Getting It Wrong: "Left Behind" and the Mainstream Press

BreakPoint with Charles Colson ^ | April 27, 2004 | Charles Colson

[Mr. Silverback]

What will probably be this year’s biggest book-publishing event took place a few weeks ago. It wasn’t the latest thriller by John Grisham or the sixth Harry Potter book; it was Glorious Appearing, the final installment in the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.

The mainstream media, which usually ignores happenings in the Christian publishing world, took notice this time. But, as usual, they got matters of Christian faith and practice wrong.

Writer Joan Didion, as Wheaton literature professor Alan Jacobs noted, regards Left Behind as “the key to unlocking the hidden agenda of the Bush administration . . . ”—reasoning, if that’s the word, that since the president’s “preferred constituency” has made Left Behind a best-seller, they must be trying to turn what’s in the book into reality. Bush’s Christian faith only deepened Didion’s suspicions—talk about conspiracy theories.

It doesn’t take much to see the flaws in Didion’s logic. But as Jacobs points out, it’s possible to read and even enjoy a book without subscribing to its tenets. What’s more, apart from the fact that Christ will return and that “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess,” orthodox Christian beliefs about the Second Coming are all over the lot. The uniformity that Didion sees is the stereotype conjured up by her overheated imagination.

Amy Johnson Frykholm, a cultural studies professor at Colorado Mountain College, draws a similar conclusion in her new book, Rapture Culture. She credits the Left Behind series with fomenting a “new engagement with the world” among American Christians.

This is nonsense. The civil-rights movement, the pro-life movement, the pro-family movement, and other forms of engagement predate these books by years. As reviewer Stephen Prothero put it, it’s not as though Christians “had their heads buried in the sand before LaHaye and Jenkins joined forces.”

Mistakes like Didion’s and Frykholm’s are possible because of abysmal ignorance of religious truth among many reporters. If these folks were familiar with their subject, they’d realize that, ironically, the beliefs reflected in the Left Behind novels are more likely to produce cultural withdrawal than cultural engagement.

That’s because, as Jacobs wrote in the Boston Globe, this viewpoint takes the position that cultural and social trajectories only travel in a downward direction. Societies will continue to deteriorate until the “only option for redemption is the Second Coming.” If that’s true, then attempting to renew culture is, at best, futile and, at worst, opposed to God’s sovereign purposes.

In fact, taken to its logical extreme, bad news for the culture becomes good news for the Christian, since it’s seen as hastening Christ’s return. That’s one of the problems with this eschatology, because it can often lead to Christian indifference.

Thankfully, most Christians don’t think that way. They understand that Christian hope and love of neighbor, the basis for our engagement, are not in tension with one another. They are manifestations of the same truth: that in God’s good timing, this world will be remade into what God intends it to be.

None of this is hard to figure out—that is, of course, if your goal is to report fairly. Most journalists, however, when it comes to the Christian faith, sadly prefer unfair characterizations.

[Mr. Silverback]

I have not read the Left Behind books, so can't really comment on the specifics, but the pattern of press ignorance and fear is something I know all too well.

Mistakes like Didion’s and Frykholm’s are possible because of abysmal ignorance of religious truth among many reporters.

Close. One can be ignorant of spiritual truth without being ignaorant of the basic beliefs of those who embrace that truth. Reporter's ignorance about what evangelicals and Catholics believe doesn't just stem from their lack of saving knowledge of Christ, it stems from their total ignoarance of the people who follow Christ--IIRC, there are fewer reporters who attend church or synagogue regularly than there are that vote GOP. It's like me trying to write about Bhuddism without knowing any Bhuddists, knowing anything about Bhuddist practice or caring much about getting it right.

Here's an FR thread on Jacob's article, and there are links to the other articles mentioned at the Breakpoint source document.

[Mr. Silverback]

BreakPoint/Chuck Colson Ping!

If anyone wants on or off my BreakPoint Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.

[Restorer]

It's like me trying to write about Bhuddism without knowing any Bhuddists, knowing anything about Bhuddist practice or caring much about getting it right.

Or not being able to spell Buddhism. :)

[Rocket1968]

Bump

[Physicist]

In fact, taken to its logical extreme, bad news for the culture becomes good news for the Christian, since it’s seen as hastening Christ’s return.

The relish with which Jack Van Impe reports disasters is what makes his show so morbidly fascinating.

[bcoffey]

In fact, taken to its logical extreme, bad news for the culture becomes good news for the Christian, since it's seen as hastening Christ's return.

Rewritten correctly:In fact, taken to its logical extreme, bad news for the culture USA becomes good news for the Christian Democrat Party, since it's seen as hastening Christ's their own return [to power].

[Physicist]

Once more: In fact, taken to its logical extreme even in its more moderate forms, bad news for the culture USA becomes good news for the Christian Democrat Party, since it's seen as hastening Christ's their own return [to power].

[Mr. Silverback]

Or not being able to spell Buddhism. :)

Ouch! Get me a corpsman with some bacitracin, stat!

[stars & stripes forever]

In fact, taken to its logical extreme, bad news for the culture becomes good news for the Christian, since it’s seen as hastening Christ’s return.

I personally see the Left Behind series as "Revelations for Dummies" textbooks for people left on earth after the Rapture....I suspect those people will be clamoring to get a set.

