http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4988269/Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins of the "Left Behind " series.
They're an odd couple, for sure: LaHaye, the golden-ager in polyester, veteran culture warrior and cofounder of the Moral Majority; Jenkins, the bearded baby boomer in jeans, best known (until now) for channeling the autobiographies of such Christian athletes as Orel Hershiser. They're also, arguably, the most successful literary partnership of all time. And if you define success in worldly terms, you can drop the "arguably." Their Biblical techno-thrillers about the end of the world are currently outselling Stephen King, John Grisham and every other pop novelist in America. It's old-time religion with a sci-fi sensibility: the Tribulation timetable comes from LaHaye; the cell phones, Land Rovers—and characters struggling with belief and unbelief—come from Jenkins. And their contrasting sensibilities suggest the complexities of the entire evangelical movement, often seen as monolithic.
The first volume, "Left Behind" (1995), kicks off with the Rapture—the sudden snatching up of millions of the faithful into heaven—and subsequent volumes follow airline pilot Rayford Steele and journalist Buck Williams, left behind to tough it out down here on earth through the seven-year Tribulation and the rule of the Antichrist. The 12th and final installment (not counting a planned sequel and prequel), called "Glorious Appearing," has the return of Jesus, the battle of Armageddon and the Judgment. It sold almost 2 million copies even before its March publication; it's still tied for No. 2 on The New York Times's list—which doesn't count sales at Christian bookstores. In all, the "Left Behind" books have sold more than 62 million copies.
Who's buying? Jenkins recalls a puzzled Chris Matthews asking a "Hardball" guest the same question. "I'm sure I don't have the quote exact, but it was something like 'Certainly not the people in the cities and the suburbs.' And I'm thinking, 'What does that leave? Barefoot people in the hollers handling snakes?'" Jenkins takes issue with a previous NEWSWEEK piece that called "Left Behind" a "Red State" phenomenon, but statistics from the publisher, Tyndale, bear this out: 71 percent of the readers are from the South and Midwest, and just 6 percent from the Northeast. (Hence Tyndale's sponsorship of a NASCAR racer, with the unlucky logo left behind.) The "core buyer" is a 44-year-old born-again Christian woman, married with kids, living in the South. This isn't the "Sex and the City" crowd—which helps explain why it took so long for the media to notice that one in eight Americans was reading all these strange books about the end of the world.These people and the morons who read their "books" are responsible for a lot of what's wrong with this country nowadays. The us-versus-them, and black-and-white view of what's happening in the world make the US look like a toddler out of control to the rest of the civilized nations.
It embarrasses the hell out of me that these books are best sellers here. I only hope they don't start appealing to the more intellectually challenged in other countries.
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