46. Bonus: Left Behind books Top Ten lists

(Added September 2021)

As in other matters of taste, your actual mileage may vary. These are your host’s personal selections for Left Behind’s Top Ten most memorable lines, Top Ten most significant non-performing characters, and Top Ten series curiosities.

Top Ten memorable lines

(and five honorable mentions)

Honorable Mention V: “My son has become my father!” (—Volume 15-called-Prequel-3, page 333).

The blessed Virgin Mary, speaking of Christ Jesus. However God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Ghost are three Persons in one God. God the Son did not become God the Father. Perhaps the fictional BVM meant to say, “My son has become my God.” But since Christ already is God and already was God, that’s a whole different discussion.

Honorable Mention IV: “Why would someone pursuing my daughter make me want to run? She’s almost twenty-one. It’s time she was pursued” (—Volume 2, page 286).

Rayford confronting Hattie. Hattie literally slept with the Antichrist to get Rayford an assignment as the Antichrist’s personal pilot, but Rayford refused the job. Hattie then “stalks” Rayford by proxy by stalking Chloe. Hattie had hoped that Rayford might become frightened enough to hide in a new location, which would be made easier via said perfectly-timed new job. Unfortunately Rayford cannot tell the difference between a suitor and a stalker. He wants Chloe to get married and to move out of his house, and is genuinely displeased that Hattie got his hopes up for nothing.

Rayford does have an explanation that makes sense to him. He knows that as long as Buck Williams has no competition for Chloe’s hand, Buck can make the lovelorn girl wait for years—and, in fact, does (cf. Volume 2, page 400).

When Buck finally proposes marriage to Chloe, it has been eighteen months since the Rapture. By now most disaster stories would be busy stocking up on ten thousand cans of tuna fish, not helping the kids to marry, breed, and create more mouths to feed.

Honorable Mention III: “Tradition” plus “The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and even some of the great cathedrals” (—Volume 16-called-Sequel-1, pages 211, 275).

[EDIT: October 2023. After reflection, we have abbreviated this entry and moved some paragraphs to the “Curiosities” section as an expanded “Honorable Mention II.”]

These enticing morsels of world-building have the potential for short-story spinoffs. The fictional Millennial Kingdom is built atop the dust and ashes of our world. Our version 1.0 world is pulverized more finely than sand—there is nothing left. The only physical objects that survived were physically located in geographic Israel. And the only people to enter the Millennium were Glorifieds (all in adult bodies) and Saved Natural adults and Unredeemed Natural small children (none over seven years old).

The result is a world with one denomination, one interpretation of Christianity. Officially, none other survived. It is a world so strict that the country Egypt (“House of Ptah”) was punished for using that name which honors a false god. Goodness knows what happened to believers who were baptized with names like Diana, Venus, or Thor. (Let alone the apostle Apollos! See Acts 18:24, 19:1; I Corinthians 1:12, 3:4, 16:12; Titus 3:13.)

So when the Millennial Kingdom dwellers rebuild “cathedrals,” whose cathedrals do they rebuild? To cite three random examples, would the Kingdom allow Hagia Sophia, Notre Dame, and the Crystal Cathedral? (Via time portal for that first one, as it is not a Christian structure now.) Human emotions can become attached to buildings. (See the fire and rise of Notre Dame.)

Also, how would a Millennial cathedral be decorated? There are beautiful works of art in some churches that would not be welcomed in other churches. And the Millennial version of the Louvre—what was in it? (Seriously, what was in it? The Louvre of our world is now on the Internet, if the Gentle Browser would care to hazard a guess.)

Smitty invites himself into the offices of TOL—bad guys; long story—as “chaplain.” Before they publish their newsletters, he offers that they can test their lessons on him. “You could ask whether you have accurately interpreted something you are criticizing from the Scriptures or even from tradition” (Volume 16, page 211). Wait … from whence came these traditions? Only the Saved adults would remember them. Is it just a coincidental choice of words, or is some Saved someone keeping alive “traditions of men?” (cf. Matthew 15:2-3, 15:9; Mark 7:5, 7:8; Isaiah 29:13; Colossians 2:20-23). But if so, why would someone do that?

Perhaps it is unsurprising that Mudawar “earnestly” asks Smitty, “If I wrote something like this about God, would believers say I was wrong or unfair, or would they just be bothered because they don’t understand Him either?” (Volume 16, page 237). Even though only one denomination survived—two, if we count Messianic Judaism—the characters still are getting wrong information from somewhere, in a way that is evidently different from fabricating it themselves.

Honorable Mention II: “Irene saw two women embracing and weeping. ‘Your child?’ Irene said. One met Irene’s eyes and nodded. ‘I had her aborted sixteen years ago. She forgives me’ (—Volume 15-called-Prequel-3, pp. 178-179).

Obviously the teaching of Age of Accountability for the babe. Included not because the girl went to Heaven, but because the mother did. There are those persons who would have said she never could repent “enough” or ever otherwise qualify. Such assertions assume that God is bound by their decision.

Honorable Mention I: “By now there should be no question, but for the record let me say that yes, we believe that what we have portrayed here will happen someday. Our deepest prayer is that this sixteen-book story has drawn you closer to God and caused you to either receive Him as your Savior or more deeply commit yourself to Him if you were already a believer. Thousands of readers have told us that they became believers through reading these books, which makes everything else associated with them—media coverage, controversy, best-seller lists—pale in comparison. There’s nothing any novelist enjoys more than to hear that his work has changed a reader’s life. Well, when readers tell us that, they mean it literally.” (—Volume 16, pages 355-356)

This reviewer as a child was exposed to Many Churches, and they all had different answers to the question, What must I do to be saved? How old must one be to be baptized? What form must it take? When one partakes of the Lord’s Supper, what exactly is one doing? Sinner’s Prayer, yea or nay? (Where saying a prayer becomes a Work and could be construed as Saving Oneself By Works.) “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together.” / “You can no more become a Christian by going to church than you can become an automobile by sleeping in your garage.” Rapture? No Rapture? Age of Accountability, yea or nay? What? What? What?

LaHaye once declared that 28 percent of Scripture is prophecy [Revelation Unveiled, c1999, page 27.) But it is challenged that no Biblical prophet of old ever foretold the future to satisfy curiosity; they did it only to stimulate godly living. It is riveting to study the future, but it is essential to seek the past. For it is not the Second Coming of Christ that saves souls—it is the First Coming of Christ that saves. Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection. That comes first.

For the record, this reviewer believes that the authors did receive a calling to write; also, we believe they did their very best. We just have some concerns about the results.

“But sanctify, in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord; and be always prepared to make a defense, to give an answer to any who asketh you to give an account of the hope that is in you, but with meekness, gentleness, fear [reverence]” (I Peter 3:15).

“Do not quench the spirit; do not despise prophesying; but test everything and hold fast to what is good” (I Thessalonians 5:19-21).

…

10. “At times Mrs. Stein objected, but each time Chaya gently led her back to the Bible” (—Left Behind: The Kids: Death Strike, Volume 8).

Here a teenager tries to convert an adult. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (—Romans 10:17). But faith is not spell-casting, and the Bible is not a book of spells. Christians accept the authority of the Bible, but the novels seem to have forgotten that billions of humans do not regard the Bible as an authority. Since God’s word “shall not return unto Me void,” Left Behind’s characters do not always believe them.

The novels may have forgotten that the sower of the seed may not be the reaper of the harvest (John 4:37-38; cf. Job 31:8; Micah 6:15). Sometimes believers are uninterested in being part of a team: of being the reaper on one day, and the sower on another day. They do not understand why the seed does not grow to harvest-maturity the instant the seed meets the soil. They want to be the reaper all the time, because they think that actually saving the souls, eliciting the Profession of Faith, collecting the Salvation Scalp, makes them better somehow. Well, they don’t save the souls. God saves souls. “For by grace you are saved through faith, not by your doing but by the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

The novels seem to forget one more thing: the disciples of Jesus didn’t have complete Bibles when they were saved. Jesus told them He would not leave us orphaned. He would send us the Parakletos, the Holy Ghost to comfort, to counsel, to convince, to encourage, to exhort, and to teach (John 14:16-17, 14:26-27; 16:7-11; I John 2:20, 2:27). It also is the Holy Ghost who offers us “prevenient grace.” Prevenient Grace has been described as the grace that “runs ahead” of you, to gently help you recognize the right way, the grace that prompts the soul toward salvation.

But is the Holy Ghost present in the Left Behind Tribulation? Some readers argue, No. The Holy Ghost dwells within believers (I Corinthians 6:19). So did not the Holy Ghost depart this earth during the Rapture of all believers?

Other readers would argue that the Holy Ghost must have departed this earth because they identify Him with “the restrainer” (II Thessalonians 2:6-7).

But if the Holy Ghost is removed from the earth, who caused the post-Rapture mystical experiences and feelings of the characters? Also, if Christians shall be baptized with water and the Spirit (Matthew 3:11, Luke 3:16, Acts 1:5, Acts 11:16), how are the Tribulation Force and the converts being saved without Him?

If the question of the Holy Ghost’s presence in Left Behind is uncertain, then that leaves the characters only the Bible (as that which was written by His inspiration; II Timothy 3:16, II Peter 1:20-21). Young Chaya certainly isn’t wrong to claim the Bible as an authority she trusts. But if it has less meaning to another person, she needs to be able to talk about other reasons she believes, such as the God Who is its author and her Savior.

That still might be esoteric to some, but sometimes people communicate better through relationships. This reviewer is reminded of a quiet conversation: “How do you know that [God the Father] [God the Son] [God the Holy Ghost] is real?” / (gently) “He’s more real to me than you are.”

9. [Awesome moment of Awful: Pope Peter’s wardrobe is] “embroidered astrological symbols [and] a high, peaked cap with an infinity symbol on the front and a floor-length, iridescent yellow robe with a long train and billowy sleeves. His vestments were bedecked with huge, inlaid, brightly colored stones and appointed with tassels, woven cords, and bright blue, crushed velvet stripes, six on each sleeve, as if he had earned some double doctorate from Black Light Discotheque University” (—Volume 5, page 54).

Insta-reaction: Buck stifles his laughter. (Most of the readers don’t bother. Laugh away.)

Decades-later-reaction: What, no feathers? Perhaps the world’s First Nations were all Raptured. (Sorry you missed it, Hannah Palemoon.) Still an awesome line, though.

8. “Somehow God has allowed me to see you through His eyes—a scared, angry, shaken young woman who has been used and abandoned by many in her life” (—Volume 5, page 278).

Tsion Ben-Judah, speaking to Hattie Durham. It speaks much of the way Hattie has been portrayed in the series that this is one of the most humane and compassionate things anyone has ever said about her—characters and readers alike. Still could be better.

7. “I can read” (—Volume 11, pages 297-299).

