What do you think about the Left Behind series?

[Seen the light]

Hope this is the right folder for this thread...

I'll admit that I've read every single book in that series. Yes, all of them. Why? They were strangely addicting. It was exciting seeing what new kind of horrible plague and death storm the ever-caring and loving God would keep reigning down on those people that he loved so much. It culminated in a spectacular way as Jesus finally returned and made people literally explode, so many people that there was 5 feet of blood that people had to wade through.

Anyway, maybe I'm just slow when it comes to the literary world, but I recently found out that these books sold more than any other fiction series during its time except for Harry Potter. I ask you DU....how can this possibly be? The books are horribly written (like I said, I only read them out of morbid curiosity.) The actual underlying teachings of the wrath of God are the same sorts of things that cults teach. Are there REALLY that many hardcore fundamentalists in this country? Is that the real reason why Bush is still able to maintain 37% approval or whatever it is, despite doing absolutely nothing right?

[LittleClarkie]

1. They make one of my pastors' teeth itch

Maybe that was a plague.

He saw it as fractured theology.

[villager]

2. Jesus made people explode?

What a loving dude!

Meanwhile, I think the books "sold" the same way L. Ron Hubbard's books "sell" and become bestsellers, with members of the cult(s) required to buy them, orders used to game the numbers for the various "Bestseller" lists, etc...

[rox63]

3. It's a bunch Dominionist clap-trap

Aimed at the truly brainwashed kool-aid drinkers.

[tlsmith1963]

4. Not Interested in the Books

I heard that liberals are the villains in the LB books, so I am not interested in reading them.

Tammy

[Seen the light]

9. Oh they are

Basically, everything is blamed on homosexuals, Jews, Catholics, socialists, and abortionists. It's almost humorous the hatred for liberals in those books.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

28. You forgot to mention the European Union

The anti-Christ is the head of the European Union.

Sort of makes it easy to whip up hatred for France, n'est-ce pas?

[tenshi816]

43. I thought the Antichrist was head of the UN,

but I haven't read any of them so I don't know for sure. My fundie stepmother sent me a couple of the DVDs a few years ago and not knowing what they were about, I watched the first one of the series - needless to say, the other DVD is still intact in its shrinkwrap. I don't think I could sit through more of the same.

[CatholicEdHead]

39. Also add the UN in there

as I have heard they really demonize the Secretary General in the first few books.

[gulfcoastliberal]

5. Couldn't tell you. Don't know what they are.

Don't plan on finding out. Spend my money on books I find interesting and thought provoking. But whatever floats your boat.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. As a Christian, I'd rather read "The Stand" by Stephen King.

[longship]

7. Poorly written, trash theology.

Like others have said, they're on the best seller list because the fundies buy them by the case even if they are illiterate.

Garbage novels.

[The Gunslinger]

19. Poorly written for sure

I thought the first book was ok, wife made me read it, but the second book was poorly written, unbelievavble, boring and formulmatic. I never read any more

[XanaDUer]

8. The title alone brought back bad memories

of a year in a Baptist school.

[politicaholic]

10. Holy crap! Get this man some Tolstoy stat!

Oh man, that's sick. Do people believe this crap? Of course they do. Sex in literature is nasty, but making people explode because they're a buddist is perfectly acceptable.

[DerekG]

16. These aren't the kinda folks who read "The Kingdom of God is Within You"

n/t

[MisterP]

11. page-by-page roast here: 2-3 p. every Friday since 2003

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/index.html

[Systematic Chaos]

33. This is such a cool journal I think it should have had its own thread.

I'm reading from the bottom up, to keep things chronological. It may take me a week or more to finish it, but this is a very interesting way to rip those trash "novels" apart and expose them for the excrement they are.

[hedgehog]

45. Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!

I knew that somewhere there was a great satire/synopsis of these books waiting to be enjoyed! I took a peak at the first book. When the hero found the Christians (I didn't read far enough to find out why they were left behind), they sat him down in front of a VCR and popped in a tape to explain the situation. I knew then that these books were filled with nuggets of gold in heaps of trash, but I wasn't willing to do the digging myself!

