L.B.: Other People

Left Behind, pp. 123-126

Somewhere near where you live is a restaurant you've probably never eaten at. It's heyday was decades ago, before the original owner sold the place. The subsequent owners have preserved the decor, the menu, the name -- but they all seem to be lacking whatever it was that originally made them special. The place endures, though. The location is great, and tt's still kind of an institution in the neighborhood. People still have banquets and weddings there because that's where people in the neighborhood go for that kind of thing. But unless it's for a banquet or a wedding, nobody under 60 ever seems to set foot in the place. And, like much of its graying clientele, the restaurant seems to be on its last legs.

Somewhere near where you live is a church that's just like that restaurant.

I've visited churches like that. And I've been to churches that seemed spiritually comatose, places that, as St. Paul wrote, hold to the outward form of godliness, but deny its power. But I've never seen one that was totally dead. Try as we might to deny it, those outward forms still have a power of their own. And while the hearth of these churches may have grown cold and dark, some members still carry a spark or a flame. And the place still usually carries some residual warmth from generations past, or from the Korean or Haitian congregation that rents out the fellowship hall in the afternoons.

I've certainly never seen any church in real life that fits LaHaye and Jenkins' description of the House of the Dead that Rayford Steele and his family attended before Irene switched to the End-Times-obsessed New Hope Village Church.

In thumbing through his dead/raptured wife's Bible, Rayford comes across the inscription he had written in the front:

He had given the Bible to Irene on their first wedding anniversary. How could he have forgotten, and what had he been thinking? She was no more devout than he was back then, but she had talked about wanting to get serious about church attendance before the children came along. He had been angling for something or trying to impress her. ... Maybe he was hoping she would let him off the hook and go to church by herself if he proved his spiritual sensitivity with this gift.

This is an odd detail, but one that rings strangely true -- just not for the reasons that Rayford/L&J describe here. Yes, the first is the "paper anniversary" -- so giving Irene a book as part of his present makes sense. But a Bible? Not a terribly romantic gift for newlyweds.

It fits, though, with the Madonna/Whore Complex that Rayford shares with his creators. He couldn't sully the pure and chaste Irene with a nice edition of the Kama Sutra or even something like Sonnets from the Portuguese. Those are the sorts of dirty pretty things Rayford would give to his mistress, not to his wife. So he gives her a Bible for their anniversary, and he has dinner alone with pretty young flight attendants when he travels, and he doesn't consider it really cheating if he has a "necking session" with some other woman.

Eventually, the Steeles did being attending a church, one that seemed to be little more than a restaurant in a good location:

For years he had tolerated church. They had gone to one that demanded little and offered a lot. They made many friends and had found their doctor, dentist, insurance man and even country club entree in that church. Rayford was revered, proudly introduced as a 747 captain to newcomers and guests, and even served on the church board for several years.

No, he didn't. This just isn't possible. Attending even a culture-bound, bourgeois, country-club church would have meant attaining a familiarity with at least the "outward form" of Christianity. It's possible for Rayford to have attended such a church and to have served on its board as a hypocrite who didn't really believe any of it. But to be a hypocrite he would have had to pretend to be something he was not. Pretending to be a "revered," prominent member of the church board would have required Rayford to learn to fake the local language and customs. He would have been asked to pray in public (probably in stilted, King James language).

He couldn't have done all that for years and still be baffled by a simple benediction like, "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen." L&J describe Rayford as mystified by this basic outward form of godliness. But if he had really attended such a church and served on its board, he would surely have had to utter these very words himself, in public, with an air of devotion. He cannot be both a naif and a hypocrite.

It's also curious that this church, which L&J present as spiritually dead, still manages to draw "newcomers and guests." The reason they take such pains to describe this hypocritical, dead church is to contrast it with the vibrant, genuine faith of New Hope Village. This is in keeping with one of the book's central themes: playing God by separating the wheat from the tares; declaring who is and who isn't going to be "left behind" and therefore who is and isn't a Real True Christian.

When Irene discovered the Christian radio station and what she called "real preaching and teaching," she grew disenchanted with their church and began searching for a new one. ... She found one, and he tried it occasionally, but it was a little too literal and personal and challenging for him. He was not revered. He felt like a project. And he pretty much stayed away. ...

