March/April 2003

Left Behind!
Will it happen to you?

by Rod Dreher

In 1980, I was 13 years old, and someone had given me a copy of Hal Lindsey's mega-selling The Late Great Planet Earth to read. The Soviets were in Afghanistan, the American hostages were in Tehran, I had become fixated on the fear of nuclear war and -- suddenly, thanks to Late Great, the chaos all made sense. There was no need to be afraid. This was all part of God's plan. Accept Jesus as your personal Savior, and you wouldn't have to suffer through the worst of what was to come, for you would be spirited away in the Rapture. And if you didn't -- well, too bad for you when the Antichrist comes knocking.

The premillenial Rapture is the belief, held by many Protestant Christians, that believers will, "in the twinkling of an eye," be taken body and soul into heaven to meet Jesus Christ -- this, just as the world is on the brink of seven years of unprecedented suffering and strife, preceding the Second Coming and the end of history. If you think the end of the world is upon us, it's easy to see why believing you won't have to suffer the worst of it would be calming. On the other hand, you might exchange one set of fears for another. When I was in Late Great's grip, I would wake up every morning in a mild state of panic, wondering if the Rapture had happened while I was sleeping, and I'd beenleft behind!

I don't believe in the premillenial Rapture anymore, but it's easy to see why so many people want to. For Christians and others whose religious beliefs predict an apocalyptic final act (even Islam and the New Age have their own versions), these days are unusually anxious. It isn't difficult to find in today's headlines -- wars, rumors of wars, natural disasters, plagues, religious strife and technology run amok -- evidence for the belief that history is quickening toward some sort of climax.

Given the amount of popular publicity given to the Rapture and its attendant doctrines, it may surprise (and disappoint) many Christians to learn that this set of beliefs, generally called "dispensationalism," is not explicitly taught by the Bible, nor has ever been widely held by Christians.

In fact, neither Roman Catholicism nor Eastern Orthodoxy, which together include most of the world's Christians who live now and who have ever lived, profess dispensationalist eschatology (which means the study of the End Times). The Rapture is also alien to the historical Protestant confessions. Martin Luther had never heard of such a thing, nor had John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli or any other Protestant divine until a pair of 19th-century British small-sect pastors developed the notion apparently independent of each other. One of the men, John Nelson Darby, traveled widely in North America between 1859 and 1874, where his dispensationalist teachings spread like wildfire (for a more detailed explanation of this theology from a dispensationalist viewpoint, see page 9).

Given current world events, particularly in the Middle East and Europe, the dispensationalist fire continues to roar among Christians, who understandably want to know if today's headlines can be explained and tomorrow's headlines can be predicted from ancient Scripture. Unfortunately, many Christians are under the impression that dispensationalist teaching -- on Christianity's theological fringe, historically speaking -- is the first and last word on the matter. Most Catholic priests, as well as their mainline Protestant counterparts, downplay or ignore their congregations' natural -- and sociologically predictable -- interest in the End Times, leaving lay believers open to instruction by those who, however misguided, take it seriously. That's why Paul Thigpen, a Yale-trained religious historian and Catholic convert, wrote The Rapture Trap.

Though he writes from a Catholic perspective, Thigpen, an ex-Pentecostal and former editor of Charisma magazine, takes care to demonstrate in the book how none of the leaders of the Reformation believed in the Rapture. He says the "historical myopia" of American culture leaves people vulnerable to those who can exploit ignorance of the past with convincing presentations of vivid theologies. Besides, America has always been fertile ground for apocalyptic religion.

"In the early days, the Puritans thought the Kingdom of God would start in North America, in their colony," Thigpen says. "We have several large denominations in America, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, who owe their existence to millennial fervor."

Eschatalogically-focused expressions of faith have swelled in popularity during times of social distress and dislocation, such as after the Civil War, and during the period of rapid industrialization and immigration. There was another great surge following World War II, says Thigpen, and again in the 1970s, as a reaction to countercultural upheaval. The dispensationalist apologetic The Late Great Planet Earth was the best-selling nonfiction book of the decade, and though he has never apologized for his erroneous predictions in that book, author Hal Lindsey continues to be considered by many an authority on biblical prophecy. Being a dispensationalist evangelist means never having to say you're sorry.

