Apocalypse Smackdown II

One more thought on the smackdown between Tim LaHaye and Hank Hanegraaff.

This from an email sent by a friend who studies pop lit:


I guess I'm happy to see some LaHaye-bashing possibly get publicity, because it seems to me that the Left Behind series inculcates and promotes some of the very worst aspects of fundamentalist Christians: especially their secret rage against non-believers and their desire to see them suffer and be destroyed in lurid ways.


I'm of two minds about Left Behind--I believe that <God is more powerful than the evil in our world, and that's one message of Left Behind.

The other side is this: Left Behind promotes a kind of vicarious persecution. By reading Left Behind, readers get to identify with persecuted Christians from the comfort of a Lazy Boy, and then smile as Jesus wipes out the heathen hordes.

But my friend hit the nail on the head--it's the sense of glee in the death of millions of "our enemies" that so appealing, and so unChristian.


Now I really am off for a few days. Promise.