CIBYS [pronounced kibbis; Carpathia-Indwelt-by-Satan] arguing that Team Antichrist will prevail because the LORD put His intentions in writing a.k.a., the Bible. CIBYS argues that Team Antichrist now knows to gather more soldiers and guns. (God did not know that I would have so many guns, that sort of reasoning.) CIBYS hears but does not understand; reads, but does not perceive. Similarity with today’s world is significant.

6. “Irene had made butter from milk she had collected from a cow, so when everyone had assembled, they were met with steaming piles of fresh produce, drenched in butter” (—Volume 16-called-Sequel-1, page 2).

A line that’s here just for the smile. This unfortunate choice of words does not do justice to their celebration, or to Irene’s talent and hard work. When the Gentle Browser hears the expression, “That is some steaming pile of [fill-in-the-blank],” the word “produce” is probably not the first word that comes to mind to fill in the blank. Future descriptions sound better, if didactic in a “remember to floss” sort of way.

Elsewhere:

“What was the fruit like? Unfortunately, no one can describe the taste. All I can say is that, compared with those fruits, the freshest grapefruit you’ve ever eaten was dull, and the juiciest orange was dry, and the most melting pear was hard and woody, and the sweetest wild strawberry was sour. And there were no seeds or stones, and no wasps. If you had once eaten that fruit, all the nicest things in this world would taste like medicines after it. But I can’t describe it. You can’t find out what it is like unless you can get to that country and taste for yourself.” (—C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle)

In this reviewer’s personal headcanon, Bruce had the cauliflower, Tsion had the tzimmes, Chaim had the kugel, Irene had the English jacket potatoes, Amanda had the squash, Hattie had the candy-cane beets, Chloe had the baby carrots, Raymie had the corn-on-the-cob, Cameron had the broccoli, and Rayford had the kale. Because Natural.

5. “Can you imagine, Rafe?’ she exulted. “Jesus coming back to get us before we die?’” / “Irene had been right” (—Volume 1, pages 4 and 19).

Irene Steele and her husband Rayford. Two famous lines, connected by a formula. In the novels, the penitent sinner must approach the Saved person, or address the memory of the Saved person and confess, You were right. This ritual is so consistent in the series that it is almost as if it is integral to the process of salvation.

4. “Were they happy? No. Will they pray about it? Yes. Do I care what they come back with? Only if it is a yes” (—Volume 11, page 307).

Tsion Ben-Judah, discussing his plans. Near the end of the series—Jesus literally is returning tomorrow and they can prove it—Tsion decides that he has had enough. “I want to be taught to fight, to use a weapon, to defend myself, to keep my comrades and my fellow Jews alive. I would rather die in battle with my boots on” (Volume 11, page 306). Tsion likes the machine gun best. How can anyone miss, he asks. He can spray it back and forth like a garden hose (page 314).

The Gentile Christians think it’s amusing, cute (Volume 11, pages 308, 314). The Jewish Christians are shocked.

[Trivia alert: And so is any reader who remembered the Tsion of Quote #1, below.]

The elders convene an emergency meeting. Tsion makes his declaration of defiance. Tsion airily informs the Jewish Christians that if the Lord allows him, then no man can stop him. [Cf. Permissive Will versus Ultimate Will.]

What would have happened if the Jewish Christians had announced, We prayed over it, and we believe that God said No. We would call it “suicide-by-cop.” What is your real reason for doing this? Would Tsion have done it anyway?

This is an additional reason why we refer to Tsion as the unofficial “pope” of the series, because he certainly sounds like a second No would not stop him.

3. “Many sincere believers had questioned [Tsion Ben-Judah’s] teaching that the Antichrist would actually die from a wound to the head. Some said the Scriptures indicated that it would be merely a wound that made [Antichrist] appear dead. [Tsion] tried to assure them that [Tsion’s] best interpretation of the original Greek led him to believe that the man [Antichrist] would actually die and then be indwelt by Satan himself upon coming back to life” (—Volume 7, page 119).

Tsion Ben-Judah arguing that the Devil can raise the dead. If anyone disagrees with him, it must be that their understanding of the original Greek is not as good as his. This sort of credo supremacy is why we started calling him the pope of the series. Cathedra mea, regula meae. Tsion’s chair, Tsion’s rules.

2. “[Buck] tried to push from his mind that Chloe might get the idea of taking and raising as their own the unwanted baby Hattie was carrying. He and Chloe were close to a decision about whether to bring a baby into this stage of history, but he hardly wanted to consider raising the child of the Antichrist” (—Volume 3, pages 383-384).

Buck Williams having second thoughts. Hattie Durham, the Antichrist’s fugitive plaything, “thinks about having an abortion every day” (Volume 3, page 178). The Tribulation Force women plus Buck Williams try to talk her out of it. (Because baby.) After the Trib Force love-bombs Hattie to tears, the thoroughly-smitten Buck sighs that they would have convinced him (Volume 3, page 378). Then he sobers up to what the consequences of success might be.

The difference between rhetoric and reality is neatly encapsulated when Buck realizes that Chloe might want to adopt said Antichrist’s said offspring. (Because baby.) Put it another way: Buck, who is anti-abortion, worries that his wife Chloe might be too pro-life. Buck’s priority is to get the baby born. After that, it’s on its own.

1. “You’re no better than the abortionists who refer to their unborn babies as embryos or fetuses or pregnancies so they can ‘eliminate’ them or ‘terminate’ them rather than kill them” (—Volume 7, page 58).

Tsion Ben-Judah to Chloe Steele Williams. Chloe has been in the Tribulation version of quarantine for twenty months, and she is deteriorating. She’s probably one of the safest people on the planet, but fear still slips into her home and mind: she simply cannot stop watching the news.

Chloe cries, “I can’t think anymore! I want done with this! I want it over! I don’t know what we were thinking, bringing a child into this world.” So she will make those feelings go away by committing murder-suicide of her toddler and then herself.

Chloe has the rhetoric, the knowledge, and the murder weapon. And because of the premises of the series—“Seal of the Lamb,” “once Saved, forever Saved”—Tsion cannot even protest that the deed could cost her her eternal salvation. As graceless as it is for Tsion to drop this verbal nuke upon a desperate woman, he did it because he is too far behind her to catch up.

(Spoiler: she does make that call. The Volume 7 posts will tell if she succeeded. This also is a reason we suspect that the Tsion of Volume 11 [Quote #4, above] would refuse to take No for an answer. If they won’t listen to him, why should he listen to them?)

For one brief moment, there is an actual Pro-Life character amongst all the anti-abortion characters. The Volume 7 version of Tsion believes that killing a human being after they are born still counts as killing. That life is sacred from womb to tomb. To be Pro-Life is not to control but to give. If you are going to be Pro-Life, the rules need to be the same for everybody. Every life is worthy of your nurturing and protection.

For one brief moment, it was.

But it was still cruelly worded, the verbal nuke of the series.

And it didn’t even work.

Top Ten peripheral characters

10. Friend Jackie.

Friend Jackie is noted for three incursions into Irene Steele’s life. One: she urges Irene through a forty-day wilderness march toward conversion (Volume 13-called-Prequel-1, pages 372-379).

Two: she gives Irene advice about marriage. “Jackie’s own story of how she loved her husband into the faith was most powerful to Irene” (Volume 15-called-Prequel-3, pages 14-15). How powerful? The reader is never told Jackie’s own story.

Three: Friend Jackie makes an unpopular proclamation. When Rayford says God helps those who help themselves, his wife Irene replies, “I don’t suppose you can support that with chapter-and-verse [in the Bible] … It’s not in there. Because I tried that line on Jackie, and she caught me on it. It sounds good. Even seems to make sense. But it’s not there” (Volume 14-called-Prequel-2, page 46).

As a result, Friend Jackie herself is unpopular with some readers. Many people continue to insist that “God helps those who help themselves” is in holy writ. At least, it is found in The Book of Politicians. (Chapter 3, verse 21, supposedly.)

9. Baby Jo Durham.

Yes, we went there. We named it. After all, “Jo” was a character from Volumes 2-5, or one-third of the 12-volume series. Entire plots revolved around it. We hear the howls of protest: You cannot name it! If you name it, you might get attached to it! Yea, verily. Isn’t that what the Tribulation Force wanted—for Hattie to become attached?

(We chose “Baby Jo” because “Nicky Junior” isn’t fair to the child, and “Harry/Harriet” isn’t fair to Hattie. She dislikes her name and her mother for so naming her [Volume 3, p. 179]. “Jo” is good for a boy, good for a girl, and gives both Baby and Hattie a decent father role model. Jesus was brought up by a Jo, and He turned out pretty well.)

The name is not the only thing that is missing. Other characters are very in-your-face, very visible. Instead, this character forms a Baby Jo-shaped hole in the story. Everything about Baby Jo calls attention to things that are left undone.

Four times in the series Chloe Steele Williams and Hattie Durham promise to be “godmothers” to each other’s babies. (Volume 4, page 390; mentioned three separate times on Volume 5, page 371.) This term is the only expression of care in the series for the soul of Hattie’s unborn. It is always about Hattie’s actions; no mention is made of the salvation of the child.

When Jo dies, the characters (and the authors) deny Baby Jo a Christian funeral. The Tribulation Force cannot baptize the stillborn; baptism is for the living. But they never bathe, dress, or anoint the body either. They do not gather together. They do not pray. They deny Hattie her requested right to view the body. They deny the baby a burial. Burying the dead is one of the great acts of mercy, because it is a kindness that can never be repaid. Instead they toss it in the hospital incinerator. Would they have done the same with Chloe’s child Baby Kenny?

There is a horrible expression that life begins at conception and ends at delivery. The Tribulation Force regarded the unborn baby as a person, until it was actually born. Real people get dignity. Plot points only get discarded.

Nevertheless the story should not be over, not in a Pre-Millennial Dispensational series. From the onset (Volume 1, pages 92-93), Left Behind automatically bestows Saved status upon all small children, born and unborn. In the novels, children cannot go to hellfire until they are old enough to truly accept or reject Christ. In other words, even the spawn of the Antichrist who died in utero should have gone to Heaven. In this reviewer’s personal headcanon, a quick glimpse might look like this:

• (Volume 16-called-13, page 341) … “The same crowd returned for Mac McCullum’s millennial bash …. Dear ones from the past began a long procession past Rayford …. His heart was filled as he was greeted by [name], [name], [name].” The smile froze on his face. Nicolae Carpathia? No, no. He had his mother’s eyes. His face was strong but kind. “Son,” said Rayford, squeezing the young man’s hand. “Jo,” replied Jo Durham. “Thank you for never giving up on me.” And Rayford’s smile was genuine.

Or perhaps:

• (Volume 16-called-13, page 38) … “[Cameron] found miles of tables lined end to end … laden with bowls and goblets to receive a feast …. Stretched from sky to sky were spectators, the angels, who in no way qualified as guests. In their bright robes they sang out praise and glory to the Lamb.” As he glanced around, Cameron was struck by the sight of her, a few tables from his, talking animatedly with other young people he assumed to be her friends. Of course her parents were two of the most attractive people Cameron had ever seen. But now, her body glorified by the Father, saved by the Son, and aglow with the Holy Spirit, Jo Durham truly could be said to be divinely beautiful. She sensed him glancing her way, and her radiant smile nearly brought him to tears. Wonderful!