"When times look tough and threatening, perhaps people find a comfort in believing in the Rapture, that God will help them escape events before they become too bad," Thigpen says. "Ideas have consequences. One, the Rapture doctrine ignores the redemptive power of suffering, which is a powerful Christian theme. Two, the Bible also shows that God chastises his people as well as their enemies; believers share in suffering as well. Three, if people wrongly believe Christians won't be around for the persecution that Scripture tells us will precede the Second Coming, they won't prepare themselves spiritually or otherwise."

"What we're dealing with are people who are scared and confused by what's going on in the world today, and who aren't getting the information they need to separate what's real from what's vain and even harmful speculation," Thigpen says. "As Christians, we believe Jesus is coming back, and we have to be ready for that to happen at any moment. But this game of 'plug the headline into the Scripture verse,' or into the latest message from a supposed apparition, is a losing proposition." 

Rod Dreher is a Senior Writer at National Review Online.

Left Behind: Prophecy or Fantasy? by Peter Chattaway End-times books always create, and cash in on, a sense of urgency. The Left Behind industry -- books, movies, clothes, even a race car -- is becoming the most successful end-times phenomenon yet, not only because it is riding a wave of millennial interest but because of some first-class marketing and some compelling storytelling by Jerry Jenkins, the principal writer. But the Left Behind craze is just the latest incursion of an evangelical end-times subculture that has simmered beneath the surface of mainstream pop culture for at least three decades. Although the books will provide millions of non-Christians a close encounter with evangelical faith, they are based on beliefs about the end of the world that are of fairly recent origin and are widely disputed even among conservative Christians. The End According to Whom? Left Behind, the first book, became a publishing juggernaut soon after its 1995 debut. The series has now sold more than 30 million copies. The two most recent volumes, The Indwelling and The Mark, topped the New York Times Bestseller List. Since publishing the first book, Tyndale House in Wheaton, Ill., has doubled both its staff and revenue. In addition to the books, another 10 million related items, such as wallpaper and postcards, have been sold. The Left Behind brand also includes a spin-off series for juvenile readers, a website that attracts 60,000 hits a day, one not-so-phenomenal movie and a sequel in the works, an upcoming series on PAX TV, an interactive online game, screensavers and sponsorship of racers on the Winston Cup and Craftsman Truck circuits. Much more than an example of successful crossover marketing, it has become a pop culture phenomenon. Belief in the Rapture is so pervasive among evangelicals -- who pride themselves in their literal interpretation of the Bible -- that many don't realize it is a relatively recent doctrine with little basis in the Scriptures. It started with a novel, written by Jenkins to follow an end-times outline offered by Tim LaHaye, a fixture in the evangelical world. LaHaye and Jenkins have since produced eight books of a total 12 planned, with Jesus set to return in the final book, Glorious Appearing, due out in 2004. The storyline features a Rapture in which millions of God-fearing people are zapped instantly into heaven, the rise of a Romanian Antichrist and use of a computer-chip implant as the mark of the Beast. The central characters, left behind after the Rapture, get a second chance at salvation. The books move chronologically from the Rapture through seven years of tribulation leading up to the return of Christ. The end-times scenario of Left Behind has drawn divergent reactions from Christians. Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Episcopalians and United Methodists generally think Jesus will return and judge everyone immediately, then reign forever. Leaders in these denominations argue that the notion of nonbelievers left behind for seven years is wrong, a misreading of the book of Revelation, which is a difficult, symbolic text. Belief in the Rapture is so pervasive among evangelicals -- who pride themselves in their literal interpretation of the Bible -- that many don't realize it is a relatively recent doctrine with little basis in the Scriptures. Revelation: According to John Darby or the Apostle John? Most articles on the Left Behind series have said it is based on the book of Revelation, but that is only partly true. The worldview reflected in these books and films can be traced back to the teachings of John Nelson Darby, a former Anglo-Irish priest who founded the Plymouth Brethren sect in the 19th century, and whose views were popularized on this continent by the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909. Darby tried to synthesize the Bible's many prophetic passages into an interpretative