Book Club Reading for November: Left Behind

[dizzle]

Okay guys here it is!!! [pinch me cause this can't be happening]

I am leading this month's Book Club Discussion of Left Behind.


DISCLAIMER: I like laughing at a lot of things. Any laughing I do at this book or ideas is not meant to be personally disrespectful to the solidly Christian authors nor anyone who holds to their paradigm. This is all in good fun, and I think we can have a good discussion. I needed to state that before anyone got all offended.


For those of you who don't "get" what is so funny -

I am an orthodox preterist. I believe the whole future antichrist Great Trib doctrine is flat out wrong. Thus the irony in me leading this discussion.


I did read this book when it first came out, when I was a diehard futurist defender. I found it thrilling and enjoyable. Ironically listening to it (the audio) and reading (I'm in Chapter 2) I am kinda nostalgic for those days, even though now I believe the doctrine is wrong. It was pretty exciting to imagine getting zapped up into the air and escaping the world. But alas.......

But just todya, believe it or not, an idea occured to me of a tremendous problem ith the "Rapture" as presented by Left Behind even if one is a futurist. I dunno, but my reading of 1 Cor 15 gives no room for people to "disappear." In fact I think the consequences of holding to that can lead logicaly to a heresy..... Let me explain. The Rapture of the living is nothing more than getting resurrected without having to die first. The mortal body is transformed into the immortal body, and the paradigm is Christ's resurrectoin. Christ was never invisible. The rez body is not invisible..... such then leads to an idea that the rez body may be immaterial which is totally heterodox. In Left Behind, even the corpses turn invisible. That is not what happened when Jesus was raised or the many dead saints of Matthew 27. This is doctrinally highly problematic.

[johnnybanano]

Good point. :huh: :thumb: :cheers:

[Stephen]

Hey,
I admit, I've been bored at school (someone hacked the computers so I had an hour of free time) and I *gasp* read up to the 8th chapter of left behind.

So I'm a little ahead of the game, but I'll still manage while its unfortunately fresh in my memory. I had one page with a sticky note saying "show DD", but I'll wait till we get up to that chapter. :smile:

[dizzle]

I am really hung up on that invisible thing. I cannot believe I never thought of that before.

[LeiLani]

The thing I always laughed at was the piles of clothes and false teeth and stuff left laying around...

[spl_cadet]

I just loved how everyone disappears and nobody seems to remember the talk of the Rapture, aside from the unsaved Christians.

[TCapp]

Yeah, interesting point. If the Christians in their "realm" carry on about it as much as real ones do... they'd probably say something like: " :doh: Those goofs were right!"

[dizzle]

hmm, I guess no one so far is really seeing the dramatic implicatoin of this 'invisible' thing. when this discussion is over, I would like to maybe start an eschatology thread on that. Yes, this is fiction, but real people I know have theology remarkably similar.

[dizzle]

/ot I think a forum friend may have thought I was making a reference to them with my above comment. I was not... I was referring to anyone who thinks that people disappear at the Rapture.

[dizzle]

Another observation.... where was the Trumpet? Most mainstream rapture theologies include a trumpet.

Also, on a side note, when Rayford is on the radio with the pilot of the Concorde, why is Rayford called "Pan Heavy." What is that all about?

[NSMinistries]

Today @ 12:55 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=275910#post275910)
Dee Dee Warren:

Another observation.... where was the Trumpet? Most mainstream rapture theologies include a trumpet.

Also, on a side note, when Rayford is on the radio with the pilot of the Concorde, why is Rayford called "Pan Heavy." What is that all about?

Pan Heavy: Name of company and size of plane flown...

[dizzle]

Okay, I knew Pan-Con was the company, I just didn't get the "heavy" part.

[Stephen]

And I think most futurists believe the trumpets, etc. are reffering to the Second Coming 7 years after the rapture.

[dizzle]

No actually I don't think so. 1 Thess 4 says that the rapture happens with the sound of a great trumpet.

[Stephen]

Hmm, I just know what my disp. futurist pastor always taught.

[dizzle]

When I was a futurist, I certainly believed the trumpet thing.