If Mr. Jenkins (“Super J” to the fans) were to write a sequel or tie-in novel for the series’ 25th anniversary, this reviewer hopes that a starring character is Baby Jo in the Millennial Kingdom. Clearly the series can do psychological thriller. (See the gaslighting of Marilena Titi Carpathia. And why do we get the impression that Baby Jo and Marilena really need to meet?) It could be an absorbing read to watch a young Glorified who was murdered by his/her father trying to live side-by-side with other people who suffered under that same murderer, and those who were suffering still.

8. The Glorified woman assaulted.

See also the Volume 16 Spoilers and Discussion posts. In the Bible, when someone tries to hurt an angel, it doesn’t look like this. A “Natural” teenager in an earthly body attempts to rape a “Glorified” woman who has her Heavenly body, her forever-body, her eternal body (Volume 16, pages 122-124). He almost succeeded. “She fought him.” She lost. The rapist literally was on her body when the divine finally struck him dead. It never should have taken so long. It never should have been portrayed that the divine protected her purity but otherwise ignored or tolerated the beating that she endured. In fact, aside from the attacker being struck dead, nothing in this incident should have been possible.

(By the way, this reviewer believes that the narrative’s phrase “he died in her arms” trivializes the severity of the sexual assault, much as the incident trivializes the Resurrection. What message does it send to female readers that even after one’s Resurrection, it will never really be over?)

This is a woman who has been to Heaven. She probably wishes she had never come back.

7. Mr. Wong (Chang Wong’s father).

The teenaged Chang accepted Christ and received the Seal of God upon his forehead. The Seal is visible only to believers. Chang’s father is not one of them.

Mr. Wong calls himself a “VIP. Very big patriot. Global patriot” (Volume 7, page 317). He does a lot of business with the Global Community, and he has no intention of letting his family besmirch his reputation for loyalty. He wants to prosper in this economy, and no one, absolutely no one, may choose their life over Dad’s job, money, and worldly power.

So when Chang refuses to take the Mark of the Beast, Chang is told that he is too young to make that decision—i.e., to disobey his father. Chang is pinned down and drugged. The Mark of the Beast is applied to his forehead by force [Add pagination].

In a different book series, the Mark would have melted off Chang’s face like snow off the ditch. It is related to the belief called “Once saved, forever saved,” which the Left Behind novels are said to teach.

In a different, different book series, the Seal would have melted off Chang’s face. In churches that believe in “state of grace” and “state of sin,” the most recent state is the state that binds, especially at the moment of death. It reflects the person’s most recent loyalty and choices. Otherwise the Biblical term “apostasy” would have no meaning. Opponents of this teaching call it “eternal insecurity.”

(Ironically, opponents of “once saved, forever saved” call that OSFS teaching “eternal insecurity.” Every time a “once saved, forever saved” person stumbles, the berating begins. “A saved person would not do what you did. You are a fraud. You must still be unsaved.” And so they return to the altar of mercy and plead, “Please, Jesus, this time I really mean it.” There is no limit on the number of times that a person may re-dedicate themselves in this fashion.)

But in Left Behind, Chang Wong bears both the Seal of God (which he chose) and the Mark of the Beast (which his father chose for him). It is said that the authors received huge quantities of mail from distressed fans seeking clarity in this matter. The authors could have said, This is a work of fiction. Instead they replied, Chang was a believer first, and thus, always. That doesn’t answer the readers’ questions.

What readers wanted to know is this: Can a person receive the Mark of the Beast accidentally? Can you receive the Mark without your knowledge? Can you receive it against your will? Chang’s plight sent the message that yes, it is possible. (Goodness knows Chang couldn’t be the only one.) It’s no wonder that readers were terrified.

(Aside: for all we know, Team Antichrist does not believe in Age of Accountability. Villain Jock [Volume 11, page 83] claims that “[he] could list [Baby Kenny] as a nonentity until the age of twelve,” which is consistent with Age of Accountability conventions. However, like everything else Jock says, it could just be a lie. The novels themselves are silent as to whether Team Antichrist applies the Mark of the Beast unto small children.)

So let us address these questions. If you believe in a Pre-Trib, Pre-Mill Rapture, then you need to check your timetable. The Mark of the Beast occurs after the Rapture. Since the Rapture has not yet happened, you are worrying about something that does not yet exist.

Whereas if you do not believe that there will be a Rapture out of Tribulation, then you will need to think about these things. In fact Preterists believe that there already has been a Mark of the Beast at least once: a certificate issued by the Roman Empire that declares, “This is an official document declaring that we have witnessed you sacrificing to our gods.” Scripture says that the spirit of antichrist is already in the world, and already there have been many antichrists (I John 2:18; cf. 2:22, 4:3, II John 1:7). And all of them will ply you for your loyalty. By that reckoning, every generation will have some version of the Mark of the Beast. Every generation must say No to evil.

Now that the tale of the “bi-loyal” Chang has had a few decades to percolate, we notice that Mr. Wong wants a reputation for loyalty to Team Antichrist, which is not the same as being loyal. We know that Mr. Wong himself never took the Mark of the Beast—because he eventually gets Saved, gets martyred, and goes to Heaven! (See Volume 10, pages 265-267.)

So on the one hand, Chang Wong’s father is introduced as ineffably selfish. He is loyal only to himself. Mr. Wong is willing to sacrifice his firstborn son to hellfire, but Mr. Wong deliberately does not acquire his own Mark of the Beast. That way, whether the victory goes to Team Christ or to Team Antichrist, he thinks he can keep a foothold in either camp. He can “prove” his loyalty to Carpathia by pointing to his Marked child, but he also can “prove” he personally never took a Mark that rejected Jesus. (In this he is assuming that both supernatural forces can be fooled.)

On the other hand, Mr. Wong deceives only himself. This reviewer would suggest that, in this series, Mr. Wong’s betrayal of his son to the Mark Applicators was one of the most loyal things that Mr. Wong ever could have done—so much so, that we are surprised he was not supernaturally Marked-on-the-spot himself. If he had been supernaturally Marked-on-the-spot, it would have prevented his salvation. See the next entry.

6. The “wonder worker” entity in the “motivational-speaker” white suit.

A ghastly performance unfolds in the presence of Saved eyewitnesses Mac, Albie, and Smitty. A demonic apparition lures a crowd of Undecideds into the desert, then torments and murders them (Volume 10, pp. 332-339).

That is not even close to the most appalling thing he does. He can apply the Mark of the Beast to humans merely by looking at them!

Pentecost is the birthday of the Church. Even as the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the saints and bestowed upon them tongues of fire (Acts 2:1-4)—so also the demonic apparition of Left Behind #10 inexplicably can impose the Mark of the Beast upon every unsaved person in his presence.

(Note: there is a certain eternal difference. Specifically, there is no reason to believe that any person was Saved on Pentecost against their will.)

See also the Discussion Topics post for Volume 7. This is an abbreviated list:

• The demonic apparition applies the Mark of the Beast to four people in the audience by speaking a word or thinking a thought. He never touches them.
• He slays the audience in four different waves of agony by speaking a word or thinking a thought. He never touches them.
• During each wave, he applies the Mark of the Beast to all remaining Unsaveds by speaking a word or thinking a thought. He never touches them.
• He may have forced the Mark of the Beast upon the Unsaveds: none of them made any word or gesture asking for said Mark of the Beast.
• If he did not force the Mark of the Beast upon them against their will, then he is telepathic—he can read human minds. This is the only way he could have “heard” their thoughts of consent.
• If he could force the Mark of the Beast upon people, he would not need to be telepathic, since he would not be bound by their consent anyway.
• The text could be interpreted as if the demonic apparition is both telepathic AND can force the Mark of the Beast upon people who are fleeing (resisting).
• He tells them why he is killing them. “Fools! You’re all fools. Do you think a god like Nicolae Carpathia wants you as his subjects? No! He wants you dead and away from the clutches of his enemies [i.e. God, angels, believers].”
• When the demonic apparition has both Marked and murdered every last victim in the desert, it departs, gloating.

Whether or not the reader believes that a demonic apparition can do these things, the novel says that he can. He can even Mark people who are resisting. This is why we wonder why Mr. Wong was not supernaturally Marked in the instant that he entered evil’s presence, or the instant he betrayed his son to the Mark Applicators.

A demonic apparition that can apply the Mark of the Beast to victims just by looking at them may be the single greatest display of evil-minion superpowers in the series, second only to the Satanic Resurrection. We know that Carpathia (Volume 7, page 204) and Fortunato (Volume 7, pages 190-195) can hypnotize the unsaved living. In Volumes 1-5, Carpathia brainwashes Buck Williams, Chaim Rosenzweig, Hattie Durham, and President Fitzhugh. However, when they are separated from him, it wears off. He must repeat the process, in person.

In time the evil superpowers grow so much that these displays look small. In Volume 6 (page 339), Carpathia can hypnotize an unsaved character over the telephone. In Volume 7 (page 358), Fortunato attempts to hypnotize four million people by asking them to look into his eyes on their television screens. CIBYS [pronounced kibbis; Carpathia-Indwelt-by-Satan] interrupts him, makes the same attempt, and succeeds. That’s shocking. Yet even they were “only” applying hypnosis over a great distance. They were not applying the Mark of the Beast over a great distance. (Unlike the hypnosis, the Mark of the Beast, once applied, would not need to be repeated.) The logical explanation is that Fortunato and CIBYS can do it by Volume 10; else, from whom else could the Volume 10 demon have acquired the ability?

If the forces of evil had these powers, it is puzzling that they did not keep using them. Of course if they had, it would be a very short series. We do not mean that there would be fewer volumes, or that those volumes would have fewer pages in them. We mean that Team Antichrist could force the Mark of the Beast upon every Undecided on the planet in a matter of days, or hours. There literally would be no one left to evangelize, no one left to be Saved.

Tsion Ben-Judah still would have a job with his daily cyber-sermons, lamenting, I informed thee thusly. I so informed thee thusly! But the 144,000 Witnesses and the Tribulation Force would slink back to their bunkers, talk on their telephones, and watch television until the world ends. If there is no one left to save, then their job is done.

It also would have prevented what happened with Chloe and Krystall.

5. Krystall.

Six and one-half years into the Tribulation, 36-year-old Krystall is the Antichrist’s current secretary (Volume 11, pages 34-40, 94, 105-106, 194, 203-204, 222-226, 229-230, 235-236). The divine Judgments have struck her blind and left her in desperate physical pain. She tells her mother that Carpathia “is not the man I thought he was.” Between the divine Judgments and the Antichrist’s cruelty, she mourns her life. “Death will be a relief,” she says. But Rayford informs her that it will get worse. Krystall bears the Mark of the Beast, so death for her means hellfire.

