2000 years of Jewish history?
Thanks. I was trying to think of a non-Pit way of responding to that.
Guinastasia writes:
> Would Tolkien count as “Christian” fiction? Even though he abhorred allegories,
> such as his friend Lewis wrote?
There’s several problems here. Once again, consider my distinction between fiction that’s marketed as “Christian fiction” and fiction that contains thematic material that the author would consider to be Christian. As I said before, Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz wasn’t marketed as Christian fiction, although Miller would probably consider it to have a Christian theme. Orson Scott Card’s books aren’t marketed as Christian fiction, even though Card might well consider that they have Christian themes. The Harry Potter books aren’t marketed as Christian fiction, even though (I think) Rowling considers herself a devout Anglican and probably considers that there are Christian themes in the books. The Narnia books (and Lewis’s other books) are only marginally marketed as Christian fiction. Lewis didn’t want them to be marketed as such, although he certainly thought there were Christian themes in them. Tolkien thought there were Christian themes in The Lord of the Rings, but they aren’t marketed as Christian fiction.
On the other hand, the Left Behind books are marketed as Christian fiction. That’s a decision by the authors and the publisher. It doesn’t actually have much to do with how much Christian material is in the book. It also doesn’t have much to do with whether the book’s Christian themes make any consistent sense.
Tolkien was exaggerating when he stated that he didn’t like allegory. You have to take Tolkien’s statements about this with a grain of salt. There’s a lot of material about how Tolkien’s and the other Inklings’ statements have to be read in context in The Company They Keep by Diana Glyer, which just came out this year. It’s the best book about the Inklings in several years. Glyer shows that the statements that the Inklings made about each other’s works and their influence (or lack thereof) on each other was often exaggerated. Their influence on each other was very important. Tolkien did not abhor the allegories in the Narnia books, although he thought it was unsubtle.
I suspect that you might be giving LaHaye too much credit. You seem to feel that the Jews being presented as spiritual pushovers reflects the authors’ contempt. Based on what I’ve read of Tim LaHaye’s works, I expect that it’s more a matter of his own overwhelming certainty in the obvious truth of his beliefs. If you’re convinced that your own message is blindingly apparent, it’s probably difficult to concieve of other characters having principled objections or valid counterarguments.
In his mind, he probably views the fact that the Jews convert so quickly as an enormous compliment-- these misguided souls are immediately aware of the error of their ways! Isn’t that nice?
Of course, the ‘crap writer’ element is probably a significant factor as well.
No kidding? In light of 2000 years of Jewish history, the **Left Behind ** series and its descriptions of Jewish people qualify as “horribly anti-Semitic?” I’m frankly astonished.
Which 2000 years are you talking about, anyway?
So the first generation of Jewish Christians were self-hating Jews?
The two aren’t mutually exclusive; in fact, I suspect that LaHaye’s attitude toward the Jews is rooted in contempt. As I’m reading, some of the believers express pity toward those Jews who won’t convert. If pity isn’t the first cousin to contempt, then I’m Queen Elizabeth.
Robin
That’s why I characterized the books as anti-Judaic rather than technically antisemitic. They are monstrously bigoted from a religious standpoint but are not particularly racist. They just think that anyone who does not subscribe to their own very narrow set of religious beliefs is evil and deserves not just to be killed, but tortured forever. They are incredibly dismissive and supercillious in their attitudes towards religious Judaism, but that contempt extends to all other religions as well, and even to most other Christians.
Ah, well, that’s something I didn’t think of. Perhaps a better example would be Catherine Marshall’s Christy? Not exactly marketed as such, but definitely “Christian” fiction. Or perhaps Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (which happens to be my favorite book).
Yep, here is what I was trying to post yesterday, but my system was not cooperating:
Ooh, ooh, you must all read this dissection of Left Behind, by a liberal evangelical Christian. It is freaking brilliant, and often hilarious. (And Dio, you’ll like this - the second entry is called “Left Behind: Pretrib Porno.”)
I imagine he’ll only do the first book, given that he started in 2003, and has just now gotten to page 332. But the depth of his analysis is great. He catches every example of bad writing (now you know why it’s taking so long), every intimation that the authors are either unfeeling cretins, boors without a shred of imagination, or both, and every screwy, bizarre pretzel-twist of scripture used to support their distastefully lip-smacking anticipation of armageddon.
Personally, the thing that sticks with me from the first book is the discussion of Hattie’s sister. In a world where every child (including embryos and fetuses) and a good chunk of the adults have inexplicably disappeared in an instant, with no hope of recovery, this woman is really, really upset. Not because of a global disaster that would make 9/11 pale to invisibility in comparison, but because there are no more pregnancies, and so the abortion clinic where she works can’t kill anymore “babies.” That pisses her right off. Actually, I can’t believe I kept reading after that point.
I second this wholeheartedly. Not only does Fred (the blogger in question) eviscerate the Left Behind books for the atrocious writing, but he also (as Tenebras says) rips into them from a theological point of view. Very fascinating stuff, especially since Fred himself is an evangelical.