Irene's new church was interested in the salvation of souls, something he'd never heard in the previous church.

Rayford finds last week's bulletin from this church in Irene's Bible: "He pulled the bulletin from Irene's Bible and circled the phone number. Later that day, after he checked in with Pan-Continental, he would call the church office."

This contrast of the two churches -- old and new, false and true -- was probably suggested by the passage from St. Paul quoted above.

This passage is a favorite of "last days" obsessed folks like L&J because it comes from a section, 2 Timothy chapter 3, that begins "You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come." They like to quote from the conclusion of this little rant, in which Paul describes the false believers of the last days as "... lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power." But they tend to skip over the rest of the rant. That first verse is just Paul taking a deep breath before letting loose with this:

For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid them!

Gee, Paul, don't hold back so much. Tell us how you really feel.

Paul lets loose like this several times in the Bible. Guy had a temper. Apart from dismissing such breathless rants outright, there are two ways you can read them. The first is to realize that there's something here for everyone. I'm not inclined to be an unholy, abusive, treacherous brute, but there's plenty of other stuff in that list that hits me pretty close to home.

The other option is to read such tirades as wholly directed at Other People. Judgement is never for Us, only for Them. This is one of the main points of LB and indeed of the entire pseudotheological framework of premillennial dispensationalism on which it is based.

This approach -- judgement for Thee but not for Me -- also helps to account for the current antigay mania of American evangelicalism. In a couple of Paul's other rants, he includes "sodomites" in his bestiaries of badness. Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, the dubious assumption that Paul misunderstood the story of Sodom, and therefore used this as a synonym for "homosexuals," it doesn't follow that "homosexuals are bad" is the main lesson that heterosexuals should be gleaning from such passages. But if you read such passages looking for any excuse to exempt yourself from the apostle's condemnation, this offers an ideal escape hatch. Preaching against self-love, ingratitude, love of money or love of pleasure can be a two-edged sword. But if you're heterosexual, and you're preaching against homosexuality, then you're safe. You've found the ideal target for self-exempting, self-justifying self-righteousness.

Judgment is for Other People.

Comments

[Doctor Science]

Do you think L&J ever regularly attended a mainstream Protestant church? How could they think someone could get on the board without knowing what's in the Bible? Or having heard of "the salvation of souls"?

I'm actually surprised they didn't take the opportunity to rant against bells & smells, priests in fancy outfits, etc.

[Michael "Vendor X" Heaney]

"But if you're heterosexual, and you're preaching against homosexuality, then you're safe."

I'm so glad to see this pointed out. Attending any of the serious social or spiritual concerns the bible tends to focus on involves, too often, both a conscious acceptance of our own failings as well as admonishments to change our own behavior. The bible's far too likely to tell us that we're too interested in wealth, not doing enough to help other people and overly judgmental, and nobody likes to hear that.

On the other hand, if we scrounge through the bible to find some obscure condemnation of a behavior we've never even wanted to commit, then suddenly our souls are clean, we don't need to change who we are and, best of all, there's someone else distinctly more 'sinful' than us we can point a finger at.

Of course, the bible speaks out far more fervently against this kind of judgmental lambasting than it does homosexuality, reminding us that condemnation and judgment are God's affairs, not ours, which renders this attitude about as 'christian' as whacking strangers for the KaliMa, but all shapes and sizes, right?

[Chris]

Bravo! The really ugly truth about the Bible is that nobody get out of anything ever based on who they know, what they said, or which community they belong to. If God wasn't going to cut God's sinless son Jesus out of a horrible fate, then it seems a bit pitiful to suggest that belong to the right church will get you out of the End Time.
And what the fuck kind of church was Ray a member of anyway? He can't even recognize basic vocabulary in the Bible and they never mentioned the salvation of souls? Mind you, the old church might have thought that the salvation of souls was God's job and thus they didn't view new members as a project ("Dad, the heathen's getting away."), but still never heard of it? Man, L&J can't handle ambiguity or challenging their audience even a little.
Finally how about their Rapture math? How can a third of the world belong to the lively and sufficiently pure churches that Irene belongs to? Does the new prequel explain the sudden, overwhelming upsurge in Fundamentalist churches? Because large as they are in some areas, they aren't close to a third of the population.

