This is part of a somewhat humourous critique that I will be doing on the audio version of Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. This is the first part and barely gets into the opening chapter of the first book. I introduce why I am doing this to begin with and why, although I am handling this is a joking manner, infantile reduction of Christianity in American Christianity is a major problem.
Issues Discussed
- Only being able to talk about Christianity - i.e. being that embarassing weird guy at Church.
- Being obsessed with the “End Times” and the “Rapture” - i.e. the Rapture is not the Gospel nor is it our calling to wait around to be snatched out of the world.
- Christian cliches - i.e. “Christians aren’t perfect, they are just forgiven.” “Real Men Love Jesus”. “In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned.”
- Using scare-tactic eschatology as a witnessing tool.
- Representing that rapturism is the straight-forward teaching of the Bible without question.
- Carnal exaltation of ethic Israel.
- When the literalists find Russian bombers and modern nations in passages that speak of wooden weapons.
- Newspaper exegesis.
Links and Resources
- Things I Learned from Christian Comics by Johnny EC. This is a MUST see. Do not have anything liquid in your mouth while perusing. I bear no responsibility for any damage to your monitor that may result.
- Left Behind home page
- The Fiction Behind Left Behind by Gary Demar (pdf file)
- Gary DeMar discusses Ezekiel 38 and 39 (audio file) - go to the Preterist Site Audio Page and look for the file under DeMar. I cannot link to audio files here or PodPress uses that file for my podcast instead of my file. I don’t think Gary would be very appreciative of his show being in iTunes as my show.
Other Episode Credits and Information
- I Wish We’d All Known Better, a parody of I Wish We’d All Been Ready performed by Glenn Peoples of the Say Hello to My Little Friend podcast.
- Straight Tribbin’ by Tru Dawgma
I always say, if the Dispensationalists want us to take them seriously when they accuse us of allegorizing, then they shouldn’t teach the pre-trib Rapture. John MacArthur somehow finds it in Revelation 3.10 as the ‘plain meaning’ of a passage that actually refers to a Church that no longer exists. While Dispensationalists want to argue that a promise can be given far in advance of fulfillment, and may not apply to the people that it is given to, Rev. 3.10 does say “I will keep YOU from the hour of trial”. But then they have a long history of making ‘You’ mean ‘Them’.
I have examined all of John MacArthur’s proof-texts for the Pre-Trib rapture, and not one of them actually teaches it. It seems to be imposed on the text rather than read out of it.
Love your podcasts! As a premil convert to preterism I find these very helpful.
Have you seen this webpage http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/index.html
This guy has been going through the Left Behind book, for the last 4 years!, a few pages at a time and critiquing them from a literary and theological standpoint. Usually insightful and often hilarious.
Oh yes, forget Mac and use Linux!
Ubuntu ftw!
No I had not seen that. I may take a look, but I don’t want to be tempted to have his views colour my own - I may read what he has to say after I have done my own. I am doing this in a half-joking manner. It is more of a fun release for me.
And forget Mac!!!! You HEATHEN!!!!!!
(if I wanted to use Linux, I would just dual boot on my Mac with these awesome specs:
Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 3 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.33 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP11.005C.B08
SMC Version: 1.7f10
Oh yeah baby!!!!
And if you haven’t left a comment for me yet in iTunes, will begging help? If you have, and I forgot, I have an excuse. I am forty. My memory has earned four vacation weeks a year, and you never know when it is going to take a day or two.
Pretty nice specs there. Mine is self built with a Quad Core Q6600 processor overclocked to 3.0 Ghz on about a 1330 Mhz frontside bus, 4 GB memory, 8800GT video card, and a Raptor 10,000 RPM hard drive. Absolute screamer. I probably would use OSX if they sold it to home builders.
I’ve never been on iTunes. Would it even run on Linux? I never looked into it. Maybe if I have the time.
Again thanks for all your time on putting this together.
Yes iTunes can run on Linux. The guy I mention a lot in my podcast, Glenn Peoples of the Say Hello to My Little Friend podcast, runs iTunes with Ubuntu.
If you like Christian philosophy, his is a very good podcast.
Where are the lyrics to the Left Behind parody song?