[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. :)

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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."

[ladyinred]

My Gosh this is one of the stupidest things yet! These people really have gone off the deep end! I bought all of the books, read them , enjoyed most of them, and I don't even believe in the rapture! So there you paranoid liberal nut! (not you mr. silver, the author)

[ColdSteelTalon]

Well, The Gospel has two messages the most important is the need for everyone to become saved. And they to be saved.

The second is that Christ will return to establish his government on the earth for a certain period of time. Which is what the left behind books are about. It is a "what if" story based much on what the Bible says about the last days before the return of the Messiah. The return of Christ and the end of the world as we know it is a good thing for those who are saved but not a good thing for those who chose to follow the Antchrist.

The reason why so many Christians like the book is that much of it is based on the Bible and so it can be a teaching tool as well as captivating story.

As for me I rely on the Bible. It has much more to say about those things than any story man can conjure up.

[Publius6961]

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

At first blush this seems the reasonable explanation, but still, something must have acted as a catalyst; there is more at play than abysmal ignorance.
I enjoyed a series of Dirk Pitt novels, yet was never accused of being an Atlantis freak or Nazi conspiracy paranoid.

It all connects to the late 70s outing of the perverts and the deviants. Their quest for legitimacy fuels the mindless rage and constant search for a lever with which to finalize their transformation into "normalcy". They wanted toleration? They got it. They want more? they're doomed to fail, because faith is like an iceberg (no pun intended). That most of us do not wear it on our sleeve, like they wear their deviancy, does not mean it is not there. And it is difficult to dismiss. It is huge. The irritating bible thumpers are like the part of the iceberg above water. The real body of Christianity is hidden from view. But it thinks, it votes and it responds.

Good luck to idiot perverts and their sympathizers.

Most of us Christians do not advertise our faith, and it is a huge mistake to assume that it suddenly appeared with the publication of a series that is fiction.

D'OH!

[familyofman]

"...it’s possible to read and even enjoy a book without subscribing to its tenets."

I agree wholeheartedly. I'm an atheist and have enjoyed the first 4 books in the series. Although, the story is moving a bit slowly & some of the character development seems weak, something like a Tom Clancy experience.

[joeyGibson]

I tried to read the first book, Left Behind, but I was so bored that I didn't make it past 100 pages. The characters just did nothing for me. I couldn't muster enough interest in them to really care what happened to them. Needless to say, I've not read the others...