scheme he called dispensationalism. He believed that world history, past and future, was divided into distinct eras, or dispensations, and that God had a different way of dealing with humanity in each of them. Like a number of Christians, Darby was a premillennialist -- that is, he believed the world would have to endure seven years of great suffering before Jesus could return and reign over the earth in person during the Millennium. However, it was Darby who introduced the Rapture -- based on the prediction in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 that believers will "meet the Lord in the air." Before the seven years of suffering could begin, Darby believed, Jesus would scoop up all the true believers and take them to heaven, so that they could avoid the horrors of the Antichrist's reign. Ah, Millennialists! Darby's views were not widely accepted at first. Most Christians, following the lead of Saint Augustine, were either amillennialists -- who believed the Millennium should be understood as a metaphor for the age of the Church -- or postmillennialists, who believed that it was up to Christians to perfect the world and thus usher in the Millennium themselves. According to these views, Jesus would return after the Millennium had already taken place. In more recent years, Christians who refuse to get sidetracked by this debate have quipped that they are "panmillennialists" -- that is, they believe it will all "pan out" in the end. Most evangelicals were postmillennialists, and it was this belief in the need for social transformation that fueled their efforts to abolish slavery and win the rights of women. But by the early 20th century, they were growing discouraged. True reform was difficult if not impossible. Missionaries overseas met with resistance. Churches back home turned to more liberal interpretations of the Bible. The Christianization of the world seemed increasingly unlikely. In the 1920s, fundamentalists were pushed even further to the margins of society, following the public relations disasters of Prohibition and the Scopes trial. The idea that God would remove all the true believers and then exact his judgment on the rest of the world appealed to an increasingly marginalized community. Instead of saving the world, some evangelicals began to get involved in activities that would bring the world closer to its end. Dispensationalists believed that the Jews would return to Israel before Jesus returned, and some of them campaigned on behalf of the Zionist movement. In 1948, their efforts were successful, and the modern state of Israel was created. For many evangelicals, the end of the world was now just around the corner. And when the world went through the massive social, spiritual, political and economic upheavals of the late 1960s, Hal Lindsey popularized dispensationalism once again in a book called The Late Great Planet Earth, which came out in 1970 and became one of the hottest books of the decade, selling over 18 million copies Lindsey strongly hinted that he expected the Rapture to take place sometime in the 1980s, after the establishment of Israel. He was not alone in this belief. When I was in the early hormonal stages of adolescence, I came across a friend's copy of a book entitled Will Christ Return by 1988? 101 Reasons Why, and I lamented that the Rapture would most likely take place while I was still a virgin. This worldview has had all sorts of political and social consequences. Although Jesus himself blessed peacemakers, many evangelicals are suspicious of peace talks, especially in the Middle East. In 1981, James Watt, Secretary of the Interior under Ronald Reagan, famously told Congress that there was little point in protecting the environment, since the Second Coming could be just around the corner. Marketing Fear To the unbeliever, the end-times industry is no doubt funny, if perhaps a little creepy. Yet the people who tell these stories in book, music and film want very much to be taken seriously, and Left Behind is their most earnest effort yet. They know that book, record and box office sales translate to cultural clout, something evangelicals crave. Although these writers and filmmakers claim their first goal is to win souls, some people will ask if these artists are selling their own. There are other moral questions posed by the end-times worldview. As Christian ethicist David Gushee points out, the Left Behind series capitalizes on "the most passionately held fears and suspicions of a certain strain of American evangelical Christianity." It is a worldview, warns Gushee, that is built on "anti-multilateralism, anti-pacifism, anti-United Nations, anti-internationalism, anti-ecumenism, anti-Catholicism [and] conspiracy-theory thinking," all elements the conservative scholar finds in Left Behind.  Peter Chattaway is a free-lance film critic in British Columbia, Canada, and associate editor at B.C. Christian News (peter@chattaway.com). This story includes contributions from Karen Long for Religion News Service.

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