[Rasselas]

"For years he had tolerated church. They had gone to one that demanded little and offered a lot."

I believe I recall reading something, somewhere, about some disreputable hippie do-gooder type who asked little -- my mind throws out a blurry recollection of something about love -- and offered a lot -- I don't remember exactly what, and it was probably just a load of treehugging hippie nonsense, but it seemed like a good idea at the time, with the redemption and so on.

Sarcasm aside, what makes L&J treat the Big J like a buried treasure? Or a talisman? Isn't "ask, and you shall be answered; knock, and the door shall be opened" a rather important part of the Gospels?

[Holdie Lewie]

Do you think L&J ever regularly attended a mainstream Protestant church? Absolutely not. L&J believe that mainstream Protestant churches sing hymns that joyfully extol the virtues of third-trimester abortions. They believe that members gather in the basement to punch needles into voodoo dolls. They believe that potluck suppers are capped by rousing speeches denouncing the very existence of the United States. L&J believe that the pilots of the black helicopters attend mainstream Protestant churches. As for Catholics, L&J believe that all priests are pedophiles.

This is a classic case of projection. Remember a couple of months ago when a TV newsmagazine was preparing to do a story on a charismatic megachurch, and the pastor sent an email to members telling them to tone down the weird stuff, like speaking in tongues and getting all glassy-eyed when talking about the Lord? L&J attend churches that do believe that they have something to hide. So, naturally, they think that other Christian churches have something to hide.

[Jason]

Rayford was revered, proudly introduced as a 747 captain to newcomers and guests . . . .

As with many other things in this book, you've got to ask, what decade are L&J writing about? No offense to any pilots out there, but why would anyone really be impressed by him just because he flew for an airline? This isn't 40 years ago when only the elite few took trips on planes.

I'd like to think that this was some kind of unreliable narration (RS isn't really "revered" or "proudly introduced," he just thinks he is) as a commentary on Ray's (and therefore LayHae's) monumental ego, but I don't think the book is that sophisticated.

[g]

<pedant>Paul wouldn't have had to misunderstand the story of Sodom to be talking about homosexuals, because the reference to "sodomites" is an artefact of translation. What Paul actually wrote uses other terms.</pedant>

[Modern Major-General]

Irene's new church was interested in the salvation of souls, something he'd never heard in the previous church.

I'm an atheist, but I did go to church when I was younger and I've never heard of any Christian church that didn't even mention the "salvation of souls". I mean, do such churches exist? I strongly doubt it.

[Keith]

For our first anniversary, I gave my wife a book of Pablo Naruda poems and one of my own composition. I buy her books all the time (it’s what we give each other instead of flowers. We’re librarians). But a Bible? That’s the single lamest gift, ever.

I think one of the problems with the dichotomy L and J have established is that if you don’t eat, sleep and breathe the Bible like they do, you must be at the opposite end of the spectrum, wholly unfamiliar with the book. Like that’s possible, living in the US. I’m a die hard atheist. I was raised by liberal parents who, even though I stopped believing in God or jesus by age 13, made me go through with confirmation. I’ve read the Bible, the Apocrypha, numerous commentaries and histories. I’ve studied comparative religion and mythology. I’m something they apparently cannot conceive of: an informed non-believer. According to their magical thinking, if you read the Bible cover to cover, there is no way you could reach the end without converting. I suppose it’s all part of the magical thinking that fills this book, like the incantations that get you raptured. Does the seventh son of a seventh son show up to save the day?

Rayford was revered, proudly introduced as a 747 captain to newcomers and guests...

I think Jason is on to something with L and J showing their age, here. These days, introducing someone as a pilot gets about the same praise as introducing someone as a bus driver.

[Grumpy]

If & when this criticism is complete, it'll be quite a bit meatier than the original novel. Any thought of compiling this work and publishing a volume of your own? (Which might obviate the point of posting it on the Web, but hey.)

