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  In Response To ... Tim LaHaye's Rapture
 

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Note: This essay first appeared in the March 2007 Baptist Studies Bulletin.

           A so-called scholar crafts a fictitious story purported to be biblically-based but that in reality is nothing more than spurious speculation that misrepresents the Bible to create a sensational, and controversial, plot.
           The recent discovery of the so-called tomb of Jesus?  No.     
           The DaVinci Code?  No.
           The reference is to Southern Baptist Tim’s LaHaye’s Left Behind series, one of the best-selling pieces of fiction in modern times, and heralded as biblical truth by the author and millions of Christians.
           Some moderate Christians, tired of the proliferation of biblical illiteracy and warmongering generated by the Left Behind series, are now fighting back by focusing on the biblical book of Revelation from a historical perspective, and asking Christian writers to produce books focused on the central biblical theme of God’s love for humanity.
           LaHaye, former long-time pastor of Scott Memorial Baptist Church in San Diego (renamed Shadow Mountain Community Church, and now pastored by David Jeremiah), scoffs at attempts to discredit his work, insisting that millions of readers like his books not for the violence, but because they take the Bible literally. "Surprisingly enough with all the liberal brainwashing they've got in public education, most people that claim to be Christians have a tendency to believe the Bible," LaHaye said in an interview. "They [the critics] are just liberal, socialists, really, and they don't believe the Bible."
           LaHaye appears blissfully ignorant that his own Left Behind series itself is based on a modernistic view of the Bible that hinges on a fictitious event―the Rapture―foreign to scripture.  LaHaye, in fact, appears to be a mirror image of the straw man upon whom his own venom is projected―a “liberal” (at least in terms of handling scripture) who is “brainwashing” the public by distorting the line between fiction and fact.
          
Why is Tim LaHaye adored by tens of millions of Christians for writing a series of books that espouses the modern Rapture heresy of John Nelson Darby, plays loose with biblical literalism and transforms Christian scripture into fiction?
           Itself stranger than fiction, LaHaye’s story is intertwined with a larger plot to steer the course of world events by rewriting history and orchestrating a future world war.  A graduate of Bob Jones University, LaHaye was an early leader of the Moral Majority and larger Religious Right, advocating the myth of America’s founding as a Christian nation and himself founding a series of fundamentalist religious and extremist political organizations in the early 1980s.  One of LaHaye’s organizations is the secretive Council for National Policy, a conservative political lobby whose members include top officials in present and past Republican administrations, and which exists for the express purpose of combating “liberalism.”  (The New York Times recently reported that the CNP held a private meeting with the 2008 Republican presidential candidates and is “dissatisfied with the Republican presidential field and uncertain where to turn.”) 
           In 2001 LaHaye provided the funding to establish the Tim LaHaye School of Prophecy at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.  With the ear of the Bush administration, since 9/11 LaHaye has spearheaded an effort to frame and fan the wars in the Middle East as the “quickening of God’s plan for the ‘end of times.’”  Sure that the end is indeed near and doing his part to make it come about, last year LaHaye published a new volume, The Rapture: In the Twinkling of an Eye/Countdown to Earth’s Last Days.
          Why does Tim LaHaye―teacher of heresy, fictionalizer of scripture, promoter of world war in the name of God―have such strong appeal to tens of millions of Christians who otherwise claim to believe the Bible?  Perhaps it is a sign of the times that a sensationalist and purveyor of fiction, such as LaHaye, can so easily dupe legions of Christians.  And perhaps it is an indication of the depths of biblical illiteracy among Christians.