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On a more cheerful note, I have been dying today reading this series at Slactivist: one guy read Left Behind so that you don't have to, and has been posting snarktastic commentary, a few pages of the book at a time, for the last four years. He's finally done (with the first book, anyway) and it's hilarious, as well as completely scary at times, considering that some people actually believe these wacko things. You don't have to start at the beginning; in fact, I started at the end and have been working my way backwards. For one thing, the conclusion is the best part, wherein the blogger points out that Left Behind actually is a book-length treatise that inadvertently proves, through its total illogic, that the literal Armageddon of Revelations could not possibly happen:
The whole thing is really not anti-religious at all; in fact, the blogger mentions from time to time that he does believe in God and I get the general idea that one of the things that annoys him most about the book is its complete and utter subversion of everything that's good about Christianity:
It ranges from insightful to blackly funny to surreally hilarious. One of my favorite bits so far, from the commentary on a scene in which the Antichrist tries to subvert our (supposed) hero the journalist:
This is the great and insurmountable failure of Left Behind. It set out to be a work of propaganda, a teaching tool meant to demonstrate -- the authors would say to prove -- that the events it describes could and indeed will really happen. Yet their attempt to present a narrative of such events instead demonstrates -- I would say proves -- that these events could not and indeed will not ever happen. It proves that the weird and contradictory events of their check list could never happen in a world anything like the world we live in, or in any other imaginable world. It proves that their supposed prophecies will never, and can never, be fulfilled.
The whole thing is really not anti-religious at all; in fact, the blogger mentions from time to time that he does believe in God and I get the general idea that one of the things that annoys him most about the book is its complete and utter subversion of everything that's good about Christianity:
The authors follow some strange twists of logic to arrive at the idea that "love and peace and unity and brotherhood" is the message of the Antichrist. The idea seems to have its roots in the biblical warnings against false Christs, passages like Matthew 24:4-5, "Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many." For these impostors to "deceive many," their claims must seem plausible, so they must talk like Jesus. A false Christ, in other words, would likely talk about the same things that Jesus Christ talked about -- love and peace and understanding and brotherhood. But this talk will be fraudulent, the false Christ wouldn't really mean any of it.
Somehow L&J seem to have lost sight of the fact that the words of such frauds should not be taken at face value. (I think this is partly due to their reflexive antagonism against "works righteousness," which leads them to emphasize words over deeds.) They are not on the lookout against the deceptions of disingenuous false leaders, but rather against anyone with a message of love and peace and understanding and brotherhood. They've gotten so caught up in guarding against wolves in sheep's clothing that anything in sheep's clothing is viewed as the enemy. So all sheep must be shot on sight.
It ranges from insightful to blackly funny to surreally hilarious. One of my favorite bits so far, from the commentary on a scene in which the Antichrist tries to subvert our (supposed) hero the journalist:
The scene above could be read aloud every year at the White House Correspondents Dinner for the edification of the journalists assembled there. This is how you should respond when some politician gives you a chummy nickname or invites you to a barbecue or lets you sit next to him on the bus or otherwise threatens to co-opt your independence by making you feel like you're just part of the team: You should jump back, point at them, and scream "Antichrist!" until they get the picture.
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The whole thing is really not anti-religious at all; in fact, the blogger mentions from time to time that he does believe in God and I get the general idea that one of the things that annoys him most about the book is its complete and utter subversion of everything that's good about Christianity:
Oh, exactly. The author's not just Christian, he's an evangelist. So he takes the perversion of his faith as presented by the Left Behind crowd pretty dang seriously. It's immensely reassuring from that end, to read it and know not all Christian Evangelists are such wackos, that some people really do live by all the positive Christian traits of charity and understanding and tolerance and love that are preached more than practiced by too many.
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Though, in fairness, I suspect (or maybe just *hope*) that many of the people who read the Left Behind books probably aren't really that whacko -- maybe it's just that I can't wrap my mind around the idea that millions of people in this country are that thoroughly messed up! But I think that many readers of the books are simply getting off on watching Christians with godly superpowers as the heroes, in a similar way to superhero comics readers getting off on the superhero power trip without necessarily being deeply creepy people. You can love a fictional work that's fucked up without being fucked up yourself. (Still ain't getting any closer to the books than his blog, however.)