The fact that there are people willing to vocalize this sentiment is troubling.
The fact that there are people willing to sit there and listen to it without calling them on it is more troubling.
And I suspect that since the Bible is written at an adult level and the Left Behind series is written at third-grade level, more people are taking the word of a sub-dime-story quality novel at face value rather than going through the difficult task of searching the Scriptures.
If book sales are an indication, it is sweeping the land. People are prone to mental laziness by nature.
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Seems like you are erroneously lumping together those who enjoy the series (myself included) with those who hold the extremist view you spelled out.
They are no more one and the same than those who like baseball (many, many) are the same as diehard Montreal Expo fans (few, few).
You're right: People are lazy, but that doesn't mean Left Behind isn't high entertainment. Certainly more edifying than Harry Potter, etc. (And, people were lazy long before Tim LaHaye started cranking out the LB series.)
Seems like you are erroneously lumping together those who enjoy the series (myself included) with those who hold the extremist view you spelled out.Not really. I think I made myself clear earlier when I described what a left Behind cultist was. I never said everyone who read the books was an extremist. Just a poor judge of literature.
They are no more one and the same than those who like baseball (many, many) are the same as diehard Montreal Expo fans (few, few).
Perhaps, but I have never had an Expo fan tell me I was unregenerate if I didn't support their team.
You're right: People are lazy, but that doesn't mean Left Behind isn't high entertainment . . . (And, people were lazy long before Tim LaHaye started cranking out the LB series.)
LB is low entertainment. And I didn't claim that LB made people lazy: to the contrary, Mr. LaHaye saw people's existing intellectual laziness and decided to exploit it for profit.
Certainly more edifying than Harry Potter, etc.
A cartoonish caricature of Bible prophecy isn't edifying. And comparing LB favorably with Harry Potter is pretty easy - the Potter books are also garbage, albeit garbage of a more sinister sort.
On the other hand, the Curious George books are more edifying and more ably written than either LB or HP.