[Journeyman]

12. As little as possible. . .

that's what I think of the Left Behind series.

[BL611]

13. Never read the books, but I know where your coming from...

Sometimes I have difficulty choosing between Jon stewart and the 700 club.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

14. I bought the first one at the airport, needed something to read

on the plane -- and didn't read the cover blurb carefully or I wouldn't have touched it with a ten-foot pole. The plane landed before I finished the book (which I quickly realized was really goofy), and I never finished reading it after that. The writing was horrible and the theology was worse. I never got to the part where Jesus makes people explode. Oddly, I never learned about that part in Sunday school, either.

[XanaDUer]

18. Jesus makes people explode?

:wtf:?

[cynatnite]

15. I read five or six of them...

Interesting series. I considered it pure fiction.

By the last one I got bored with the storyline and the characters. No matter the theology behind it, the whole thing got repetitive and old.

There is a dramatized series of audio following the series, too.

There are some who believe these are as literal as the bible. :shrug: Go figure.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

17. Who's buying? (Newsweek article stats)

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.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4988269/site/newsweek/

[Lars39]

20. They were written to get the fundies all stirred up and it's worked.

They are intertwined with Southern Baptist doctrine in part by the writing and in part by the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention inching the members towards being a cult. Most of those I know that have read them think the books accurately portray how things will be. It's a sick kind of brainwashing if followed up with the right kind of preachin'.

[Fenris]

21. The basis of those books rests on one absurd notion...

Namely, that Revelation is to be taken "as is," literally as a description of events which are forthcoming. The problem is that if one accepts Revelation as the literal revelation of God to its author, one must also divorce it from its historical context. Most New Testament scholars will tell you that Revelation is filled to the brim with symbolism which, while unclear to modern audiences, would have been abundantly clear the Christians the author was writing to. In all likelihood, Revelation is about Rome and its empire, a prophesy of collapse, in which the author offers his audience hope that their persecution by Rome will be abated and they will triumph.

Of course, understanding this requires one to not take the Bible in literal terms. As fundamentalism asserts that the Bible is the literal "Word of God," such an explanation is inadequate or even blasphemous. There are an awful lot of people in this country that believe in the infallibility and purity of the Bible, and they are the ones whom these books appeal to. It doesn't matter that they are poorly written or make God into a vindictive sadist bent on punishing the unrepentant. All that matters is that a "man of God" co-wrote it and serialized the Rapture for Christians and potential converts. It reinforces in many the hope that one day God will come and rid the world of those who make it unbearable for others. For Christians with a persecution complex, those books remind them that one day their "persecutors" will be persecuted themselves.

[RoBear]

35. Good answer.

I have a friend who was a Catholic priest and he put the best explanation on the whole thing. That is, Revelation is a MYSTICAL book and was not intended to be PROPHECY. That's where the bible-thumpers go off the deep end. Problem is, those people have no grounding in history, church or otherwise...

[Liberal In Texas]

22. Leave it behind. It's pure junk. We need to get you to a library or a

book store. (Borders or another "blue" store.)

[Seen the light]

23. Ha, I read other things besides that nt

[Liberal In Texas]

27. Glad to hear it! LOL

[kiraboo]

24. I read the first couple for the reasons you describe -

they are addictive. But also because I was fascinated by how truly, magnificently and grotesquely bad they were - in every respect. The characters were ridiculous and stereotyped; the dialogue was laughable; and the story itself, the plot, was just downright unbelievably bad. So you can be sure that a portion of those sales were due to people like me who just couldn't turn away from the hypnotizing horror of the books' badness! But the rest of them were sold to folks who can't tell the difference between Dickens and Charles Schultz (with all due respect to the late cartoonist). You know, the kind of people who can readily be persuaded that fiction is truth.

[cynatnite]

31. I love end of the world shit...

I want stuff blowing up, the planet breaking apart, panic in the streets and utter chaos everywhere. This was, in a way, the kind of stuff I like to read.

And you are right about the characters and how badly this was written. It's why I got bored with it.

Stephen King does way better with stuff like this.