[TCapp]

Yeah, invisible disappearances, not to mention an invisible return. That's just freaky. Where does it say there are two second comings, with one of them being invisible? When Jesus comes back, there won't be any doubts about it. Bible says that every eye will be on Him. And everyone will hear that trumpet. Unless you are sitting on the far side of the moon with a blindfold and fingers in your ears, I doubt you'll miss Him. (Even then, you'll probably know about it).

[Patroclus]

Not that I actually think that the LB series has any validity (no offense intended), but DeeDee - c'mon - who saw Jesus walk out of the tomb? Couldn't it (the rapture in the book) just as easily have been so quick that people did not notice? I think you have to bank on some sort of stupity in certain readers to actually think that people are going to take it to the extreme and come to heterodoxy.

Aside fromt that, the books are much too formulaic, and by book seven, I wanted the whole trib force to die so it would be over. Furthermore, I think that the marketing scheme is terrible because it makes the pretence of spreading the gospel (a case for which I have my dubieties), and the demand for a quick release of a new book precludes any desire for artistic creativity in said books.

[dizzle]

Today @ 05:07 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=276436#post276436)
Patroclus:

Not that I actually think that the LB series has any validity (no offense intended), but DeeDee - c'mon - who saw Jesus walk out of the tomb? Couldn't it (the rapture in the book) just as easily have been so quick that people did not notice? I think you have to bank on some sort of stupity in certain readers to actually think that people are going to take it to the extreme and come to heterodoxy.

I have seen stranger things happen. I had a futurist guy last night though give his take on this in Paltalk and it was reasonable. He just spoke of being instantaneously teleported, and we compared it to Peter being transported to preach to the Ethiopian eunuch. I have spoke with a lot of people have not really thought through the rez and do let ideas like this influence their thinking. I am not suggesting though to be clear that LaHaye or Jenkins mean anything heterodox at all whatsoever.

[dizzle]

Yesterday @ 04:28 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=276022#post276022)
TCapp:

Yeah, invisible disappearances, not to mention an invisible return. That's just freaky. Where does it say there are two second comings, with one of them being invisible? When Jesus comes back, there won't be any doubts about it. Bible says that every eye will be on Him. And everyone will hear that trumpet. Unless you are sitting on the far side of the moon with a blindfold and fingers in your ears, I doubt you'll miss Him. (Even then, you'll probably know about it).

Ironically as a preterist I don't have a problem with a coming that is not the typical Jesus riding on a cloud coming. I believe Jesus "came" in judgment in the first century but no one saw Him in the literally seeing His body floating in the sky type of way. The verse you cite about every eye seeing Him, in my view, has been fulfilled.

I do not have an issue with the "teleportation" idea of the Rapture either... I was just concerned that it may encourage some to think of the rez as an immaterial reality, not a physical one.

[Stephen]

DeeDee, I was reading the book and noticed this:
Bottom of page 209-top of page 210

[Rayford is watching the video, the pastor just said "How do I know? This passage..."] The pastor said, "Let me read you what the great missionary evangelist, the apostle Paul, wrote to the Christians at the church in the city of Corinth: "Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we sall all be changed, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised..."

Now, is it just me, or is it odd that they actually use the verse that mentions the trumpet twice as a means to back up their story which totally excludes trumpet, unless they really have an answer to it?

[dizzle]

Oh I am not at that part yet. I did though find something else to comment upon.....

Page 80, chapter 5....

"The Israelis hate Jesus, but look what God did for them."

That is highly contra-Biblical and problematic.

[dizzle]

Hmm my Left Behind musing are not that interesting eh?

I put my finger more on why the "disappearances" in Left Behind bugged me. It really isn't parallel to say the miraculous transportation of Peter to preach to the Ethiopian Eneuch. It is the fact that the clothes are left behind that give the whole aura of dematerialization, not miraculous transportation. No one translated into heaven in the Bible (Elija) left their clothes behind.....

Now in the movie, Buck had this like drug addict friend... who is that in the book? I am lost on that point

Does anyone else find it wierd that in the book Buck's real name is Cameron and the actor who played him was Kirk Cameron?

And... funny Rayford reads the "I am coming quickly" part, and notices on the face of it that thousands of years isn't quickly.

