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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. |