Chris: "Does the new prequel explain the sudden, overwhelming upsurge in Fundamentalist churches?"

You'd think the miraculous non-nuclear holocaust of Israel would've shocked people into awareness, at least as much as having all the children evaporate. Any hint in the novel that wheels were turning in people's heads before Evaporation Day?

[WatchfulBabbler]

I've never heard of any Christian church that didn't even mention the "salvation of souls". I mean, do such churches exist?

I'm a bloody universalist and I talk about the "salvation of souls." I suppose that UUs might not, but you're getting pretty far out on the spectrum in that case.

[Martin]

You've made some good points regarding the quality and realism that's missing in this series. The writing is certainly sub-par. The believability factor (in terms of what the characters might actually think and do) is low. These guys are clearly not in touch with the mainstream's temperment. It's probably generational.

That being said, I enjoyed the story, just found myself wishing it had been written better. I didn't find the theology that bad. But, then again I am a Christian.

You don't seem to understand why/how the term sodomy is related to Sodom. Recall the story of Abr(ah)am trying to convince God to spare the city? A crowd of men there wanted to have sexual relations with him when he came into the city, and Lot offered his virgin daughters ... Paul got it right.

However, you make a great point about the tendency for Christians (me included) to jump to "Judgment is for Other People" and God hates the sin, not the sinner. He doesn't give us license to look down our noses at anyone just because it's easier to look elsewhere, than to look in the mirror. The fact that Jesus hung out with the dregs of society seems to illustrate the point pretty well. Without Christ's sanctification we're nothing.

[Stacy]

Martin: Actually, it was Lot who tried to convince God not to destroy the city. The angels of God came to visit, and the men of Sodom wanted to rape them. And Lot, fine upstanding man that he was, didn't think God would appreciate if his angels got raped on the job, so he offered up his daughters instead. The men of Sodom weren't placated with this offer, so Lot agreed that God was right to want to destroy the cities and took off with the family.

The more liberal interpretation of this is that the men of Sodom were guilty of inhospitality - that wanting to rape guests in your city is just wrong. The more conservative interpretation doesn't take into account that wanting to rape men isn't any worse than wanting to rape women, which the Bible pointedly does not condemn (nor does it condemn Lot offering his daughters to be raped - so much for righteousness).

[wintermute]

Martin: The Bible is quite clear that homosexuality is not the reason the Sodom was destroyed, but rather it was they they didn't feed the poor or clothe the naked:

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

(Ezekiel 16: 49-50 NIV)

[Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little]

You don't seem to understand why/how the term sodomy is related to Sodom. Recall the story of Abr(ah)am trying to convince God to spare the city? A crowd of men there wanted to have sexual relations with him when he came into the city, and Lot offered his virgin daughters ... Paul got it right.

Actually, according to God His Very Own Self (or at least according to Ezekiel, who claimed to be quoting Him), Sodom got zapped for a more encompassing reason than mere homosexuality.

[Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little]

Meh. See what I get for being all careful and previewing my post three times? I get all beaten to the punch like that. Mad propz to wintermute and Stacy!

[Eric Lee]

And "sodomite" could actually mean what Ezekiel 16:48-50 says about it, instead of "homosexual":

As I live, says the Lord GOD, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.

[grenadine]

As one who was born and raised UU (that's Unitarian Universalist, for all you non-acronym-lovers out there), I can't IMAGINE not hearing about the salvation of souls at least in passing. My church, religious safe-house though it was, naturally discussed the salvation of souls. Although i guess "discussed" would be the operative word here. Unlike L&J's brand of christianity, UU's don't go for the magic formula version of salvation, particularly since universalism started because some people found it too hard to believe that a loving g-d would let his own creations burn for eternity. but, hey, what do i know? i'm just a woman/virgin/whore/baby-factory.

[B-W]

Stacy said: Martin: Actually, it was Lot who tried to convince God not to destroy the city.