Last... though, it is pretty imaginative to think aobut what it would be like if this theology were correct (though it is not) - would it be like the book in how people react?

[TCapp]

Ummmm.... drug addict friend? Hmmm... :hrm: Hard to remember, as it has been a couple of years. All I can recall is that Buck had a friend in England (Dirk Burton - not a drug addict, either), and he was travelling in the airplane to visit him. In the movie, they made the friend an American, living in America... which raises the question... why would Buck be going to England? Maybe you're referring to a different friend, though. :teeth:

Not that I'm fond of the either book or movie, but the movies really butched the plots in the book. :whack:

[Stephen]

DD, the reference to "coming quickly" was what I sticky-noted to show you :teeth: . And the "Drug addict friend" is Dirk, he'll show up in a little bit, but he's never actually seen alive in the story.

Lol TCapp, I guess DD would say the movie butched the plot of a book that butched the plot of another Book within a compaliation of Books. :shocked: Talk about plagiarism :doh:

[dizzle]

I am a Left Behind purist. Only the book is inspired.

Stephen I got to the point on "quickly" on the tapes, now my book reading has to catch up with my tape listening..... but I had wanted to comment.

[Christianotaku]

interesting book :rofl:

[Stephen]

Alright, while we're ranting about the book.

I've got a problem with the plot. Okay, so 3 people are on the same plane. Buck, Rayford, and Hattie. Buck happens to tell Hattie he'll contact her family. Buck also happens to be famous. Rayford and hattie happen to see something about buck on the TV. Buck happens to go with Hattie when she happens to meet rayford. Buck happens to talk to Carpathia.

Its all so hard to believe

[dizzle]

Ahhh, so THAT is what you found hard to believe? :nc:

[dizzle]

Acutally I am enjoying it this time around. I said on Paltalk I last read it as a real baby Christian and bought everything hook, line, and sinker. It is nice now to read it actually knowing a bit about the subject.

[Stephen]

After reading it the first time then I was honestly expecting an "everybody dematerializes" rapture to happen anyday now. Scared the crud outta me :doh:

[spl_cadet]

I've always just never gotten the whole reasoning behind: "All the Christians get taken away so that they won't be around when the Anti-Christ does his best to kill everyone." By that reasoning, the Rapture should have taken place right after Pentecost.

[Stephen]

What I don't understand is when people say God is postponing the rapture so the maximum number of people can be saved.

By that reasoning, won't it be an infinite amount of time before the rapture? If every generation even 1 person is saved, then any time God chooses to have the rapture, there would be people in the next generation who never got a chance :doh:

[Xavier]

Not according to the Calvinists, Stephen... :teeth:

[Xavier]

I was a "Bible-Read" Christian at the time of my reading of "Left Behind"... I didn't buy the whole rapture thing, but I did enjoy the whole Anti-Christ angle of it all. I've yet to form an opinion of esch...whatever, but with what I've read thus far, I would probably be a preterist.

From a literary percpective, these novels are dredge... Horrible beyond all belief... Bad Plot, Bad Characters, Bad Dialoge, and simply horrid endings make these books unworthy of consideration by any serious literary person...

:teeth: ,
Xavier

[TCapp]

Maybe I'll read it again, too. Haven't done so since I decided historicism suits me. Historicism is probably closer to preterism than futurism. They say most of prophecy has been fulfilled, and there's only a sniggling (is that a word, or did my brain provide me with jibberish?) amount left to be fulfilled.

SPOILER alert: Later in the books, when Satan took over the AC, I thought he acted so STUPID. I think he (Satan) is deceitful and tricky, but I'd hardly consider him stupid. :no:

[Stephen]

What I didn't get was after everyone had the mark, or were christians, what was the point anymore? There was no one who could be saved, and dying would be better than going through the tribulation. Why do they still try to thwart the antichrist's plans, even though everyone's salvation is already set in stone, and everyone knows no one's going to stop him anyway?

[dizzle]

I just finished the tapes, and frankly some of it was so cheesily simplistic I was embarassed. Hattie is just done horribly, and the whole "abortion clinic" thing that was added was such a Jack Chick portayal I couldn't take it.

