Fearful faith in end times novels. - Review - book review

National Catholic Reporter, June 15, 2001 by Teresa Malcolm

Best-selling Left Behind series makes an industry of apocalypse

A Protestant friend told me about her memories of childhood nightmares about the "Rapture." In her church, sermons on the subject were common: Someday, without warning, Christ would snatch away to heaven all the true Christians, leaving behind the unfortunates who would have to endure the seven-year Tribulation under the reign of the Antichrist. One night when she was about 8 years old, my friend woke up to find her parents gone, and she was convinced that they had been "raptured" and she had been left behind. What a relief to discover they had just briefly stepped out of the house.

Speculation about the end times did not play a part in my Catholic education, so this seemed all quite foreign to me. I heard her tale just as I was diving feet-first into the end of the world in its most prominent pop culture form: the Left Behind novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. What I found therein -- melodramatic end-of-the-world horrors heightened by a vindictive vision of faith -- gave me nightmares too, and at the age of 33. To save my sleep and my sanity, I had to stop reading the books just before bedtime. My friend says I should have considered myself warned.

The novels, which fictionalize the events following the Rapture, number at eight and counting. They regularly make The New York Times bestseller list, and have spawned a children's book series, Christian music CDs, radio dramas and commentary books by the authors. A movie based on the first novel was produced by Cloud Ten Pictures, a Christian company specializing in apocalyptic films. "Left Behind: The Movie" sold well when it was released on video in October 2000, but did poorly in its theatrical release in the spring of this year. Now there is a TV series in the works, set to debut on the Pax cable channel in January. Then there's the various marketing trinkets (get your Left Behind teddy bear!) and clothing.

The Left Behind books reflect an interpretation of the Bible -- particularly the apocalyptic books such as Revelation and Daniel -- and the history of the world called dispensational premillennialism. These beliefs focus on a detailed timeline of the events at the end of the world: the Rapture, the seven-year Tribulation, Christ's return and defeat of the Antichrist and the beginning of Christ's 1,000-year reign.

This timeline for the Tribulation provides the template for the plots of the Left Behind books. The period is marked by one world government (under the Antichrist), one world religion, wars, natural disasters, plagues, prophets who breathe fire, millions of Jews converting to Christianity, not to mention the famous "mark of the beast" that the Antichrist will force upon his followers.

Living through all this are the fictional heroes of the Left Behind books, characters who realized the error of their ways shortly after the Rapture, accepted Jesus as their savior, but must suffer through the events of the Tribulation until Christ appears again. Prominent among them are the improbably named Rayford Steele, an airline pilot, and journalist Cameron "Buck" Williams (so nicknamed because he bucks authority).

Great literature the books are not. They are awkwardly written, if occasionally effective in conveying the chaos of the end times. They are bogged down by endless plot ruts. You can skip 50 pages (in a 375-page book), and nothing new will have happened. This may account for the fact that by book eight, we're only halfway through the seven-year Tribulation.

If the literary shortcomings left me bored, the series' mean-spirited vision of faith left me depressed. For Rayford and Buck and the rest of the characters who get saved following the Rapture, it's their own fault they have to endure the Tribulation, but at least now they won't go to hell. That appears to be the most important thing their newfound faith offers them -- no hell. Plus a certain clubbiness with other believers, a rather smug "We're in on the truth" attitude.

Catholics' chances of making the Rapture here are slim. The beliefs of dispensational premillennialism have a history of anti-Catholicism. The Left Behind novels downplay that somewhat. Two prominent Catholics are noted as having made the Rapture: Mother Teresa (the first novel was published in 1996, before her death) and the pope. No, not John Paul II, but the fictional John XXIV, who "served only a controversial five months" before he was raptured, we're told. He apparently was promulgating doctrine more in line with the "heresy" of Martin Luther than with Catholic orthodoxy.

Cardinal Peter Mathews of Cincinnati becomes Pope Peter II, but quickly tosses aside Catholic orthodoxy to become the leader of the new one world religion, called Enigma Babylon. Enigma Babylon, which takes the Vatican as its headquarters, is a synthesis of all religions, achieving heights of relativism the likes of which Cardinal Ratzinger has never seen. But maybe Ratzinger gets raptured too and misses it. Who knows?