[Hardrada]

25. They say the true Godly people will vanish right

in the mid

[kiraboo]

36. LMAO! Thanks for that. That is, if you can still read this! n/t

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

26. I can't believe that

anyone can get beyond book three. I tried, I really did. (Not having a great sense of what the Christian right believe I thought it would be an ideal introduction.)

[yella_dawg]

29. Let me get this straight.

Blowing people to bits is good.

Naked babes in Playboy bad.

Obviously I need an attitude adjustment, 'cuz that makes no fucking sense.

[Kindigger]

30. The movie

I think there's a newer one out, but I'm talking about a movie by that name from the mid '80's. My friend and I stopped over at her Fundie Sister's house, and she insisted we watch it.

Scared the bejeezus out of me! What did I do? Went to the Assembly of god Church with my friend the next Sunday. Watching those people thrash, wail, and carry on snapped me out of it pretty fast.

[CatholicEdHead]

37. Talking about the Kirk Cameron movies?

I have not seen them (or read the books), it just looks even worse than the B- movies SciFi Channel always has on. :puke:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190524/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283644/

[Kindigger]

41. Yes that's the one

Sorry about the late reply. I'm a hit and run, multi-task poster. Sometimes I forget one of my tasks :) I don't know what it was that affected me so bad. Could have been my life circumstances at the time. Could have just been people up and disappearing. Dunno, but I didn't think anything could be worse than my Baptist childhood... Assembly of god was. I didn't think the "fire and brimstone" could be any worse. A pastor telling people about the fires of hell, and having them answer with "praise god" was too warped.

As for midwestern Baptists, it's probably one of the reasons I have anxiety attacks, and chronic PTSD. A lot of using the rod, and belt, and flyswatter, and anything else within reach, went on in my house. I never got over the idea that religion=pain. I was also molested by the youth pastor, and I have flashbacks regularly now. It took 30 years for them to start. I believe it happened to my sisters also as they have no memories of childhood before age 14.

I guess someone has to be the lucky memory recipient huh?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

32. The scary thing to me is, I think, is this to desensitize these people to

the idea of some kind of Holocaust against liberals or atheists.

[Dem Agog]

34. Creepy Fundie Shit...

By creepy fundie wackos who believe in crazy fairy tales...

Not worth my time or effort, or eyeball blinks...

[Shadder]

40. I made up to book 4

Then I took them out in the back yard, threw them in the grill and burned them.

[jbnow]

38. What visions they have!

I guess you understand the other side better now and their view of their god.

I knew Jesus cursed a fig tree and made it wither but wow, he's exploding people now. Maybe it's his evil twin. Maybe you should write a follow up.

I lived near a minister once and he'd come and try to convert me. I like pondering God and am happy to converse on the subject but have never met a person who could convert me. He was pretty nice but a sincere believer in limited Christianity.

Once he came with a friend, sure he had the argument to sway me. He quoted some part of bible (that I haven't found but I haven't looked hard)that says when Christ returns all that know him will bow before him and be saved (or something). So now how could I say that people who don't know Jesus can be saved?

That wasn't even hard. Did he think they'd recognize him from his picture? Jesus' name was not Jesus Christ. Jesus was the man, Christ the energy that filled and moved him.
That energy is not specific to any one religion or any religion at all. Who would recognize that energy of the peace and the love that was the Christ? Those who let that energy grow within themselves. Children for sure. Those who love, who dwell in inner peace, who respect and care for one another and the earth and so on. They could be any religion, they could be agnostic, pagan, atheist. It wouldn't matter. Like draws like.
There may be more then a few haughty Christians who would walk right by. It ain't about the name.

[B Calm]

42. Tropical storm hitting Spain. Is this a sign the end is near, or is

it global warming? This was a discussion I had yesterday with a fundie...

[Perky]

44. As a Christian, it it really bad theology

The pre-tribulation rapture of the Church is an ida that is abut 120 years old, has no basis in Scripture and actually runs counter to any Biblical themes.


It is inaccaurate drivel for the simpleminded who want to feel important, written by folks wanting to make a buck.

[hedgehog]

46. What I want to know is this:

They've reached the end of the series, so now they're adding sequels?