This high desert town with its manicured golf courses and slowly cruising late-model Cadillacs might not seem a spot that would inspire thoughts of demonic battles, floods, earthquakes and rampant disease across the globe.
But this is the home of a leading evangelical Christian, Rev. Tim LaHaye, 78, an author whose popular books focus on the titanic struggle between the forces of good and evil that some believe will mark humankind’s final days on Earth.
The increased political influence of evangelicals was most dramatically demonstrated by the role they played in the 2004 presidential election by energizing the president’s base and getting voters to the polls. This has drawn interest in their beliefs, including their view of what many call the end of times.
Their influence can be seen in efforts to shape U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, especially toward Israel. Critics have also accused some evangelicals of opposing environmental protection because they believe the end is near.
LaHaye and co-author Jerry Jenkins, who is affiliated with Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute, have written more than a dozen books in the “Left Behind” series, which has sold more than 60 million copies worldwide, according to Tyndale House Publishers of west suburban Carol Stream.
The novels, a blend of Bible and Tom Clancy, reflect the evangelical belief about the teachings of Scripture and the end of days.
According to such believers, the beginning of the end will come when the staunchest followers of Jesus Christ will literally be swept into the sky to be united with Christ in a moment called the rapture.
Leaving their clothes, automobiles, jewelry and other possessions behind, these people will depart the Earth as it is plunged into a seven-year period of tribulation as the Antichrist rules. The forces of the Antichrist ultimately will attack Israel, some believers hold, leading to the second coming of Christ and culminating in the battle of Armageddon and the end of the world.
LaHaye, a co-founder of the Moral Majority with Rev. Jerry Falwell, says he and many fellow evangelicals hold to a literal interpretation of the Bible, especially the Book of Revelation and the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel.
A Newsweek poll last year found that 55 percent of Americans believe in the rapture.
And there is wide interest elsewhere–including on television and the Internet.
On Wednesday night, NBC is to broadcast the first of six weekly episodes of “Revelations” in which actor Bill Pullman plays a Harvard professor who teams with a nun to investigate possible signs of the coming of Armageddon.
In cyberspace, Terry James and Todd Strandberg operate the Web site raptureready.com and the Rapture Index. The index monitors current events to gauge the nearness of the rapture based on 45 categories including moral standards, the peace process and wild weather.
According to the index, anything between 110 and 145 indicates “heavy prophetic activity.” Anything above 145 is “fasten your seat belts.” The index hit a record high of 182 after the Sept. 11 attacks. As of Tuesday, the index was at 152.
“It’s sort of a speedometer to gauge the speed at which the world is approaching the rapture,” James, 62, of Benton, Ark., said in an interview.
James, an author and speaker on biblical prophecy, said he and others also believe the pervasive use of computers and a cashless society will make the Antichrist’s job easier.
After rapture
A separate Web site is www.raptureletters.com, where people can arrange for an e-mail to be dispatched after they leave this world.
“After the rapture, there will be a lot of speculation as to why millions of people have just disappeared,” the site declares. “Unfortunately, after the rapture, only non-believers will be left to come up with answers.”
For his part, LaHaye said he believed the “Left Behind” series was a message from God.
In an interview, he recalled how he saw a pilot, who was wearing a wedding ring, flirting with a female flight attendant. “I thought, `What if the rapture happened right now?'”
That moment provides the first scene in the first chapter of the first novel.
Rather than use the word “literal” to describe his interpretation of biblical sections about the end of times, LaHaye said he would call his views practical.
“You have to understand what the writer meant to that 1st Century reader and fit that into a 21st Century context,” he said. “We need to get back to principle, Christian principle.”
LaHaye and his wife, Beverly, were named “the Christian power couple” by Time magazine in a story this year about the 25 most influential evangelicals in America.
Readers of the “Left Behind” series are drawn to them for differing reasons, but many take them as scripturally accurate.
“There is a lot of Scripture in it,” said Chris Scholz, of Battle Creek, Mich., a member of the Air National Guard who has read 11 of the novels.
The 35-year-old said he was first drawn to the books because they were exciting to read but that he quickly became aware of the spiritual message.
“They have helped me come closer to the Lord,” he said. “It helps me in spreading the word.”
Modern interpreters of Scripture sometimes speculate that current events are signs of ancient prophecies coming to pass. Some view the United Nations as a vehicle for the modern Antichrist. Others see the European Union in that role.
There were those who even singled out the late Pope John Paul II as the Antichrist. Others have cited former President Bill Clinton or former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, notably for the mark on his forehead. Some theorists see that as the “mark of the beast.”
Part of the biblical interpretation indicates that a re-established Israel–within its biblical boundaries–must precede the end of the world because that is where the battle of Armageddon is to take place.
As a result, there is a relationship between these conservative Christians and Orthodox Jews in Israel. Some of these Christians support efforts by Israelis to occupy lands not part of the modern state of Israel because, in doing so, the Christians believe the Israelis are hastening biblical prophecy and thus the end of days.