No, actually, Martin was right, but got his pronouns a bit jumbled. Abraham pleads with God not to destroy Sodom, where his nephew Lot had recently moved to. (Genesis 18:16-33) The angels then went to Lot's house, presumably to inform Lot that God intended to destroy the city anyway (presumably having not found as many as 10 righteous people therein, as per God's agreement with Abraham), when the people of Sodom burst in and threatened to rape the angels. The angels strike their would-be attackers blind, and tell Lot and his family to get out of town while God destroys the city (19:1-29).

Of course, all the statements above about the main sin in this narrative being inhospitality (or perhaps rape in general, depending on which text one turns to) are correct. The homosexuality is, at worst, incidental.

[Andrew J]

With the destruction of Sodom, I may also point out more evidence of "it wasn't due to homosexuality": before the Catholic Church and others started inventing stuff and "editing" the Bible in the 9-18th Centuries, angels were sexless. So it's not like the men of Sodom raping them would be homosexual action. And even if you go with the invented stuff of angels having wings and sexes, there'd most likely be both male AND female angels there. So it's only semi-homosexuality (and hey, maybe they just had their eyes on the female angels to begin with?)

Anyway, I was curious, Fred, are you going to keep on with the series?

[B-W]

Andrew J's post brings up an interesting point (angels were sexless), but I wonder how early readers of the texts would have concieved of a "sexless" entity. They certainly wouldn't understand the modern concept of a hermaphrodite. My thought (which may well be wrong) was that, in a patriarchal society, anything not given explicit gender was thought to be male. This would apply to angels as well.

I'm not trying to suggest that angels would have had male genetalia or anything, but the people of Sodom wouldn't have known that, would they?

[Scott]

Remember a couple of months ago when a TV newsmagazine was preparing to do a story on a charismatic megachurch, and the pastor sent an email to members telling them to tone down the weird stuff, like speaking in tongues and getting all glassy-eyed when talking about the Lord?

Ted Haggard: Don't be Weird
This is interesting. Apparently a bunch of important media sources are going to be filming news stories at New Life, recently cited by Harpers as America's Most Powerful Megachurch, during the next week and Pastor Ted Haggard is asking everyone to tone things down a few notches so that they don't come off as crazy people in front of the nation. This is a church that claims to never hide anything from the general public, so this attempt at faking what actually goes on is particularly relevant. He mentions that Barbara Walters is working on a piece, and that Tom Brokaw will be visiting and offers these coaching tips for those who will be present.

Source: List e-mail to the congregation from Ted Haggard: ...

[Some 1]

Wow, these commentaries are really good. Are you going to publish them in dead tree form?

[g]

Andrew J and B-W: The angels are consistently called "men" in the story of Sodom, and there's no indication that the people who wanted sex with them had any idea that they were anything out of the ordinary.

[Raymond]

My wife gave me a Bible for our first anniversary. Of course, a) I asked her to, or at least dropped broad hints, b) neither of us are religious in the conventional sense, and c) the gift was not motivated by her desire to see me as some untouchable and chaste paragon of virtue. But the point remains that a Bible can't always be a lame anniversary present. I quite liked mine.

[cjmr]

A possibility regarding the gender of angels:

Hebrew nouns have "gender" as one of their attributes--at least they do in Modern Hebrew--and masculine is the default gender, according to my Ben-Yehuda's Pocket Hebrew Dictionary. Having said that in the English introduction, the dictionary goes on to not mark the gender of the nouns, so I couldn't tell positively if angel is masculine.

Of the languages that I've studied, (Biblical Hebrew not being one of them) when a noun has masculine gender you use the masculine pronoun for "he" to refer to the noun--whether or not the noun is animate. So it's entirely possible that the reason we call angels "he" has more to do with linguistics than what physical gender they may (or may not) actually have.

I'm sure there is someone here who has actually studied Biblical Hebrew and can correct me on whether Biblical Hebrew has noun gender.

[Diana]

(Long-time reader, first time commenter.)

I can't believe I'm having to point this out, but rape != homosexuality. Our moderns concepts of sexual orientation didn't exist at the time the story of Sodom was set, and plenty of Ancient Near East cultures had men who usually had sex with women use rape as an accepted social truncheon to put other men in their place (see also, rape of fallen male enemies to make their defeat complete, etc). That this still happens nowadays should go without saying, but the modern motivation is sociopathic, not a matter of social status.