Nevertheless Krystall is an ambiguous figure. She again raises the audience’s fears about whether people can be tricked into taking the Mark of the Beast. She retains the personality of a resister. She is proud of her Saved uncle Gregory and works to protect him. She gives the Tribulation Force the secret information for which Albie died. She gives Otto Weser the chance to atone for his deliberate sin against Deuteronomy 27:18 (Volume 11, pages 45-46). She fits in so well with the Tribulation Force that Mac proposes taking Krystall with them in the evacuation of New Babylon. (Rayford gives consent; page 226). Mac refuses to take Krystall to Petra, though; it is only for the Saved. “She’s not going to like what eternal life looks like. That doesn’t mean we can’t befriend her and be grateful for her help” (pages 203-204).

Otto calls Krystall a “gem” (Volume 11, page 222). Rayford calls her a “godsend” (page 230). Buck snorts that this is an “interesting thing to say about someone bearing the mark of the beast.” But Krystall does more to try to rescue Buck’s wife Chloe than does the rest of the Tribulation Force put together. Even as Buck and Zeke disparage her, Krystall is murdered for helping them (pages 235-236).

This reviewer has heard three consistent responses. One: Buck and Zeke’s response. Nothing can be done; plus she might be playing a trick. They trouble themselves not at all about whether she was tricked.

Two: Rayford and Mac’s response. Nothing can be done, but let there be gratitude and kindness. What a shame that she was not evangelized before the Mark of the Beast.

Three: Otto’s response. “I wish she was on our side.” Sometimes they are. Let the record show that at least two of Carpathia’s own staff were Raptured! This is proof that it is possible to find Save-able people even at the Antichrist’s “event horizon” orbit. (See Volume 15-called-Prequel-3, pages 246-247.)

If Krystall has no free will, where did her good deeds come from? Did she make a choice to help? Did God force her to help the Tribulation Force, and let her think that her actions are her idea? She would be disabused of this idea on Judgment Day; would that be like taunting her? Some of the Tribulation Force do taunt her behind her back; would God do that? Since Krystall died trying to save the life of a Tribulation saint, would that make her a Tribulation martyr?

Otto is so horrified at Krystall’s murder that he forgets to do his job. If Otto knew it were an option, Otto probably would have taken Krystall to Petra and asked “the elders” (Tsion, Eleazar, and Chaim) to pray the Mark away. They did it with Chang Wong; why not try it with Krystall? Given the premises of the series, the effort would fail. But it is important to develop their interpretation that the attempt should have been made.

(Note: amillennialists—who believe that the Seal of God and the Mark of the Beast are internal as per Jeremiah 31:33—and Rapturists [who believe the signs are external] may have different answers.)

Krystall is an example of a character who seems a better person than some of the Saved characters, yet she went to Hell.

4. Cendrillon Jospin.

The oldest named Unsaved character to survive the Tribulation, Cendrillon Jospin was permitted to enter the Millennial Kingdom because she was seven years old. In the Kingdom Year 93 she dies, on her 100th birthday.

Chloe calls Cendrillon “a wonderful girl.” Except for Cameron, the adults loved her. Her peers loved her. The little children loved her. Thousands of people attended her funeral, and very few of them attended out of morbid curiosity. It was a mighty blow to her town.

People just assumed that if Cendrillon worked in a Saved Store, salvation would just seep into her pores, that there was something in the water, that she would breathe it in the air.

They assumed it so strongly that someone issued her a Redeemed Robe. The Millennium has a dress code, with everyone in white. This dress code is so all-pervading that when two characters violate that dress code—Qasim in a Robe that is too small because he stole it; Smitty in a business suit—everyone stops and stares and asks, What are you doing? There is no way that Cendrillon would have gone unnoticed if she had no Redeemed Robe. And there is no way she should have been issued a Redeemed Robe unless someone were convinced of her salvation. (Seriously, this is a major plot hole.)

Cendrillon seems to have had some ghosts. She was never counseled as the oldest survivor [victim?] of the [heck trifecta] of divine Judgments, Antichrist’s persecution, and a world of adults who would do anything to survive, even hurt kids. Only one person momentarily glimpsed her heart: Bahira Ababneh. Bahira weakly reported that TOL—bad guys; long story—were trying to engage Cendrillon, and she lacked the tools to refuse them on her own. Cendrillon did not trust anyone but Bahira and, after their quarrel, not Bahira either. No good guys paid attention to Cendrillon or ministered to her needs, not really. And she died.

Obviously if Volume 16 were to take Isaiah 65:20 literally—or literalistically, which is not the same—someone had to die, and someone had to die first. Cendrillon happened to be that one, and the fact that she was an Undecided sinner rather than a vile one is probably intended to prove a point (possibly Luke 16:30-31?).

One reason that Cendrillon haunts the Millennial Kingdom and the reader’s imagination is that there are no unsaved adults allowed in the Millennium. Unsaved children die on their majority birthday. No exceptions. Did you or someone you know misspend your youth and only become Saved as an adult? That mercy would not have been bestowed unto you in this novel.

Cendrillon Jospin is popular in Left Behind fan-fiction, generating entire mini-series or episodic novellas. [Example: In “Cendrillon,” hosted by fanfiction.net she studies astronomy.]

[Note: if the Gentle Browser finds the prospect of such tales distressing, there is no compulsion to pursue them. Respect your Roman 14 reservations, or your brother’s. It should be noted that some strict Christians consider the Left Behind series itself to be Biblical fan-fiction and refuse to read it. This reviewer refused to read it until 2002, as it happens.]

But Cendrillon survives as more than TOL’s first “martyr.” She endures as a symbol of a lost child, lost hope, and lost potential. By coincidence, this reviewer also saw the stars when we looked at her. (No, we did not know any fan-fiction writers at the time.) It was in 2007, when Kingdom Come (Volume 16) was fresh on the shelves. We recall reading that book and imagining the following skit:

And Father Abraham said, “And the LORD said unto me, ‘Look toward heaven and number the stars, if thou canst number them.’ And He said to me, ‘So shall your seed be.’ And I believed Him, and it was reckoned unto me for righteousness.”

A little girl raised her hand. “What is a star?”

To Simon Peter, to Paul, to Jonah. A little boy raised his hand. “What is a storm?”

To Noah. “What is a rainbow?”

[Trivia alert: on Volume 16, page 164, “all the children” claim to have seen a rainbow. That seems improbable in a world where the moon is as bright as the sun, and the sun is seven times brighter than the sun we know. All characters wear sunglasses even at night!]

[Trivia alert #2: Now we imagine a child reading Luke 11:33-36 in a world where the sun and moon are searing-blazing-supercharged and everyone wears sunglasses even at night, and asking “What is a lamp?”]

Linguists claim that there is a word for “bread” in every known language on earth. When Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life” (John 6:35, 6:48-51), it was no random sentence. Jesus knew that His words would translate to every language on earth.

And so Cendrillon Jospin, a character apocryphally associated with starlight, becomes a type of narrative shorthand. She reminds readers that, in the Millennial Kingdom, there are numerous passages of the Bible that would make no sense to Millennial readers. What a strange thought.

3. Verna Zee.

There are three issues with Verna Zee.

Issue One: She doesn’t like Buck Williams, and Buck Williams doesn’t like her. Probably Verna’s biggest supporter is Fred “Slacktivist” Clark, a real-world reporter by trade. Many of his posts have evaluated the reporter characters Verna and Buck through the lens of whether he would want to have them as supervisors, as employees, or as co-workers. (Answer: Verna, yes; Buck, no.)

Basically, Verna got a battlefield promotion when her supervisor Lucinda Washington was Raptured. Lucinda Washington trusted Verna and appointed her as second-in-command. That trust was well-placed. Verna may have been unpopular with the rank-and-file, but she kept the Chicago bureau running for three weeks before the news-magazine’s owners finally deigned to send Buck Williams to look into conditions there.

In Volumes 2 and 3, Carpathia conscripts Buck to be publisher of the Global Weekly and purges it of all senior officers except for two named reporters. Buck survives, in debt to the Antichrist’s … mercy? And Verna survives, in debt to Buck’s … mercy? Buck gives no reason as to why he lets Verna stay on the job, other than his desire to not yield to the “temptation” to fire her (Volume 3, page 57).

Yet when Buck gets promoted over Verna, conditions and performance actually get worse. Buck never appoints a replacement for Lucinda, and he is uninterested in doing Lucinda’s work himself. Verna’s battlefield promotion is rescinded. Since she is no longer second-in-command, technically it’s even a demotion. Verna no longer has the authority to direct or discipline the troops, so they do whatever they want.

In one egregious example (Volume 3, pages 56-62), the entire staff is watching television. The print reporters who are not doing their jobs watch the television reporters doggedly do their jobs. And when Chicago is bombed, the entire Chicago bureau goes home (Volume 3, page 66). Never mind that, with Chicago in danger of being isolated from the outside world, the people of Chicago desperately need the printed news that only the local print reporters can provide. It is understandable that the staff say they are worried about their families. But they have work to do, work that might help the survivors—say, by coordinating the rescue efforts. The staff had to choose. They all chose to help their own.

(Aside: in a different doomsday novel, this conundrum would make sense. But in this doomsday novel, it doesn’t. The Chicago bureau stayed at their posts when their children were Raptured. What families would they have left to go home to? Maybe a few of them pulled a Rayford—he who replaced his Raptured wife and son with a new pair he liked a lot better. But all of them? One hundred percent of them? It is consistent to say that the staff stayed at their posts in Volume 1 because Verna forced them, then amscrayed in Volume 3 when she could not force them. But it is not consistent with the rest of the series to say that they prioritize their families, or that they even have families.)

In this chaos Verna literally is the only person working, and Buck Williams makes her stop. Three times. Once: to take her office. (He wants to make some phone calls. He could have used Loretta’s phone, or Dead Bruce’s phone, or his own phone. If he wanted not to be traced, he could have used Technomage Donny’s phone. Also, the series was written in the era of payphones. Buck Williams of Chicago, Illinois probably drove past a minimum of eight payphones per mile or five payphones per kilometer on his way to work. It makes it look like Plot Magic that Buck went to so much trouble to drive a few dozen miles to commandeer Verna’s desk phone.)

Twice: when the undeterred Verna moves to the operator station and passes along the telephone messages that Buck is refusing to acknowledge. Two of the callers are people that Buck actually wanted to talk to! Instead of listening to her, he kicks a door in her face to get rid of her. (Again, if Buck didn’t want Carpathia to know where he was, Buck really shouldn’t have gone to the office that Carpathia purchased for him.)

Three times: when Buck also abandons ship. Verna seems to be the kind of worker who would live in her office if she had to. That’s a convenient quality to have in a novel where she suddenly becomes homeless in this very scene. But when she sees someone in distress, Verna never hesitates. She cares not at all that the person in distress is both richer and more powerful than she is. She gives Buck her cellphone and even her car (Volume 3, page 66). Buck reciprocates by offering her a room to let. But without transportation or her cellphone, that takes Verna out of the office too.

