"Deer Hunting with Jesus" What the "Left Behind" series really means....

[A HERETIC I AM]

(snip)

A Whore That Sitteth on Many Waters

"Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again."
-- From Glorious Appearing by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

"The best thing about the Left Behind books is the way the non-Christians get their guts pulled out by God."
-- 15-year old fundamentalist fan of the Left Behind series

That is the sophisticated language and appeal of America’s all-time best selling adult novels celebrating the ethnic cleansing of non-Christians at the hands of Christ. If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of the last book in the Left Behind series, Glorious Appearing, and publish it across the Middle East, Americans would go beserk. Yet tens of millions of Christians eagerly await and celebrate an End Time when everyone who disagrees with them will be murdered in ways that make Islamic beheading look like a bridal shower. Jesus -- who apparently has a much nastier streak than we have been led to believe -- merely speaks and "the bodies of the enemy are ripped wide open down the middle." In the book Christians have to drive carefully to avoid "hitting splayed and filleted corpses of men and women and horses" Even as the riders’ tongues are melting in their mouths and they are being wide open gutted by God’s own hand, the poor damned horses are getting the same treatment. Sort of a divinely inspired version of "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on."


This may be some of the bloodiest hate fiction ever published, but it is also what tens of millions of Americans believe is God’s will. It is approximately what everyone in the congregation sitting around me last Sunday at my brother’s church believes. Or some version of it. How can anyone acquire and hold such notions? Answer: The same way you got yours and I got mine. Conditioning. From family and school and society, but from within a different American caste than the one in which you were raised. And from things stamped deep in childhood -- such as coming home terrified to an empty house.

(snip)
The rest at the link below
Great read.

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2005/12/what_the_left_b.html

[tsuki]

1. I love the fact that the books were bankrolled by the Rev. Moon.

You know, the one that was crowned the "New Messiah," because Christ is the failed Messiah.

These rapturists are very close to anti-Christ, and they don't have the BP to figure it out.


:banghead:

[lvx35]

9. That's the unique state of affairs in Christianity

Those who claim it most deeply and pridefully are the most corrupted, those willing to take the fallout from turning away from the accepted (as in pro war, pro torture) line of beliefs and be labelled liberal are the most pure. Its certainly a time of testing for any real Christian.

[bryant69]

2. you are all probably aware of this

But a great review of the book is found at the Slactivist's website - http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/index.html

Very indepth and lengthy, but very readible as well.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Thanks, you've got me hooked on that website now

That's going to eat up far too much of my time ... :D

I haven't read the books, and certainly won't after starting that critique, but it's interesting to get an insight into them. While I'd heard the writing was bad (despite one of them being a 'professional' writer), I didn't know that the moral behaviour of the 'heroes' was actually so selfish, without the 'Christian' authors finding much of a problem with that.

I'm left wondering how big the section of the USA (and anywhere else? I get the impression LaHaye's brand name only really means anything in the USA) is that does pay attention to it. The 65 million copies sold figure seems to include all book in the series - I found one figure saying the first volume had sold 6 million copies by 2001. But there'll be people lending it to friends, and others who would believe it but never read a book about it - so I guess there must be at least 10 million households in the USA who think that way - 10% of the country? Ouch. It's a bit depressing.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

3. a yawning chasm opened in the earth,

stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them.


Reminds me of my ex-wife.

[Ilsa]

4. Haven't you heard that you are supposed to be scared into

becoming a Christian? I was, initially. As a child, I thought I was going to hell that very night if I didn't "get right with God" right away.

[A HERETIC I AM]

5. It was the guilt, for me....

"Look,,here's this guy that died for you....he DIED.......for you. You wouldn't want to make jesus cry after he died for you, would you?"

That was it for me for years. I would disappoint what i later found out to be a completely mythical figure if i questioned the veracity of his dedication to me.

Of course, the gruesome, voyeuristic, luxurious opportunity of allowing me in the afterlife to gaze down upon the eternal torturing of the bodies of those who refused to think as i was instructed was too morbidly comfortable to ignore.

I've said it before:

The possibility of watching an individual tortured for all eternity is best served with Box Seats. After all, what is the point of considering superiority if you are unable to gaze upon those too ignorant to make the correct choice?

[lvx35]

8. My personal metric:

A religious path is bad to the extent it compells you by hate, fear or guilt, and good to the extent it compells you by love, morality, and truth.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. Deer junting.... "one shot"..... n't

[Danger Mouse]

7. That is...

revolting. Revolting that someone would write this, and revolting that people believe it. It's amazing, the level of sadism these books appear to contain, and people just gobble it up like candy. Does Jesus laugh maniacally while he slaughters millions of nobelievers? Does he kill the little children too?
Don't know what version of the New Testament that THEY read, but it doesn't sound like the Jesus that I know.