Yeah, I like bad writing too and I’m openminded but thats just pretty ill.
Children of Men made a far better argument than these LB books. And I’m not sure it was even making that argument.
Hey Lizzie!
I’m rather of the opinion that contempt often masquerades as pity, and gives the emotion of true pity a bad rap.
Anyway, how does reading this series make you feel about the current increase in Christian influence in this country?
Self satisfied much?
It occured to me- technically, this is NOT the comic book version of THE LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH (tho it might as well be), but of Hal Lindsey’s “commentary” on Revelation- THERE’S A NEW WORLD COMING.
Btw, there are also graphic novels of the LB series, but I don’t know if they ever got past Vol 2: Tribulation Force. I know the four follow-up novels after LB 12: GLORIOUS APPEARING did not do nearly as well. Three were prequels- covering the birth & upbringing of Nicolae, as well as lives of the other characters- up to & including THE RAPTURE (Vol 3), and the last one was a condensation of the Millenium- KINGDOM COME.
Yeah, that is a very weird scene. I suppose it’s rooted in the conviction that people who work in abortion clinics truly enjoy killing babies and would do it in their spare time if they could.
Anyway, the thing I thought was odd was that after all the children and babies and embryos disappeared, people started getting pregnant and having children again. I could never quite wrap my brain around that. Surely if all the innocent souls were going to be taken up to Heaven, no more souls would get embodied on earth? Wouldn’t people stop having children at all?
I’m enjoying the slacktivist website, thanks for posting it.
While the idea of a child/baby Rapture is NOT universal among Rapturists (I never saw it presented fictionally until LB, but then again Jack & Rexella Van Impe also believe the PETS of C’tians will be raptured), Jesus does say there will be women
either expecting or having children during the Tribulation in Matt 24 (“Woe to those who are with child in those days…”)
Are there any LDS who believe in the pre-Trib Rapture? I was reading a discussion on Revelation by, I think, W. Cleon Skousen, who was teaching about a Tribulation that would last for decades, not just seven years.
Not that I know of; it would be totally contrary to anything we think. And we don’t use the term “Rapture,” or indeed any of the terminology found with EVs (like the Brits and Americans, EVs and LDS are divided by a common language that they use very differently, which can make conversation tricky). You can’t, btw, take Skousen to be an “official doctrine” source; while he was very popular, he was also quite the speculator. You can usually tell when he’s doing it because he says things like “We can assume…” or “Surely…” or “It is obvious that…” and so on, but sometimes he doesn’t give you a warning. And you should also note that Skousen was never a General Authority (part of the Church’s leadership); he was just an academic.
The LDS view isn’t really very specific. We think that things will get worse, and that everyone will be in on it together (just 'cause you’re Christian doesn’t mean you get to skip the difficult part), but we take some of the scripture less literally than the LB series does. We don’t discuss it much, since the thinking is that if you’re living as you should, you’ll be as prepared as anyone can be, and it’s better to be thinking about the present than about something no one knows the day or the hour thereof. In EV terms, we believe in a post-Trib Millennium (I think that’s right), but no one thinks it will be next week or anything.
There are some LDS books that discuss the end times, and if you like I’ll message you a title or two. There are probably newer ones I’m not familiar with, since it isn’t an area I keep up with.
About the baby thing, I guess I don’t see why one batch of children would be swept up to avoid the troubles, and another batch would be born right into the middle of them. Seems a bit arbitrary.
Yeah, I would be interested in reading some LDS end-times materials. I thought you all would get into the details of it more because of the LD part.
When I was a Rapturist, I did assume that the babies & small children of raptured adults would also go up. I never thought one way or the other about all of them going. Now I assume that everybody will go through whatever future Tribulation is to occur (IF there is any- I also consider the possibility that the 66-70 AD Siege
of Jerusalem was the main Tribulation.)
Obviously, I’ve never been much of a fan of religion in government. IMHO, there’s too much room for coercion and bad public policy based on what should be personal views. You can make the argument (and some do) that that’s true for other reasons besides religion, but religion seems to be the dominant reason. Again, that’s my opinion and you’re free to agree or disagree.
That said, the politics in LB are what scares me the most. The books are explicitly anti-choice, but there doesn’t seem to be a rush to force abortion; indeed, with the loss of half the world’s population, forced abortion is probably a bad idea. I did notice something about women, though. In the GC, women are treated as equals and they hold positions of authority. In the Trib Force, they are regarded only if they have a purpose. The strongest woman in the Trib Force so far, Leah Rose, is portrayed as something of a bitch because she dares to stand up to the men and question their judgment and their authority. I think the GC, to some extent, represents liberalism and the Trib Force represents what they consider to be good American values.
I’m not even going to touch the whole one-world government paranoia because it’s just that. I’m not prepared to defend the notion that “it can’t happen” but it’s so unlikely that it’s not worth discussing.
Suffice it to say, the LB books provide an interesting insight, but all they’re doing is confirming my existing biases.
Robin