Every reporter who has every lived knows the adage: In case of apocalypse, come to work early. But in this series, Verna is the only one who practices it.

Issue Two: Verna is not attracted to Buck. It’s a clear contrast when Hattie, Chloe, spiky-haired Alice, and even some adoring readers all take notice of him in rapid succession. Verna is too “militant” and wears “sensible shoes.” To some readers, the term “militant” reminds them of “lesbian.” But to older readers, “militant” is more likely to mean “feminist,” especially in an argumentative way. Examples: “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” (Gloria Steinem). Example: “A feminist is just a woman who wants to be a man” (Multiple/anonymous). Either way, Verna clearly is not “militant” in the sense of recruiting anyone to do anything, except to insist that the staff do the work for which they are being paid.

Verna also is never seen to go on dates. Perhaps like many professionals, she’s married to her job.

Issue Three: Verna notices that Tsion Ben-Judah is living in Chicago. The Tribulation Force gives Tsion a super-secret hiding place, which he promptly squanders by attending the Barnes funeral in the sight of thousands of people. Verna wants to interview Tsion, and in truth he has a compelling story to tell. (Two stories: his innocence, and his Gospel message. Verna might mock him, but she also might quote him.) It’s also a story that Buck is burying. Verna contends (correctly) that ever since Carpathia befriended him, Buck has buried a lot of stories. Confrontation turns to argument, then to threats.

When Verna recognizes Tsion, the assumption is that she will publicize his location if she is denied the interview. Buck confronts her and brings Chloe to support him. Chloe’s comment that Verna “made it all up” (Volume 3, page 342) probably stifled any hopes for a mutually satisfactory solution. Chloe also does all the preaching, or at least prophecy-quoting, in the chapter; Buck hardly needs to be in the room.

In the end (Volume 3, page 348), Buck and Chloe warn Verna that they won’t tell anyone that she is a lesbian, if she does not tell anyone that they are Christians. (Ergo, enemies of Carpathia, their boss.)

Based on the style of writing, the audience is supposed to cheer for Buck and Chloe, and in fact there is a funnier version of this uncomfortable tale. In the television series Roseanne, a little boy named D.J. Conner says, “This big kid was beating me up. So I gave this bigger kid a Twinkie® to beat him up.” The “bigger kid” is a girl. The bully-boy’s father orders the Conners to call off the girl. The Conners reply, “You call off your boy.” The visiting father becomes vulgar and abusive on the subject. Roseanne’s husband Dan Conner, played by John Goodman, retorts, “Whoa, settle down, buddy, or I’ll give my wife a donut to kick your butt.” [Episode: “Home-Ec.”]

But to Verna Zee, her day is not on the same planet as funny. Verna is extremely scared. This may not be delusional fear, as in hypochondriacs. She is genuinely frightened of being “outed,” identified, exposed. She behaves as if she fears someone specific. (Whomever it was, they weren’t Raptured.)

And she is far more petrified of that someone specific than the Christians fear the Antichrist! (Who, by the way, has already started killing people.)

Note that Verna otherwise is unafraid of World War III, unafraid of being disliked by her colleagues, and unafraid of almost everything in between. (Alternately loud and demoralized, yes, but not afraid.) If it comes to it, Verna might not be afraid of the Antichrist either. She is concerned, of course. (“I can’t keep your secret forever, Buck. I’m not going down with you”—Volume 3, pp. 334.) Since Carpathia wants to arrest Tsion Ben-Judah, it makes sense that Carpathia might arrest any reporter who meets Tsion Ben-Judah, thus coercing said reporter to name the fugitive’s location. But Verna is not frightened enough of Carpathia to pass up the chance to interview someone whom Carpathia hates. This gives rise to debate as to whether Verna would reveal Tsion’s location is she is denied an interview but would fight to protect her source Tsion if she is granted an interview!

Yet when Chloe and Buck breathe the word “lesbian,” Verna panics and leaves the building. The threat is somehow one-sided, disproportionate.

After the mutual threats, the reader never sees her again. The Left Behind fan sites and wikis all assume that she must have died in the Wrath of the Lamb Earthquake. But it is plausible that Verna swiftly packed her bags and moved away, before “Someone Specific” could find her again.

2. Vernon Billings.

The Rev. Vernon Billings is mentioned several times but never truly known. He is an image, presumably an ideal. But without relationship he reminds one of a painting in a world of people.

The missing man is best known for disseminating an “In Case of Rapture” video to instruct the hapless souls left behind (i.e., not Raptured).

Secondly, Irene Steele fairly swooned over Billings—spiritually speaking, of course—long before she ever met him. This was why Rayford replies so strongly and immediately that it sounds like “a cult.” How can Irene speak so familiarly and fondly of a leader she has never met? “I would never get you back,” he warns (Volume 14-called-Prequel-2, pages 142-143). And in a sense, he never did. Irene finally saw Preacher Billings for the first time when Chloe was a late twelve (Volume 14, pages 193-196, 205-207, 211-214, 216-218). Irene pined for him for six years afterward. Only when Chloe turns eighteen and leaves for college does Irene return in person to New Hope Village Church (Volume 15-called-Prequel-3, pages 12-13).

Thirdly, Irene seeks out Preacher and Mrs. Billings for marital counseling (Volume 15-called-Prequel 3, pages 12-14). All we learn is that they wish Rayford would attend.

The “In Case of Rapture” video is not the most important reference to Vernon Billings, merely the most successful. Let us keep in mind that the Billings video is distributed to a captive audience. Whether or not they obey, it is reasonable that the lost souls would consult it, much as other bereaved persons would consult a family member’s trust or will. But would it not have been more kind for the Raptured to have done a better job of evangelizing before the Rapture—to keep the lost souls out of Tribulation in the first place? (They had the time and space: the prequels are shorter volumes.)

The Gentle Browser may have noted that there are several “nice” people on this Top Ten list. The Raptured prophecy preacher explains why they did not survive the Left Behind series:

“You have heard me say before that some of the people who go [in the Rapture] may not be as nice as some of the people who are left. Just because all men and women are sinners—either saved by grace or still lost in their sins—does not mean there are not nice and pleasant people around” (Volume 15-called-Prequel-3, page 125).

Billings quotes I Thessalonians 4:16b-17. Who would see God? Not the good (Romans 3:10-11; Psalms 14:1-3; Psalms 143:2). Not the religious: God is no respecter of persons (Mark 12:14; Gal. 2:6; Job 31:15; Job 34:19; Deut. 10:17). Not the kind, the generous, or the serving. “Well, hopefully those who qualify will exhibit these qualities.”

But works will not save a person. “Those are things that should be done in response to the free gift of salvation: a gift of God, lest any one should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Indeed, because of grace, adds Billings, some of the people Raptured “may not be as nice as some of the people who are left” (Volume 15-called-Prequel-3, pages 124-125).

Billings says, “I am often asked, ‘Isn’t this discriminatory? Aren’t you being exclusivistic? Who are you to say that sincere, devout people of other religions will be lost, left behind?’” He appreciates that “the world is a pluralistic society and that people have the right to make their own decisions” (page 125).

On the other hand, he says, John 14:6. “We may not like that. That may not have been the plan had we been God.” But there it is (Isaiah 55:8-9). Believers have a responsibility to share the news so that others can make informed decisions, can make up their own minds. In the meantime, true Christians would not [commit named sins and crimes, many from the news] (pages 125-126).

Irene muses, “Pastor Billings had once said that when prophecy is preached and taught, the body is challenged to holy living. He was hardly one who advocated turning one’s back on the ills of society merely because you hoped to one day be miraculously rescued from it. Rather, he said, we should be all the more concerned with poverty, hunger, widows, orphans, and those in need” (page 126).

So. That’s a mouthful.

It also leaves an aftertaste.

It has been observed that lackadaisical Visitation Pastor Bruce Barnes might not be the member of the clergy who would be helpful in a pandemic-era hospital. Apparently he never met anyone who was dying hard. (Volume 1, page 196: “I was good at it. I smiled at them.”)

In like manner, it does not seem that Prophecy Preacher Vernon Billings did much during his actual lifetime other than preach to the converted. It is nice—there’s that word again—that he told his church not to engage in crimes and sins (including those that made international news in Year 2001 or 2021). But as the expression says, no one gets credit for not stealing the Crown Jewels. It is nice that “we should be all the more concerned with poverty, hunger, widows, orphans, and those in need.” But many non-Christians are “concerned” too. Some of them even act upon it and do something.

Rather, Billings does not actually prepare his congregation to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. He invokes their responsibility but does not teach them relationship. For example, how would a member of his church have a dialogue with an ex-fundagelical? Many such people left the church because they were injured by the church. And (if one will excuse the expression) ex-fundagelicals can be a holy terror in debates, as some of them know the Bible at least as well as you do. They may even know it better than you do, from when they frantically searched the Bible for answers to their questions.

How would a member of his church approach an atheist? Not just the “haters,” of which it must be noted the church also has an embarrassing number. How would a member of his church engage an atheist who sincerely believed in a high moral code precisely because they believed that no one is coming to save them? That people have to be merciful, compassionate because they are alone? That people have to help each other because all they have is each other?

As for people of other religions, Tsion Ben-Judah is one of several characters who invokes the Lewis Trilemma—but no one in this series will cede a space to Emeth of Calormen. The Left Behind series sidesteps the issue by having characters resist converting by ones or twos while converting readily by hundreds and thousands. If the converts are all faceless crowds, the narrative doesn’t need to mention what they previously believed.

That just leaves the Billings sermon about Nice Versus Holy. This reviewer once heard an interpretation that abandoning “nice” people to the Tribulation is the antithesis of Purgatory. Purgatory has been explained as an intermediate state for souls whose ultimate destination is Heaven, but they are not ready for Heaven. The purpose of Purgatory is to purify them, to clean them up until they are fitted for Heaven. Therefore the living would want to pray, “Let’s empty Purgatory.”

The Antithesis interpretation of the Tribulation is that it the place for “nice” unsaved souls to become fitted for Hell who are not yet ready to go to Hell. Because the only way that “nice” people could survive the Tribulation is by doing damnable things. And that is one of many reasons why old-school Rapturists teach that there is no salvation after the Rapture. Therefore the living should evangelize, as in “Let’s keep Tribulation empty.” (For those who do not believe in the Rapture, or Purgatory, or both, it would be “Let’s keep Hell empty.”)

But aside from telling his congregation which Bible verses to quote, Vernon Billings does not do that.

(For the record, this reviewer was told as a child that the Bible only supports two afterlife destinations: Heaven, and Hell. We were told that since God is infinite in holiness, then any sin against God is an infinite offense. Therefore a soul could spend infinity in Purgatory and still not be purified enough for Heaven. Only Christ is infinite enough to solve this problem—so He would just bestow our Forever-body and Forever-nature upon us, instantaneously. And we would be home.)

