ImmortalTechnique

ashamed to say I've read the whole series... I started before my deconversion... and they just kind of suck you in... they are a quick read if you skip the sermons (which are sometimes pages long)


is this REALLY what Christians believe is coming soon? Jesus in the clouds et all?

it seems more to me like this is what they dream of Christianity being... god is certainlly a lot more active in these books than he appears to be today

KnightWhoSaysNi

No, I haven't read them, but read some of the synopses and segments from the LB website.

When people think of Jesus, they often think of a kind person who goes out and helps the poor, disenfranchised, and the oppressed. Kind of like Gandhi.

But the Left Behind series makes a Jesus into how fundamentalist Christians seem to want him to be: that of the god of the Old Testament. Instead of a forgiving, pacifistic, compassionate, Gandhi-like figure, you have a vengeful, violent, war-like Jesus. And anyone who doesn't see the world they do is damned, evil, depraved, and deserve to be destroyed.

An unfortunate consequence of this, as Christians desire to become like Jesus, is that they embrace reactionary, xenophobic political and social views that could be considered vengeful, war-like, and violent. Somebody even wrote a spin-off "military series" for Left Behind! A hell of lot of them support Shrub and the neocons' imperialist wars. Apparently, they think if they start war in the middle east, it'll speed up the time table for Armageddon.

I invite you to read some threads at the Rapture Ready forum. You'll come across posts where people advocate war with Iran and Syria, nuking Damascus, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, support of the Iraq war and neocon imperialism, derision of "Muzzies," "pals," Europeans, etc.. etc....

On the lighter side, Al Franken, while interviewing Gene Lyons, discussed and poked fun at the religious right and the Left Behind series on one of his radio shows. You can download and listen to it here:

http://www.airamericaplace.com/upload/aaof111504.mp3

Go to about 1 hour, 34 min. into the recording.

Jason

Amaleq13

I tried to read the first book but, despite the fact that I have a serious weakness for apocalyptic stories, I couldn't get beyond the first 50 pages. I think the writing style only grabs you if you already share the rather thinly disguised beliefs of the authors. Otherwise, it comes across as a pretty amateurish effort, IMO.

ImmortalTechnique

i agree, amaleq... but, as I said, I started before my deconversion, and only morbid fascination with how they would present Jesus' actual return kept me hooked...

ImmortalTechnique

i was also thinking... perhaps this would be better served in the general religious discussion forum? we aren't actually doing any end times biblical criticism or anything (my bad if this is in the wrong place)

Amaleq13

I think you're right. Let's see if more folks over there have read them...swoosh.

JLK

Or this might belong in Media & Popular Culture, where IIDB's own skewer of schlock, Queen of Swords, wrote two synopses: Laughed Behind, and the even more hilariously bizarre second - Tribulation Farce. Enough for me.
Why doesn't Jesus have a literal sword protruding from his mouth? Stone Heretic LaHaye and his evil metaphoric interpretation.

advancedatheist

Does Jesus appear in a robe dipped in blood? In real life a haz-mat team would greet him.

enrious

More of her reviews and essays can be found at http://qos.enrious.org


I personally have never read the Left Behind books as I find the denouncements by other Christians to be more entertaining than the source material.

Harpuia

Read them. Loved them.

I mean, being a fan of the Left Behind books solely for the value of the series, yeah, if ya think about it, I don't think that people could be as stupid as Tim Lahaye leads them to believe, huh?

Ya know, I noticed she gave a decent review to Carpathia. Maybe she should do a review on "Desecration" and see how much LaHaye changed Carpathia in the 6 books.