What any of this has to do with what I do with my girlfriend, I'm not sure, but then again I'm also not sure why it is that, no matter how many scores of women and girls are sexually victimised by men (including in the Bible, without a lot of condenation and sometimes with a lot of approval), heterosexuality is never taited with the same guilt-by-remote-association brush.

[Diana]

"Condemnation" and "tainted", even.

[delagar]

A few points.

(1) Within the context of the story, the guys planning to rape the angels had no idea they were angels. They thought they were strangers visiting Lot -- guests in the city, as it were.

(2) That's what made what they were doing such a high crime. Do I need to point out that it's extremely rude to rape strangers? (Well, it's rude to rape anyone, of course.)

(3) What Lot does is even worse. It's very rude to offer up your virgin daughters as a stopgape to save the honor of your guests, no matter who they are. Lot has awful manners, and that's part of the point of the story, and what he does later on in the story goes on to demonstrate that.

(4) The dreadful manners and behavior of everyone in Sodom is why they are destroyed. That they would rape strangers is just further evidence of their bad behavior. It has nothing to do with them being homosexuals. They don't share with the poor among them, and they aren't nice to strangers: *those* are their crimes.

(5) Given our current track records, re the poor among us and being nice to strangers, hey, we ought to start thinking. I'm just saying.

[Jason]

You don't seem to understand why/how the term sodomy is related to Sodom. Recall the story of Abr(ah)am trying to convince God to spare the city? A crowd of men there wanted to have sexual relations with him when he came into the city, and Lot offered his virgin daughters ... Paul got it right.

Martin, you're argument is undercut by the fact that (as g points out above) in the original writings, Paul does not use terms such as "sodomy" or "sodomites" as it has appeared in some English translations. The term "sodomy" to refer to homosexual behavior did not come into use until much, much later (11th Century AD) when Christian writers began to misunderstand the story of Sodom; this misreading was later linked to Paul's diatribe in Romans 1, and began to be translated as such. It goes without saying that since the term sodomy didn't exist in Paul's time, he could not have used it.

Also, as delager gets at in point (3) above, if the point of the story of sodom is to condemn homosexuality, are we to believe also that it is virtuous to offer your daughters to be raped to prevent that sin?

[destor23]

Really wonderful post and analysis. I'm an atheist and not really familiar with the Bible except as myth and literature and I'm totally uninformed about how churches operate, how church goers are and act and any of that.

But, "judging thee and not me" does seem to be a part of religion, and not just Christianity. I mean, the whole thing is about being a member of an especially "beloved by God or the gods" group, right? I grew up near a lot of Indian pueblos and I gleaned that their gods were certainly connected to their people. When they had festivals, they closed the pueblos to outsiders, unless they were invited. I was invited once. Darn... I wish I hadn't been 9 years old, as I would have learned a lot more as an adult... but still... I saw a bit of this -- a pantheon of gods, with their attention on one little village. Of course, the idea of the Jewish people as "chosen" fits into this. The idea that "My Christian Church gets it, the others don't" fits into this too. This is ancient, of course. The Greeks attacking Troy worshipped, for the most part, the same gods that the Trojans did. Homer depicts the pantheon as divided, some of the gods favored the Trojans and some favored the Greeks, until Zeus ordered them all to stay out of it. I'm babbling, I know, but don't all religions have more than a bit of "We got it right" to them?

[EZ]

You have to read Tom Lehey's six books on 'Left Behind."
Stop picking just two pages and analyze the salvation. The bible is clear on this one.
Probably, you folks will wake up once the rapture takes place.

[MM]

What EZ doesn't realize is that the Rapture took place last Tuesday but no one was considered "good enough" to go. Thus, we're all hell-bound together and we're just quibbling over who's getting the best spot in the lake of fire.

[Jessica Guilford]

EZ:

No, you're stupid.

(Your turn.)