1. Mama and the Shiftless Shivtes [band name alert].

(Name courtesy of the Slacktiverse.)

The Shivte parents were elderly, with two “beefy” sons in their forties (Volume 11, pages 347-349). Since the characters were not Christians, they knew nothing of the Mark of the Beast as described in Revelation. But they knew that pagans marked and cut themselves to honor strange gods. They knew that this was Carpathia’s clear motive: to honor himself.

At first, none of the Shivtes intended to take the Mark of Carpathia or worship his statue. But he had a stranglehold on their Jerusalem economy, and they could not even buy food without that Mark. Finally the little old lady reluctantly volunteered:

“I was in line that day, actually in line …. I was planning to go through with it, even through in my heart I believed in the One true God. I did not know what else to do. I worried about my eternal soul, but I believed I was laying down my life for my family, and I could think of no nobler act” (page 348).

Fortunately, Chaim “Micah” Rosenzweig created a disturbance at the Temple Mount [Volume 9, the 43rd month]. The old woman slipped out of line, watched the miracles, and then fled home.

And her family? They were incensed that she backed out of their deal.

Mrs. Shivte adds, “I did not realize at the time that I would be selling my soul to the evil one.” Yes, she did know. This faithful Jewish family may not have had a New Testament, but they had Leviticus 21:5, 26:1; Deut. 4:15-18, 4:23, 14:1; Exodus 20:2-6; Psalms 97:7; Isaiah 44:9-19, plus Torah, Tanakh, and Talmud.

They also had multiple modern rabbis. It happens that Left Behind #11: Armageddon by LaHaye & Jenkins and The Ten Commandments of Character by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin were published in 2003, in the same year.

On pages 196-198 Rabbi Telushkin answered a letter from “Feeling Responsible.” Congregant Feeling had a suicidal friend. The cause? Financial ruin. The friend wondered aloud if he should kill himself so that his family would receive income from his only remaining asset: his life insurance policy. Congregant Feeling correctly replied that insurance policies do not pay for suicides. (Precisely to prevent this sort of reasoning.) But the friend did not believe him. And the more that Friend argued, the more worried Congregant Feeling became. What other arguments could Feeling use to dissuade Friend?

Rabbi Telushkin replied that Rabbi Stephen S. Wise encountered a similar situation in the 1929 stock-market collapse. “Despondent Investor” told Rabbi Wise that since Despondent’s life-insurance policy was the only asset that he still could leave to his family, Despondent asked if it would be permissible for him to kill himself.

To quote exactly: “Rabbi Wise told the man to go to his wife and children and tell them what he was planning to do. If they told him that they would prefer that he not commit suicide, then he had a clear answer: They wanted him alive, even if that left them poor. But if they told him that they would prefer the life-insurance money, then, Rabbi Wise asked him, ‘Are you going to kill yourself for the sake of selfish people like that?’”

Rabbi Telushkin seconded this advice. He added, “Throughout history most people have been poor, and there is no reason to think that they derived no enjoyment from their lives because of that. Poor people are as capable as wealthy people of being in love with their spouses and having loving relationships with their children: blessings that can bring people more joy than money. Indeed, there is no shortage of wealthy people who commit suicide, precisely because they lack such relationships.” Telushkin also suggested that Friend receive psychiatric evaluation. Finally, Friend’s wife must be informed of her husband’s feelings of guilt so that she can help him.

Scripture tells us, “In the mouth of two or three witnesses let each word be established” (Deut. 19:15, Matthew 18:16, II Corinthians 13:1, Numbers 35:30, Deut. 17:6, Hebrews 10:28). Here the Gentle Browser has four examples of the same problem.

One: Friend of “Feeling Responsible.” [Telushkin]
Two: “Despondent Investor.” [Wise]
Three: George Bailey. [Film, It’s a Wonderful Life]
Four: Mama and the Shiftless Shivtes. [LaHaye and Jenkins]

(“One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn’t belong.”)

When Mrs. Shivte returned home without the Mark of the Beast, her husband and sons “ridiculed” her and “rejected” her. In case there was doubt, the narrative includes those words multiple times. Page 348: “They had liked my plan of one of us—me—having the Mark [of the Beast] so we could eat. Now what were we going to do?”

This little old lady endured 41 months of methodical harassment, or 3 years and 5 months. These men still wanted the food. But they had no intention of selling their eternal souls for food. They still wanted to sell Mom’s eternal soul for food. Mom was not “Mom” anymore. She became disposable. And they never let her forget it.

And that was before she received Christ! “I was an outcast in my own home.” The man and sons do not get Saved until the very night before Jesus returns. So she saw only about four hours of peace in her home before the world ended.

To be honest, this reviewer was surprised that Mrs. Shivte lived to see it. The unwanted old woman had nowhere else to go. And when she told the men to “go out in the dark of night and find food,” this reviewer half-expected that the angry men might stop feeding her. After all, if she refused to take the Mark of the Beast for their sake—after she promised!—then they could just refuse to dumpster-dive for her sake. Sorry, we only found enough for ourselves. Change your mind yet? You would if you loved me.

The Antichrist Checklist is a long, long list, and Antichrist-spotting has long been the “Where’s Waldo” training, skill, and hobby of the fundagelical set. But in this reviewer’s opinion, the most vital score on the checklist is this couplet:

(One) “And the whole world marveled at the beast and followed him. Men worshipped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can do what he does? Who can stand against him?” (Revelation 13:4).

and

(Two) “Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all for [Jesus’] sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 10:21-22; cf. Mark 13:12-13, Luke 21:16-19, Matt. 10:34-39, Micah 7:5-6).

Scripture says that the spirit of antichrist is already in the world, and already there have been many antichrists (I John 2:18; cf. 2:22, 4:3, II John 1:7). In this reviewer’s opinion, there also have been Antichrist-wannabes who aim to be the Big Bad, the last one. Some check off a few boxes on the Antichrist Checklist. Some check off many boxes. But in this reviewer’s opinion, it is the couplet above that describes when a localized Antichrist-wannabe makes a quantum leap into the more energetic orbit of a heavy-element, radioactive, planetary Antichrist Candidate. The kind that, even if they fail, their names stink up the history books until this world’s end.

The Antichrist does not check off those two checklist boxes. The multitudes check off those boxes. We, you, us: we check off those boxes. No planetary Antichrist Candidate ever qualified without the ability to collect followers.

“I was only following orders.” “The banality of evil.” “For what doth it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” It is not how many requirements he fulfills. It is about whether you start sinning for his sake. It is about what you choose to do to please him.

That is what makes Nicolae Jetty Carpathia the Antichrist of the series: the Big Bad, the last one. Not the “evil miracles” or the armies or the nuking of the planet. It was the betrayals. It was when Mr. Wong proved, “Greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his friends [family, child] for his life.” It was when supposedly devout and decent people like the Shivtes campaigned to send their mother and wife to hellfire because they would rather have meals and no Mom, than to have Mom and no meal.

Top Ten series curiosities

(and two honorable mentions)

Honorable Mention II: Believing in an earthly Millennial Kingdom at all.

The book of Revelation only sparsely narrates a millennium:

“And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years” (Revelation 20:4).

And

“Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years” (Revelation 20:6).

In contrast, the Left Behind series makes numerous assertions about an earthly Millennium after the Second Coming of Christ.

For example, Left Behind teaches that there are three distinct bodily Resurrections:

• One. The church. (For all souls Saved between Pentecost and the Rapture, both the quick and the dead.)
• Two. The Tribulation Martyrs. (For all souls Saved after the Rapture who then died during the seven years of Tribulation. Also, all of the Righteous Dead who died before Pentecost.)
• Three. The Last Day. (All of the Lost, both the quick and the dead, throughout all of space and time. Also, any living Saved persons finally receive their Resurrection bodies at that time. Example: the Raptured wife Irene Steele receives her Resurrection-body over 1,007 years before her husband Rayford receives his.)

As a result, the Left Behind series teaches that the Resurrected and the Naturals—i.e., humans like us—will live side by side on Earth for a time. Although most Christians do not share this interpretation, the novel can be helpful as a world-building exercise. For obvious reasons there are few novels which speculate on life after Jesus comes back, and how different we souls might become. But this reviewer believes in giving points for degree of difficulty attempted.

In Volume 16 of the Left Behind series, Jesus returns to Earth and becomes formally seated upon the earthly throne of David, son of Jesse. There He remains for one thousand years, while believers rebuild the pulverized earth. And the only people to enter the Millennium are Glorifieds (all in adult bodies) and assorted Naturals:

• Saved adults from out of Tribulation;
• Saved young adults aged approximately nineteen years and up (i.e., they were Accountable minors during Tribulation); and
• Unredeemed small children under seven years of age, born during Tribulation.

As in the days of Moses (Exodus 1:22) and Noah (Genesis 5:32), there is a generation missing.

In the novel, in the series, what are the stated intentions of this earthly Millennium?

• It is quoted as “a foretaste of Heaven” (Volume 16, page xiv).
• It is described as an earthly place to build an earthly Fourth Temple. Otherwise the desecrated Third Temple would be the last word on the subject (as it were). (See Volume 16, pages 10-11.)
• It is intended as accommodations for “the Old Testament saints” who get Resurrected during the 75-Day Interval. The character Chaim Rosenzweig states that these righteous dead “were technically justified by faith,” but since they died before Christ, they did not count as “the dead in Christ.” Thus these Old Testament saints were not Resurrected at the time that dead Christians were Resurrected; and they did not go up in the Rapture. (See Volume 12, pages 359-60.)
• It is quoted as asking the reader “to see the Millennium as yet another of God’s efforts to reach the lost” (Volume 16, page xiv).
• It is quoted as “God’s plan for His chosen people. If Israel had no place within the future Kingdom of God, we could no longer trust the Bible” (Volume 16, page xv).
• It is described and quoted as the plan to give the Jewish characters authority over the earth. David, son of Jesse, becomes prince-king of the world. (Trivia alert: probably a literal interpretation of Ezekiel 37:24, 26 which call David a king and then a prince.) The next layers of government are “the apostles, who judge the twelve tribes; their princes; local judges under them; counselors; and finally you foreigners” i.e. Gentiles like Rayford Steele. Tsion Ben-Judah teases him, “Oh, don’t look that way, friend. You know we will not make you suffer” (Volume 16, page 35).

But what does that mean? Does Rayford Steele “reign” or “rule” over anybody? The narrative makes plain that he does not, unless we count his sway over his Glorified wife. (Rayford comments that Irene will be “grieved” to relocate, yet again, for his career. See Volume 16, page 101). Rayford spends the novel building houses, building the COT campus, upgrading the technologies of Indonesia—which begs the question of how Indonesia fell behind in a world where everyone began pretty much the same—and driving a motorhome caravan through Egypt.

