The "Left Behind" series is a $100,000,000 publishing enterprise.

Fasten your seat belt.

Be sure to read it down to the part where the Rev. Barbara Rossing says that this is bogus Bible scholarship.

I heard a presentation by Rev. Rossing a year or so ago at the church I often attend. She has written a book on the subject of the "Left Behind" series. The title she gave her book was The Rapture Racket, but that made her publisher nervous, so they re-titled it The Rapture Exposed. Rev. Rossing, a solidly grounded theologian and Bible scholar, said that this whole "Rapture" nonsense came from gleaning selecting verses from all over the Bible, taking what they wanted out of context, then putting them together as "proof." That's sort of like cutting individual words and phrases out of a magazine and pasting them together into a ransom note. You can make it say just about anything you want and it has nothing to do with the original text. And the people doing this are the ones who tell you that you should not interpret the Bible, you should take it literally, as written, as "the True Word of God." One reviewer of the "Left Behind" series says, "Put succinctly, reading the Left Behind series is like reading books which intentionally throw out all rules of hermeneutics and exegesis. This series is the epitome of eisegesis: reading into the Bible what one wants it to say."

The "Left Behind" series picture of Jesus in the Final Battle, raising his hand in a gesture of what would normally be a blessing and causing a host of "evildoers" bellies to burst open, spilling their guts onto the ground and dying in excruciating agony doesn't seem to me to be quite the same Jesus who, in the Sermon on the Mount, gave his followers the Beatitudes, and at another point said of those who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and comforted the sick and oppressed, "Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me." Nor is it the Jesus who said "Love one another" and "Forgive your enemies."

I'm no theologian, but couldn't this sort of thing be called "blasphemy?"

To answer Greg F's questions, "And what are all the "real" "christians" doing about it? Do they actively abjure and condemn these hijackers & nutcases??? Or do they keep quiet out of a twisted and misplaced pan-"christian" solidarity?" Many "real" Christians are having wall-eyed fits over this (as is evidenced by the responses that Rev. Rossing gets in churches wherever she goes). Most mainstream Christians feel that the "Rapture Christians" and Fundamentalists give Christians a bad name, to the point where some of them are hesitant to even admit to being Christians. Now that's intimidation! I wish they had the courage of some of the early Christians in the Roman coliseum: don't just lay down and die! Get up and eat the damned lions!

But the main problem is that, just like the progressives and liberals and yes, even the Democrats, as opposed to the neoconservatives, the Republicans, and other right-wingers, Christians (real Christians) are nowhere near as well organized. The reason is that there is a wide spectrum of belief that is subsumed under the title "Christian" in the same way that there is a great deal of splintering among progressives. Although they agree in general principles, they tend to bicker about minor details.

Both political progressives and progressive Christians have got to get their acts together, or they are going to be steam-rollered along with the rest of the country. Don't give up! This may be happening. Rev. Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine, has been hitting the talk shows of late (and has written or published some hard-hitting articles in the magazine), and there is also the National Council of Churches and the various local chapters thereof (progressive enough that during the McCarthy era, they were accused of being a Communist front organization). The social programs that are espoused by both liberal Christians and political progressives are mutually consistent. Christians have no antipathy toward political progressives because most of them are political progressives, supporting progressive causes and candidates wholeheartedly. It's the political progressives, particularly those of the atheistic or agnostic persuasion, or especially those who lump all "Christians," progressive and fundy alike, together and refuse to have anything to do with them who are turning their backs on what could be a powerful ally.

A couple of decades ago, the right, both religious and otherwise, was just as splintered as the progressives, both religious and otherwise, are now. But far from the dim-bulbs and loonies that we like to characterize them as, they were smart enough to get together and find areas of agreement, put their minor quibbles aside, and work together for a common goal. That's why the country is in the mess it's currently in.

If people like the Rev. Jim Wallis, a religious progressive, the religiously progressive National Council of Churches, and others such as George Lakoff, a political progressive, author of Moral Politics, and recently Don't Think like an Elephant, and chairman of The Rockridge Institute (a progressive think-tank—now, isn't that a refreshing change!?), got together with others of like mind—and values—put aside any minor disagreements, and began working together, it could be like the awakening of a sleeping giant.

One need not fear religious progressives taking over the government. Most of them feel that, at least up until recently, religion was safe enough from the government. But recently, the government is not safe from religious fundamentalists. Religious progressives realize that if the religious right gets the kind of secular power it wants, the more liberal Christians will not be allowed to worship the way they wish to.

When the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the 4th century, that suddenly lent the power of the empire to a particular religious belief. Shortly thereafter, Constantine proclaimed, "Dogma is what I say it is!" The Christian Church became a monolith with the force of law. This lasted for centuries, until a renegade priest named Martin Luther wrote out his little list and nailed it to the cathedral door.

There is more than ample historical evidence for the wisdom of keeping religion and the state completely separate. Religious progressives know this all too well.

Don Firth