[laurelei23]

Picked up two of the "Left Behind" series at local used book stores. After I got around just how badly they're written (could the characters be any more cardboard?), I was appalled at L&J's glee. They're positively estatic over the horrors the unrepentant, heathen, faux-Christians will be going through in the coming books. This is not the God I believe in, or that I read in the New Testament. Their god is more a sadistic sociopath than the one I look to. Mine was apparently so in love with his/her creation and creatures she was willing to bind her/himself to them to repair their own folly. What happened to "I desire mercy, not sacrifice"?

Love the Ezekiel citation. (Spooks me too -- hits a little too close to home.) Has anyone thought of putting this on posters the next time Rev. Phelps turns up? Talk about rabid... how can any one human being carry around that much hate?

[blaze]

I e-mail the more vociferous Evangelicals and ask them why they preach so heavily about Revelations (which, after all, was a dream of the apostle John) and Old Testament prophets to promote their version of the End Times when Christ himself addresses the issue more than once in the New Testament. Christ reveals that his return and the Apocalyptic times would be much sooner than this continuing carrot being dangled in front of Christians about some nebulous future time.

In Matthew 16, Christ said to his disciples, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father's glory, and then he will repay everyone according to his conduct. AMEN, I SAY TO YOU, THERE ARE SOME STANDING HERE WHO WILL NOT TASTE DEATH UNTIL THEY SEE THE SON OF MAN COMING IN HIS KINGDOM."

In Matthew 24, Christ is asked about the tribulations by his disciples and Jesus points to the Temple in Jerusalem and says, "You see all these things, do you not? Amen, I say to you, there will not be left here a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down." As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples approached him privately and said, "Tell us, when will this happen, and what sign will there be of your coming, and of the end of the age?"

Christ describes the terrible times ahead and says, "In the same way, when you see all these things, know that he is near, at the gates. AMEN, I SAY TO YOU, THIS GENERATION WILL NOT PASS AWAY UNTIL ALL THESE THINGS HAVE TAKEN PLACE. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away."

I theorize that Christ was referencing the Romans attack on Jerusalem in the year 70 AD when they destroyed the Temple and destroyed the Ark of the Covenant and the Jews were banned from living in Jerusalem and Judea.

[porter]

I was raised in the church. My community was very conservative about what was sinful. Young people were condemned for dancing. My own family were less judgemental. I was allowed to grow and learn. When I became old enough to go out on my own, I chose whether or not to go to church and worship. In my struggle to be a father and husband, I sought help by attending church again. I took my children to church. We had some good times. But, there were always people in church who couldn't just live and let live. The qualities of humilty and objectivity were the least praised of any. Rich donors had more say so than poor people. In all my life, and I'm 60 years old, I have yet to see the real Jesus Christ in any organized church. Never. Spirituality, however, has been shared with me by poor and rich alike. Spirituality, a communication or sharing of emotional connection with the cosmos, is sacred. The modern organized church is a man made invention. It serves to control and manipulate those who have not developed their own inner self knowledge. This rapture myth is just a tool.

[Barbara]

"For years he had tolerated church. They had gone to one that demanded little and offered a lot."

I find this sentence to be very funny and probably quite telling of the lack of insight of LB. Most megachurches that I am aware of demand very little -- in the way of theological understanding, volunteer time, and so on. When they start pushing too hard, people go elsewhere, where they serve pizza and starbucks rather than theology.

True, hard core biblically committed fundamentalists are not the typical of those who make up the membership of mega churches.

And "saved by faith alone" is one heck of a salvific doctrine. But I don't understand why it is that the greedy and indifferent among us are to be judged by one standard that rewards faith alone (the truth of which, apparently, cannot be judged by outward conduct when it comes to things like money) and homosexuals another. Who's to say that a gay person doesn't have the true faith? Hmmmmm.

My husband's church is just the kind of graying church described in the first paragraph. But the members are committed and somehow, the church manages with its meager resources to clothe the naked and house the poor better than most others in the area.

And Irene's delusion that "good preaching" means "good teaching" is just that. How anyone could read even any one of the Gospels and not realize that false prophets are almost always the most eloquent of preachers is beyond me. Well it's not, but still, I am guessing that no one every tried to stop Irene at her old church from seriously delving into the Bible. She's just looking for a cheaper kind of grace, like a lot of people. Sorry this got so long.