No Gentile Christians appear to “reign” or “rule.” It’s a government of Jewish Christians and/or Messianic Jews. Most of the Gentile Christians spend their Millennium evangelizing Gentile children. Are Gentile Christians like Saint Mark or Saint Luke classified as Gentile Strangers first? Even the Benjaminite Saint Paul is not mentioned—perhaps because he was not born in Israel.

Perhaps this is only a puzzle if we think of it in worldly terms. A throne, a territory, and a population of subjects are paltry things compared to the intangible, purer forms of “reigning” and “ruling.” (See Matthew 5:5; Romans 12:1-2; Galatians 4:7.) After all, the characters are living on earth at the same time as Jesus! What doth mere political office afford compared to that?

Nevertheless, most Christians propose that we would not need an additional Dispensation of history to enjoy that victory. We already have it. The millennial kingdom is our salvation and the community of saints. As the hymn says, “Faith is the victory that overcomes the world” (I John 5:14).

This fictional Millennium is a world in which Resurrected characters have cellphones implanted in their brains, as mortals have pacemakers implanted in their hearts.

A world where mortal bodies and minds are adjusted in a way that is difficult to explain to those who have not read the book. (Sample quote: “Scripture says that you all are to be considered children until you reach age one hundred, but because you’re twice as old now as my parents were when I died, I don’t know; I guess I expect you to be more mature” —Volume 16, pages 187-189.)

A world where it is literally impossible for a legal adult to become Saved. Any unsaved minors die on their majority birthday. All of them.

A world in which Jewish Christians and/or Messianic Jews must reinstate animal sacrifices despite the cognitive dissonance that—in Christianity—animal sacrifices do not work. (Sample quote: “My chosen ones [i.e. the living Jewish inhabitants] must continue to present memorial sacrifices to [Jesus] in remembrance of [Jesus’s] sacrifice and because they rejected [Jesus] for so long” —Volume 16, pages 22-23).

A world of conventional employment: with offices; with office politics; with salaries (Volume 16, page 259); presumably with taxes. Taxes in the afterlife.

Three Saved characters (Rayford, Baby Kenny, Mrs. Barnes) declare that the LORD has spoken to them via telepathy. But aside from the speeches before the crowds at novel’s opening and at novel’s ending, King Jesus appears to spend the whole novel cloistered in the Fourth Temple. Entire generations of TOL—bad guys, long story—live and die without ever hearing His voice, without ever seeing His face. Even the Saved characters are not permitted to meet Jesus. David son of Jesse stops them at the door.

The authors ask readers “to see the Millennium as yet another of God’s efforts to reach the lost” (Volume 16, page xiv). Yet King Jesus is not recorded as visiting COT, TOL, or any place where lost people might be found. Some readers wonder, would the Jesus of the Gospels take a second job as earthly king if it interfered with His first job, “to seek and save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10)?

Quoth the hymn, “And He walks with me / and He talks with me / and He tells me I am His own / And the joy we share as we tarry there / None other hath ever known.” But not in this novel.

Scripture reminds us that “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him”(I Corinthians 2:9). Therefore the question is whether the Millennial Kingdom of Volume 16 seems strange to us because it is unexpected, full of surprises? Is the fictional Millennium merely strange, or is it a strange teaching?

Most Christians believe that there is only one Resurrection of the body: the Last Day, when all souls enter Eternity. Most Christians believe that we already “die” in baptism and rise in Christ. [See II Corinthians 5:17; Colossians 2:12-13; Colossians 3:1-3; Romans 6:3-4, Ephesians 2:1.]

(Whereas, as a rule, the characters of Left Behind do not get baptized. Can you even name one?)

Most Christians believe that “the first resurrection” of Revelation 20:4-6 refers to the day that we become Saved. That is why “born again” is called “born again.” [See II Corinthians 5:17; I Peter 1:12; Romans 6:4; Titus 3:5; John 3:6; Ephesians 2:1-6.]

This is why most Christians are amillennialists: they believe that we already are in the Millennium because salvation is “the Kingdom [that] is not of this earth” [John 18:36; Luke 17:20-21; Colossians 1:13-14]. Most Christians believe that after the Second Coming of Jesus, all souls ever, all souls everywhere, go to our afterlife destination and stay there. “And so shall we shall always be with the Lord” (I Thessalonians 4:17b).

What did you think life might be like after our Lord and Savior comes back?

Honorable Mention I: Believing in the Rapture at all.

It is estimated that, of 100 percent of Christians on earth, perhaps 90 percent are non-Rapturists and 10 percent are Rapturists. Of 100 percent of Rapturists, perhaps 90 percent live in the States and Canada, and 10 percent do not. Of 100 percent of Rapturists who do not live in North America, at least one half (maybe three-fourths) of them live in other English-speaking countries such as Great Britain and present or former Commonwealth countries.

This suggests that there may be a connection between the rise of Rapture teachings and the English translation of the Bible. To put it another way, Christians who have not been exposed to English translations of the Bible or to English-speaking evangelization are much less likely to believe that the Bible teaches about a Rapture.

10. The curious case of the Rayford in the End Times.

Everybody loves Rayford. Even the Antichrist likes him. Civilians call him Captain although he’s not their captain. (Hikaru Sulu was a decorated pilot and captain in his 25-year career, and no one revered him that way.) Tsion Ben-Judah may be the Jewish pope of the series—but Rayford is the real boss (Volume 5, page 111). And finally, Claudius was the least deadly of the Caesars, and even he expelled all Jews from Rome (Acts 18:2; for the reason, cf. Acts 18:12-17). The Caesars didn’t keep a pet Christian. Why would the Antichrist?

9. Schrödinger’s Christian.

Amanda White Steele, professed to be a Saved character, dies in the Wrath of the Lamb Earthquake. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The enemy kills the Tribulation Saints all the time, but they are not supposed to be killed by anything that God did. The series teaches that the Tribulation Saints will be impervious, preserved from the Holy Judgments of Revelation. (Why? Because the Israelites of Goshen were preserved from the Ten Plagues with which God smote Egypt.)

And it’s a reason that her widower Rayford is predisposed to listen to the enemy’s propaganda against her. Rayford spends three long months playing a game he calls “Wife or Witch” (Volume 4, p. 425; Volume 5, p. vii) until the narrative finally exonerates her.

Rayford is melancholy and penitent about the way he “used and misused” his girlfriend Hattie and his first wife Irene, sometimes simultaneously (Volume 12, pp. 393, 396). He actually forgets the way he raged against Wife #2 when he sees her again; also forgetting the Millennial-sized apology she is owed.

8. “Food, glorious food!”

One of this reviewer’s oft-cited disaster references is the Last Survivors series by Susan Beth Pfeffer. Life as we knew it (#1) and The dead and the gone (#2) both demonstrate characters who die of starvation within eight months of the initial desolation. They would have perished even sooner if they had not already been stealing food from the dead. Also, their foe was Mother Nature—they were not also being hunted down and killed by [the heck trifecta: divine Smitings; selfish bystanders; and Antichristy-evil persons, governments, or organizations].

Yet in Left Behind, there are obese heroes (Otto Weser) and obese villains (Jock, Florence) as late as 6.5 years into the Seven-Year Tribulation. None of them were eating the food gathered and shared by Chloe’s Co-op. They had their own plenteous supplies.

There is so much available food that the Shivtes survived by eating food they “found” in the city “at night,” probably in trash cans … for almost three and a half years. There is so much available food that Villain Jock tempts Chloe with “eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, pancakes with lotsa syrup” (Volume 11, page 84). There is so much available food that Villain Florence drugs Chloe with a chocolate milkshake. The world is ending, and they still have ice cream! A world with pork, wheat, chickens, sugar, chocolate, and dairy cows sounds inexplicably safe and stable. These are all delicate products, unlikely to survive the typical disaster story.

We mention this because one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is “Famine” (Revelation 6:5-6). Aside from the victims in Antichrist’s prisons and concentration camps, how many characters could you even identify who were starving?

We mention this also because, in the disaster novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a protagonist called The Man muses, “He thought about cows, and then he remembered: they were extinct.” It took only five years.

7. The massive “Billy Graham Crusades” and “Promise Keeper” styled rallies during Antichrist’s demonic reign.

Can you imagine the original Roman Empire letting Christians get away with such shenanigans? [See also: the Massacre of the 30,000 in the Hippodrome of Constantinople.]

6. Phone love.

It’s downright brilliant that LaHaye and Jenkins predicted a generation that is addicted to telephones. It’s not just smartphones. Their characters were even fixated on payphones and landlines. But those Implanted Brain Cellphones in the bodies of believers? Creepy Skynet HAL Borg Kaylon-Primary creepy.

And that’s before the reader realizes that the Resurrected bodies also have Implanted Brain Cellphones. (Whatever happened to the holy dread when Zeke, master of disguises, “dares not” modify a Glorified woman’s body, not even to paint her face? [cf. Volume 16-called-Sequel-1, pages 133-135])

And that’s before TOL reinvents robo-calls. [Hint, hint: room for a sequel!]

5. “Everywhere they hurt little girls”: The Millennial Kingdom is not safe.

We are not referring to the verbal threats against Smitty, or the shunning of Baby Kenny, or the abduction of Rayford Steele. None of these characters were ever in real danger. The Lord told Rayford to allow himself to be abducted so that two new characters (Rehema and child) could be rescued in Rayford’s jailbreak. And the intertwined stories of Smitty and Baby Kenny led to the salvation of a teenaged frenemy.

Rather, the question is what would happen to Rehema if she never met Rayford. Volume 16 speaks of “brothels” (page 70). Who is in those brothels? By definition they are either Saved adults—who also have been abducted—or else they are minors. Mercifully the novel never elaborates on just how very small some of these small humans may be.

But both Rehema and Cendrillon specifically said that they felt intimidated, afraid of their male counterparts. It is plausible that both girls could have been “disappeared” into the brothel archipelago when TOL finally grew weary of their vacillation. And of course we have mentioned the attempted rape of the Glorified woman in her home.

In a world where Jesus sits as King on David’s throne, and billions of saints and martyrs (both the quick and the dead) rule the world, these things are still happening.

Tsion Ben-Judah had predicted “war, murder, and drugs” as early as Page 32, but in the actual narrative the only specific examples of danger, crimes, and deaths in the Millennial Kingdom are almost all aimed at women and girls.

4. All kids fly free.

In Left Behind Land, even that ten-year-old Dalai Lama would have been Raptured. This reviewer’s grandmother was a Scofield Bible-carrying Baptist, and she would go all Malachi 2:15 and I Corinthians 7:14b on their left behinds, and their right behinds too. Our grandmother’s Baptist teaching was clear: the Rapture is about the removal of the Real, True Church™—and unbaptized children are not part of that church. Children do not automatically escape Historical Judgments, and they are not automatically worthy of salvation. A child must profess and receive Believer’s Baptism to be Raptured.