[dizzle]

I will be finishing the book soon. I will be posting comments on specific parts verbatim as I do.

[dizzle]

Just when this escapade could not get worse, I brought Left Behind with me on my vacation and it GOT LEFT BEHIND!!!! Crap!!!!!!!!!

Now I gotta pay for the thing to the local libary and cannot finish this thread yet. :argh:

[studyhound]

:lmbo: :lmbo: :lmbo:
**snicker****snicker**

Dee Dee reading Left behind!!

**snicker****snicker**

(just my two cents worth :77: :77: )

[dizzle]

Well I called the hotel. They thought it funny I left behind Left Behind. They are mailing it back to me. I will continue here when it makes it way back to me.

[NSMinistries]

Today @ 03:36 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=336428#post336428)
Dee Dee Warren:

Well I called the hotel. They thought it funny I left behind Left Behind. They are mailing it back to me. I will continue here when it makes it way back to me.

That had to be a hard call to make...:rofl:

[dizzle]

Yes it was.

Me: Err, I left something behind in my room, did you happen to find it?

Hotel: What was it?

Me: A book

Hotel: The title?

Me: <cough> err, umm, uhhhh Left Behind. You see, I lost a bet and ..... well nevermind. Did you find it?

[NSMinistries]

:lol:

[AcousticJS]

No actually I don't think so. 1 Thess 4 says that the rapture happens with the sound of a great trumpet.

Potentially off-topic, but that combined with 1 Corinthians 15 is what changed the guy who heads up Salt & Light Ministries' (the group of churches I'm part of) mind about the pre-trib rapture. He was raised bretheren and believed the whole pre-trib thing. Till one day while reading Scripture, he realised that the rapture happens at the last trump, so became post-trib. I'm fairly sure he's still a futurist though... I mean, why wouldn't he be?

:tongue:

[dizzle]

Well the hotel screwed something up, and I never got the book. And they are wierdos who don't put a return addy on the package - of course I wouldn't want to put my name on mailing Left Behind either - and apparently Left Behind is now in the Lost and Found of Fed Ex

[dizzle]

It has found its way back. I am going to drink a few stiff ones and get back to it.


PS: I rented the Tribulation force tapes.

[dizzle]

You all have deserted me!!!! :argh;

Well i have read some more and have some comments....

I am reading the hardcover, so i don't know if the page numbers will conincide with you guys.....

Okay now Rayford's wife like talked incessantly about the End Times (big warning flag there!) but whatever... he knew about the "Rapture of the Church" and she was worried about what would happen to him. Now.... I know what it is like to be all fascinated with the Rapture and stuff and being worried about unsaved family, and you know what? I was sure to tell them about afterwards, cause that would be more useful to them.... Rayford's wife messed up.

Okay also, Buck promises the guy at the MidPoint a nice tip and leaves him twenty bucks!!!! Cheapskate! And then gets all tingly later thinking about Mack enjoying his extra twenty bucks..... sigh.

[dizzle]

Okay now…. Rayford reads Revelation and sees that Jesus is coming “quickly.” Hello!!! Rayford just thinks of ways to explain it away instead of questioning if indeed this was a prophecy about his future. I mean if I were him, and I was expected to believe a prophecy, and then I saw that it was in a writing about two thousand years old talking about an event to happen “quickly” I would at least ponder if it were not speaking of the future. Rayford’s explanations are not what one who is not already committed a priori to both futurism and inerrancy would think with no other options. (yes before there is any questions, I am an inerrantist)

Ohhhhh the cheesiness and stereotypical Christian subculture of it all!!!! Rayford faked “thithing” with the assumption that is something all “good Christians”do – he knew about THAT but was so woefully ignorant on other things… sheesh.

And Bruce Barnes!!! Egad man! He was raised in the Church and was on staff. He knew the salvation message, just never really believed…… He also knew his pastor made this “rapture” tape – yet doh! He never heard the part that there was a chance for salvation after the “rapture.” He was “relieved” when he learned of this for the first time when watching the tape. Sigh.


NEXT UP I AM GOING TO REALLY VENT OVER SOME BAD THEOLOGY

[Bill the Cat]

ummmm dee dee....


