Marx links up
with the soteriological schema underlying the Judeo-Christian tradition;McLellan, Marx,
pp. 96-97, rejects these comparisons to Christianity,
174
Karl Marx to A. Ruge, in P. Nerrlich, ed., Briefwechsel (Berlin, 1886), p. 295, cited in
McLellan, Karl Marx, p. 63.
175
Marx, “After the Revolution”; Engels, “On Morality.”
176
Harding, Book of Jerry Falwell, p. xi.
177
Sorrentino and Roney, Uncertain Mind; Schaller, Boyd, Yohannes and O’Brien,
Prejudiced Personality Revisited; Webster and Kruglanski, “Individual Differences in
Need for Cognitive Closure; Jost et al, "Are Needs to Manage Uncertainty and Threat
Associated With Political Conservatism or Ideological Extremity?; Jost, Glaser,
77
Kruglanski and Sulloway, “Political Conservatism as a Motivated Social Cognition,” for
a review of the literature on the the cognitive styles and motivated needs of
conservatives.
178
Frenkel-Brunswick, “Tolerance Toward Ambiguity as a Personality Variable,”
“Intolerance of Ambiguity as an Emotional Perceptual Personality Variable,” and
“Personality Theory and Perception.”
179
Furnham and Ribchester, “Tolerance of Ambiguity”; Budner, “Intolerance of
Ambiguity as a Personality Variable”; Wilson, Dynamic Theory of Conservatism;
Sorrentino and Roney, Uncertain Mind; Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences. For
critiques, see Turner, Prejudiced Personality and Social Change; Verkuyten and
Hagendoorn, “Prejudice and Self-Categorization"; Reynolds, Turner, Haslam and Ryan,
“Role of Personality and Group Factors in Explaining Prejudice."
180
Land, “Fear of Equality”; Nias, “Attitudes to the Common Market.”
181
Sorrentino and Rooney, Uncertain Mind; Webster and Kruglanski, “Individual
Differences in Need for Cognitive Closure.”
182
Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming, pp. 103-04; Pankhurst, Lord
Cometh!, p. 9
183
184
Marx, "After the Revolution."
Morris, News from Nowhere.
185
Beginning with Engels, a sharp distinction has been made between the eaerly and late
Marx, beginning with his 1845 Theses on Feuerbach. In recent years, this has effectively
been challenged by McClellan, Karl Marx; Geras, Marx and Human Nature ; Colleti,
Karl Marx.
78
186
Marx, "Critique of Hegel's Doctrine of the State."
187
Rokeach, Open and Closed Mind, p. 67.
79