The only other way is if the custodial parent is Saved. Then they can bring a child into the Rapture. E.g., if Mom is Saved but the child lives with Unsaved Dad, the child is not Raptured because the child is not under Mom’s covering. Left Behind is more generous. (Grandmother would say, more “liberal.”)

Having said that, as per Matthew 18:1-10; Matthew 19:13-15; Luke 18:15-17; Isaiah 40:11; Malachi 3:17, traditional Baptists do believe in “Dead Infant Redemption.” A dead child is “Safe in the arms of Jesus.” But a living child must choose Christ. There is no “Live Infant Rapture” for a child who is neither Saved nor under Covering.

Except in Left Behind. The characters proclaim “Age of Accountability” but do not cite any specific Scripture to support their belief. Perhaps they thought it was obvious?

Therefore, this reviewer’s grandmother would argue that children who are neither Saved nor under familial Covering could only experience Live Infant Redemption on the Last Day, the Final Judgment, when all souls are ushered into Eternity. She would stand by her belief that only “liberals” would Rapture an uncovered, unsaved babe out of this present earth before the babe’s natural life came to its natural end.

3. Life is [heck] for children who missed their flight.

The first person to realize that the children are gone is Hattie Durham (Volume 1, pages 37, 92-93). For some reason she is more distraught than are the entire surviving congregation of New Hope Village Church, put together. All they do is line up at the Altar Call to testify about where they are on their spiritual walk, their faith journey. (Um, what? Your children are gone!)

As for the Unsaved, they don’t know about the Rapture. So they have no way to know that their children are “Safe in the arms of Jesus.” They ask the Antichrist to explain. He spews technobabble at them. They accept it. The world recovers from the loss of all children within two weeks. (Aside from a few hysterics behaving badly, no one actually looks for them.) But is it consistent with the Bible that the unsaved characters have no funerals, no vigils, no days of mourning, no feelings? Jesus observed that the unsaved care very much for their children (Matthew 7:9-11, Luke 11:11-13). Yet when the Antichrist declares your children are dead, they shrug and go back to work.

Speaking of work, the economy appears unaffected. Schoolteachers? Toy stores? Advertising? DisneyPlanet®? Stay-at-home moms? No one notices. The only character who complains about the disappearances is Nancy Durham, who worked at an abortion clinic. When the unborn babies were Raptured, there were no more abortions to be performed, and the workers all lost their jobs.

Even among the major characters, the loss of all children is a trifle. Rayford sells his large house with too many bedrooms, and someone actually buys it. In a doomsday novel, Rayford tells his daughter Chloe (Volume 2, page 400) that she has two weeks to get a husband or get out of his house. (No, she cannot come with Daddy; Rayford and Stepmom are moving into Team Antichrist Compound’s housing.) In a world with no children, a burglar steals Irene’s dishes and Raymie’s toys—instead of stealing canned goods, vehicles, fuel, and the generator—and Rayford’s insurance agent duly processes the appropriate reimbursement (Volume 1, pages 260-261). (By the way, Rayford and Agent never discuss whether Rayford bought life insurance for his missing family members, and whether Rayford would refuse the cash because you don’t understand; they’re not dead.) Bruce Barnes no longer has a wife and children to support, yet he asks his congregation for more money. He doesn’t argue whether he deserves a raise; he merely says he needs the money. Buck Williams actually locates Rapture-orphan Lionel Washington, the 13-year-old son of Buck’s aforementioned friend Lucinda, and leaves him there. They are Tribulation Saints™—they have more important things to do.

This is the world into which Baby Jo, Baby Kenny, and Cendrillon Jospin are conceived. They are defenseless against the [heck trifecta] of divine Smitings, Antichrist’s persecution, and a planet of unfeeling, self-absorbed adults. The first baby was not even announced to the world! After all, why would they? Bruce and Rayford agree that any child born into the Tribulation “is guaranteed a life of fear and a 75 percent chance of dying during the judgment to come” (Volume 2, page 169). It would be a shame to celebrate the wrong baby in case this one dies and they have to pick another.

Then there are the “Children of the Goats,” another popular subject of Left Behind fan-fiction. [Example: “Children of the Goats,” hosted by exharpazo.blogspot.com ] These are the children who were conceived after the Rapture, then watched their parents fall alive into hellfire. Presumably these waifs went to Millennial orphanages, but they were not valued enough for the novels to even include those words. Certainly the named characters, the VIPs, the luminaries of the series did not raise them. We have proof that Rayford Steele built the COT campus, the Never-ending Bible Summer Camp (Volume 16-called-Sequel-1, page 40). But he never built dormitories. Instead when Rayford finally converts a COT building into a dormitory, it is to make a retirement home for himself and his elderly friends (Volume 16, page 341).

And finally Cendrillon, a daughter of Sheep parents and the oldest known child to survive the [heck trifecta], died anyway, in the Millennium.

Compare this to Children of Men by P.D. James. The dawning desperation among adults as they realize that no new children are being conceived. Their crazed pursuit of the youngest living child until the child becomes crazed himself. Their lack of motivation to maintain a world which no children will inherit. A world devouring itself. They don’t want words. They want their children. Perhaps it would have been a tad more difficult for Antichrist Carpathia to conquer that world?

Or, consider a Jewish legend regarding Noah [cf. Genesis 5:32]. Left Behind Volume 16 teaches that persons who are under the age of 100 years during the Millennial Kingdom are legally Children. Volume 16 implies that this also was true before Noah’s Flood. But several Antediluvian ancestors were well under 100 years old when they became fathers (Genesis 5:9, 12, 15, 21).

Why did it take Noah 500 years to become a father? The legend says that God had mercy on Noah and “closed his stream” for those 500 years. After all, if the righteous Noah had had evil children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, “he would be sorrowful at their deaths; but if they had been righteous, he would have had to build many arks!” Therefore God “closed his stream” so that Noah would not lose his family to the Deluge.

(Link here, if you’re curious: “The Wife of Noah” at https://web.archive.org/web/20200729225111/https://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/noah/enoach1.html )

As it pertains to the Left Behind series, consider this: what would the novels look like if the authors had bestowed this mercy upon the Tribulation characters? Children are a blessing; we are not saying that they would be better off not conceived. Rather, it does seem arbitrary that the authors spared some children, and other children experienced indescribable suffering, without regard to their Saved Status if any, simply because some were born before the Rapture, and others were born after it. Could the authors have chosen differently? Why or why not?

[Trivia alert: some readers cite Mark 13:17 and related verses to argue that children will be born after the Rapture and during the Tribulation. It may be inexpressibly cruel that the left-behinds would have children during such times, but sometimes humans do dumb things. We note this verse and related because some amillennialists, especially Preterists, teach that Mark 13:14-18 refers to the Year 70 fall of Jerusalem. In that passage, Jesus tells His followers to flee to safety. In contrast, Revelation 6:15-17 cf. Hosea 10:8, tells the reader that the lost will flee; furthermore, that fleeing is futile. Hence the proposal that the two Biblical passages describe two different events in two different centuries.]

2. Salvation is widespread after the Rapture.

Hence the aforementioned rallies. Tsion Ben Judah eventually purports to have a cyber-congregation of “over a billion” (Volume 7, pages 231-232). But in the foundational first volume, visitation pastor Bruce Barnes confesses that he grew up hearing that salvation was not possible after the Rapture. (Again, that was our grandmother’s teachings.) Bruce is exhausted with relief to learn that he is in a more, um, generous novel.

1. Left Behind teaches that Satan can raise the dead.

See the Spoilers and Discussion posts for Volume 7, but long story short, the Scofield Reference Bible-1917 knows nothing of such a claim. It has pronounced beyond all doubt that the Roman Empire is the Beast that dies and rises again (SRB-1917, footnote to Revelation 13:3, page 1342).

As a rule, non-Rapturist Christians won’t impute Resurrection power to the Devil either. They would cite Revelation 1:17-18, which states that “Christ holds the keys of Hell and Death.” (Some translations say “Sheol, Hades.”) They would add that when humanity are raised from the dead, they will hear God the Son: they will hear the voice of Jesus (John 5:25-29).

Most Christians affirm that only God the Father [John 5:21; John 11:24; Psalm 49:15; Romans 4:17b; Acts 17:31; Galatians 1:1] and God the Son [John 5:21; John 5:28-29; Matthew 10:8; John 11:21-26] and God the Holy Ghost [Ecclesiastes 8:8a; Isaiah 42:5b; Romans 1:4; Romans 8:11; II Corinthians 4:13b-14] can raise the dead or empower someone to raise the dead.

But the novels refuse to back down. The novels reward Cyrus Ingerson Scofield for developing his Scofield Reference Bible-1917 (Volume 15-called-Prequel-3, pages 255-257), but the novels do not yield to Scofield. Instead the character Carpathia really dies; then the character CIBYS [pronounced kibbis; Carpathia-Indwelt-by-Satan] declares, “I raised myself from the dead” (Volume 10, pages 307-308). No one challenges this statement.

(Far from it: the “false Jesuses and Messiahs and Saviors” [Volume 10, pages 82-83] and “deities” [Volume 10, page 270] and “disciples of Carpathia” [Volume 10, pages 307-308] will go on to raise “thousands” of dead people via the satanic power of CIBYS. Even more dead are raised by actual demons [Volume 11, page 303]. Yes, the novels use the words “raised the dead” and “disciples” and “thousands” and “demons.” Yes, the series includes all three forms of raising the dead: Resuscitation, Revivification, and Resurrection.)

(“Resuscitation” is what first-responders do. “Revivification” is what Jesus did for four-days-dead Lazarus. “Resurrection” is what Christ Jesus has done for Himself and will do for all of us.)

(This is why TOL—bad guys; long story—teach and believe that Satan might raise them from the dead [Volume 16-called-Sequel-1, pages 120-122]. They are citing precedent from the series.)

Moreover, Tsion Ben-Judah legitimizes the CIBYS claim and activities; i.e., Tsion says it’s in the Bible (Volume 7, page 119). When “many sincere believers” question his teaching, Tsion kindly but firmly tells them that he is right and they are wrong. Again, this is why we call Tsion the “pope” of the series. What he teaches is what the authors teach.

This is why we asked: If you had known that this was where the series was leading, would you have read it?

… {Almost The End.} …

Which is also why we give the Gentle Browser caution that there are many well-written fan-fictions that may not remain within the series canon. As strict Christians may feel who consider Left Behind to be “Biblical fan-fiction” and refuse to read it, so also readers of Left Behind may feel when confronted with fan-fiction of the fan-fiction.

Reviews of such works fall outside the scope of this project. However we will mention that some fan-fictions abide by the parameters of the Left Behind series, and other fan-fictions will experiment as fancy takes them. Sometimes it seems that a storyline is incorporating the god Apollo out of Star Trek rather than the God of the Bible. If you don’t know what that means, well, One: Apollo expected obeisance he didn’t deserve; Two: Apollo was a jerk and a stupidhead; and Three: Apollo lost. Let the Gentle Browser plan or refrain your visits accordingly.

{End.}