IT'S A FICTION NOVEL :lmbo:

[Stephen]

:teeth:

[dizzle]

It is a novel supposedly rooted in theology. The storyline is fictional but it is supposed to be based on good theology. Are you excusing bad theology in the name of fiction? So the DaVinci Code which contains bad history should be excused cause it is fiction?

[Bill the Cat]

Actually, yes. My best friend's dad is a professor at a bible college and recommends reading the DaVinci Code, even though it is historically false.

[dizzle]

But the bad history shoudl be challenged because the book's endoresments claim that it is historically accurate. And a fictional work on a theological subject by Christian authoris shoudl not contain bad theology or just plain dumb stuff.

[Bill the Cat]

It's a fantasy version of what "could happen"

You seem to be getting preterbed at the book. I'm just trying to remind you that 1. It's for fun, 2.It's a fiction fantasy novel, and 3. you lost the bet :poke::teeth:

I love ya Dee Dee. Just trying to break the frustration... Have a rose...

[dizzle]

Oh I don't mind the speculation.... but you will see what I mean in a minute.... bad theology coming up ahead... and the utter stupidity of the characters is frustrating. Christian works should be the best, not the cheesiest.

[Stephen]

I finished the 2nd book about a month ago. IT has nasty romance with chloe and buck, just to tempt you

[Patroclus]

Is the endorsement of the book by the publishers or authors the best justification for reading a book?

P.S. It is no longer November.

[dizzle]

Pat we are on futurist time... meaning time is irrelevant. The ending of this meeting is imminent.


Now back to a piece of very bad theology that drives me nuts.....

It is theme throughout the book that the "sinner's prayer" is somehow magical. That is that the characters are convicted of the truth, know and trust the truth, but act as if the deal is not "sealed" until the prayer is said.... that for wont of saying this magical little prayer, even though their heart was already set, they would die and go to hell if they got shot on the way to the proverbial altar call. This is no better than those who think that a person who has accepted Christ but dies on the way to the baptismal pool is not saved.

[dizzle]

UGH AND THIS IS HORRIBLE!!!!!!!

"I don't understand all that either," Rayford said. "But like Bruce said last night, we live in a fallen world. God left control of it pretty much to Satan.

[dizzle]

And we say that eschatology doesn't affect one's worldview!!!! :argh:

[Stephen]

Patt, DD doesn't want to admit it to you, but this is her 4th time reading the book since november. She just can't get enough of the stuff.

[Stephen]

She's even on a first-name level with the characters. :wink:

[dizzle]

More gems from Bruce -

"Nearly eight hundred years before Jesus Christ came to earth the first time, Isaiah in the Old Testament prophesied that the kingdoms of nations will be in great conflict and their faces shall be as flames. To me, this portends World War III, a thermonuclear war that will wipe out millions."

:argh:

[dizzle]

Okay and this drove me nuts..... the complete cartoonish portrayal of Hattie and her views on her sister who works in the abortion clinic that suddenly was without clients, and her bemoaning how terrible it was that people weren't having unwanted pregnancies so her sister was out of work. A Chick tract has more finesse.

[dizzle]

I am done!!! Whooo hoooo. I am actually though going to listen to the Tribulation Force tapes. We can start a discussion on that as well...... why not.

[Patroclus]

Dee Dee Warren:


It is theme throughout the book that the "sinner's prayer" is somehow magical. That is that the characters are convicted of the truth, know and trust the truth, but act as if the deal is not "sealed" until the prayer is said.... that for wont of saying this magical little prayer, even though their heart was already set, they would die and go to hell if they got shot on the way to the proverbial altar call. This is no better than those who think that a person who has accepted Christ but dies on the way to the baptismal pool is not saved.

Of all the problems in the book, I think this is one of the more potentially damaging issues.

[Stephen]

DD, that'd be cool if you actually read/listened to them all. Then you could really realize how much you hated them.

By the way, I agree with the "magic prayer" thing. The theme really makes it seem like its all about words and prayers, as if its all just about joining some kind of club.

Now, when are you gonna watch Left Behind 2 and give us another PalTalk movie night?

[dizzle]

Hmmm that's a thought.