[SedVictaCatoni]

as Wheaton literature professor Alan Jacobs noted, regards Left Behind as “the key to unlocking the hidden agenda of the Bush administration . . . ”—reasoning, if that’s the word, that since the president’s “preferred constituency” has made Left Behind a best-seller, they must be trying to turn what’s in the book into reality.

I'm a devout Christian, and I find the idea that the Bush Administration would be making policy based on goofy non-Scriptural dispensationalism as alarming as basing it on Mithraism.

[MHGinTN]

The series will likely be foundation of the 'book burnings' world-wide.

[Taliesan]

That’s because, as Jacobs wrote in the Boston Globe, this viewpoint takes the position that cultural and social trajectories only travel in a downward direction. Societies will continue to deteriorate until the “only option for redemption is the Second Coming.” If that’s true, then attempting to renew culture is, at best, futile and, at worst, opposed to God’s sovereign purposes.

Actually, the Christian view is that society will inevitably deteriorate, and that this is not God's will.

I don't know why this is so hard for people to grasp.

[Mr. Silverback]

I'm a devout Christian, and I find the idea that the Bush Administration would be making policy based on goofy non-Scriptural dispensationalism as alarming as basing it on Mithraism.

Yes, but they're not, that's the whole point of the article. I'd be surprised if Left Behind is on Dubya's reading list, much less a policy blueprint! Colson's whole point is that the press sees Dubya going to church without getting Oval Office intern service, and they immediately think, "Bible-thumping threat to everything that is right and good and precious! Gollum1 Gollum!"

[Taliesan]

bad news for the culture becomes good news for the Christian, since it’s seen as hastening Christ’s return.

I've been in fundamentalist churches all my life and I've never met a person who thought that bad news "hastens Christ's return". And I've known some ignorant, illiterate Christians.

[Mr. Silverback]

I personally see the Left Behind series as "Revelations for Dummies" textbooks for people left on earth after the Rapture....

Priceless!

[Galatians513]

Mistakes like Didion’s and Frykholm’s are possible because of abysmal ignorance of religious truth among many reporters. If these folks were familiar with their subject, they’d realize that, ironically, the beliefs reflected in the Left Behind novels are more likely to produce cultural withdrawal than cultural engagement.

Bingo!

[TheBattman]

non-Scriptural dispensationalism

You might not want to open that can of worms again - it's been opened here with great debate.....

I believe you are confusing "non-scriptural" with "difference in interpretation".

If I choose to believe that Christ will raputre his Saints (the Saints referred to who will not experience the tribulation (wrath to come) - Biblical) prior to unleashing judgements on the remaining non-believers - how does that change my Salvation status? My faith rides solidly on Jesus Christ, His suffering and death to pay for my sins, and His resurection in victory over death.

Amazing how every single denomination can be picked apart if the Bible is interpreted one way or the other. The truth of the matter is, pre-Tribulation rapture is growing in "popularity". I simply cannot believe this growth is simply because of this book series.

[The kings dead]

Bishops warn Catholics about 'Left Behind' books

June 6, 2003

BY CATHLEEN FALSANI

The Roman Catholic bishops of Illinois are condemning the best-selling, Christian-themed Left Behind books as "anti-Catholic."

They cite story lines they say are offensive--including one that involves an American cardinal who becomes the right-hand man of the Antichrist.

The Illinois bishops plan to issue a statement to Catholics next week calling the series of novels by fundamentalist Christian authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins anti-Catholic.

They also plan to urge Catholics not to confuse the apocalyptic stories in the Left Behind books with Catholic teaching about the Second Coming of Christ.

"Our main point . . . is to make sure people who are teaching the Catholic faith are not relying on Left Behind books," said Zach Wichmann, associate director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, which represents all 16 Roman Catholic bishops in the state.

"The books are actually anti-Catholic," Wichmann said.

[...]

In the series' second book, Tribulation Force, the fictional Cardinal Peter Matthews of Cincinnati emerges as a leading religious force after the newly installed pope, who had become a born-again Christian espousing Protestant doctrines, disappears in the rapture.

The malevolent Matthews, a moral reprobate, befriends Nicolae Jetty Carpathia, the Antichrist character.

Together, they build a one-world religion, which Matthews, as pontiff, eventually leads from "New Babylon" (in old Rome), while persecuting Christians "left behind" on earth during the seven-year period known as the tribulation.

[...]

The Illinois bishops also are upset about statements LaHaye has made in some of his nonfiction books that have been harshly critical of Catholicism, calling it "Babylonian mysticism," Wichmann said.

"He's a rabid anti-Catholic," said Carl Olson, author of the new book Will Catholics Be 'Left Behind'?: A Catholic Critique of the Rapture and Today's Prophecy Preachers (Ignatius Press), and a self-described convert from fundamentalism to Catholicism.

"He is convinced, and he teaches very clearly in his nonfiction books, that the Catholic church is apostate, it is false, and it is not Christian."

[Buggman]

Just the opposite, in fact: The Bible teaches that Christ's return is not predicated on things getting really bad, but on the completion of the Great Commission and the full number of the Gentiles being brought into His Body. A fallen culture (for which the blame can in fact be laid at the feet of the lukewarm pulpits found in most churches) in the West could be seen to slow those fulfillments down rather than speeding them up.

Of course, ultimately Christ will come when He wills, not when we try to get Him to. While I believe that the time is near for various reasons, the disintegration of America's Christian culture (which seems to be slowing finally) is not really one of them.

[highlander_UW]

Ouch! Get me a corpsman with some bacitracin, stat!

Quick, get this man a medal!