The support is welcomed by some Jews, though there is a paradox in that these Christians hold that any Jew who does not convert to Christianity will be sent to eternal damnation by Christ upon his second coming.
Michael Cook, a professor at the Hebrew Union College’s Cincinnati campus, said that view among some evangelicals left them opposed to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to remove Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and a parts of the West Bank because they think that would delay the return to Israel’s biblical boundaries and thus the end of days.
“Orthodox Jewish Zionists and some evangelicals share a common concern for the physical integrity and well-being of the modern state of Israel, but the reasons are entirely different between them,” said Rabbi Reuven Firestone, a professor at Hebrew Union College’s Los Angeles campus.
In an e-mail exchange, Firestone said the Jewish view of the end of days is vastly different from that of conservative evangelicals and that the Jewish tradition had a far less specific view.
“The evangelicals in this camp expect that the Jews will see the error of their ways and realize the truth about the saving power of Christ. The Jews, of course, place absolutely no meaning in any of this,” he said.
That theme was expounded upon by veteran journalist Bill Moyers, who also holds a degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth.
“That’s why they [evangelicals] have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements,” Moyers said in a recent speech. “It’s why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted by the Book of Revelation.”
Chicagoan’s criticism
Speaking at a recent Episcopal Church conference in New York City, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright discussed a conversation she had with leaders in Saudi Arabia.
According to attendees, Albright said the Saudis were concerned about conservative evangelical beliefs about the end of days and the battle of Armageddon because they think those holding such views are more accepting of violence.
Barbara Rossing, a professor at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and author of the book “The Rapture Exposed,” has criticized the “Left Behind” view of violent end times, telling ABC News: “I think God is coming to heal the world, not to kill millions and millions of people the way they lay it out.”
She and Moyers express alarm at what they say is the disinterest some evangelicals have shown toward preserving the environment.
In the New York Review of Books, Moyers quoted from the Chicago professor’s writings: “Rossing sums up the message in five words that she says are basic rapture credo: `The world cannot be saved.’ It leads to `appalling ethics,’ she reasons, because the faithful are relieved of concern for the environment, violence, and everything else except their personal salvation. The Earth suffers the same fate as the unsaved. All are destroyed.”
Bill Leonard, dean of the divinity school at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, acknowledges that evangelicals–who have had an ebb and flow of political influence over the course of American history–are exceedingly powerful.
“It is no longer a kind of eccentric religion on the margins,” he said. “It is mainstream now.”
Leonard and others pointed out that many of the most extreme views are held by a relatively small group of evangelicals, and that most evangelicals are concerned about the environment. He noted that evangelicals recently lobbied Congress about the dangers of global warming.
President Bush, a self-declared born-again Christian, has many evangelicals around him as advisers and friends, although it is impossible to judge the president’s personal interpretation of biblical prophecy about the end of days.
“Clearly there is a conservative evangelical constituency that is part of the Bush administration’s base,” said Rev. Jim Wallis, an evangelical minister and the author of a new book, “God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It.”
Wallis said it is acceptable for religious values to play a role in politics, but that those values should not be limited to such narrow issues as opposition to gay marriage and abortion but should also include traditional Christian concerns such as caring for the poor.
The evangelicals most influential with the Bush administration have a broader agenda, he said. “They do care about gay marriage and abortion, but they care about other things too.”
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vschodolski@tribune.com
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Apocalypse: Books provide vivid account of biblical end days
Among the many interpretations of the biblical prophecy regarding how the world ends is a detailed account adhered to by many evangelical Christians and which forms the basis of the “Left Behind” book series. Many Christians, along with believers of non-Christian faiths, hold differing views about the end of the world.
THE END OF DAYS
As described in the “Left Behind” book series
CHURCH AGE*
The Rapture
Born-again Christians are taken from Earth by Christ before the
Tribulation begins. Non-believers are left behind.
THE TRIBULATION (SEVEN YEARS)
The Tribulation
A seven-year period in which the Antichrist rules. It is marked by disasters, famine and chaos.
Armageddon
Satan’s armies gather to destroy Israel, but in a great battle
between good and evil they are defeated and the Antichrist
(Satan incarnate) is captured.
Second coming of Christ
Christ’s return to Earth brings an end to Armageddon and harkens the beginning of 1,000 years of peace and bliss.
MILLENNIUM (1,000 YEARS)
ETERNITY
Millennium
The kingdom of Christ on Earth.
The Last Rebellion
Satan rises for one last battle but is finally and completely
destroyed.
Judgment
The final accounting of people before God as they pass to eternity.
Eternity
A timeless existence spent in heaven or hell.
*1st Century to tribulation
Note: Timeline not to scale
Sources: LeftBehind.com, beliefnet
Chicago Tribune
– See microfilm for complete graphic.