[Col Bat Guano]

I wish I could be alive in 500-600 years when 'My Pet Goat' is accepted as the word of God and everyone reads it upside down like St. George. Myths are myths and giving them devine power seems like a big mistake to me.

[smartalek]

Keith | July 22, 2005 04:44 PM sez: " These days, introducing someone as a pilot gets about the same praise as introducing someone as a bus driver."

Mebbe this is a geographic? I don't know where this LaHaye/Jenkins cabal lives, but IIRC, one of the centers of the Xtian right hegemons is CO, where the Air Force Academy is located? (Which has of course been in the news lately on related grounds.) And I believe Dobson's Focus on the Family HQ is there too? Among a community like that, I could imagine a 747 pilot being accorded a certain degree of respect on that basis alone, no?

[Stacy]

B-W: My bad. I should have checked before I spoke.

[Eileen]

So...when he calls Irene's church, who's left there to answer the phone?

[dr ngo]

Just a couple of trailing comments on the story of Sodom, which others have already explicated soundly (IMHO), i.e., it's about abuse of guests and other such unpleasant behavior, not about homosexuality as such. Note also, however, these assumptions:

(1) Lot assumes that men who wish to have sex with men will probably prefer to have sex with women. I.e., we're not talking "homosexuals" of fixed proclivity (otherwise Lot would have had to offer his sons), but "any port in a storm" sexuality. This is consonant with what we know of many ancient Mediterranean societies (e.g., Greece and Rome), in that men were not in general _expected_ to have one sexual orientation and stick to it throughout their lives. "Polymorphous perversity" was the order of the day, but with M/F relations being the default assumption in most cases.

(2) Lot assumes that he, as patriarch and paterfamilias, can simply offer the sexual services of his daughters without consultation. This suggests that in the minds of those (males) involved, what happened thereafter was NOT "rape," since permission had been granted. Much the same, of course, was true of marriage: a woman was "given" by her father and had literally no say has to how she might be sexually used by her new husband. "Rape" in such societies was defined as taking a woman sexually _without_ permission of her father or husband. ("No Means No" is meaningless if the *owner* of the women in question says "Yes.")

That, I believe, is why there is no great condemnation of Lot for this action. In terms of the values seen at the time to be at stake - which are not the same as we hold, I trust - Lot was attempting to solve, or at least ameliorate, the question of abuse of hospitality by offering permissible targets (for sex) rather than forbidden strangers.

(ObDisclaimer: it's been several decades since I read this, along with most of the rest of the Bible, so my memory, as well as my interpretation, may be at fault here.)

[The Oracle]

Jesus Christ came to teach mankind that there are "No Gaps in God."

You see, God is omnipresent...right? And Holy...right? So the Holiness (or Wholeness, or Oneness) of God must be as Omnipresent as God is...right?

Therefore, there are "No Gaps in God." No matter what the orthodox, religious fundamentalists proclaim. And judge. And proclaim. And judge. And proclaim. Ad nauseum.

Which brings us to The Last Judgment. What if The Last Judgment means exactly what it says it means...The...Last...Judgment? Wouldn't this then tie into what Jesus said about not "judging"? In fact, Jesus stopped a righteous, orthodox crowd of do-gooders out to punish a woman accused of adultery by pointing out to the crowd that their judgments of her were really their judgments about themselves. And what really was their judgment? That "Gaps in God" exist. That God is NOT omnipresent because they had judged otherwise. That sin, and death, and guilt, and hell, are more powerful than God.

Which brings us to the Left Behind folks. These righteous, orthodox people are so busy judging that it probably will be a long, long time before they get to their Last Judgment. In other words, their constant judging (which Jesus Christ recommended against doing) actually means they are leaving themselves and anyone that believes them behind. Far behind. Way behind.

So, what about Saul of Tarsus, who became known as St. Paul by some? His rants in his letters indicate his judgment that "Gaps in God" exist. He proclaims (being righteous, you understand), "Look over there, there's a Gap in God" and "Look over here, here's another Gap in God." Furthermore, he essentially proclaims, "And these people I've judged and proclaimed to be "Gaps in God" are all going to end up in the ultimate "Gap in God", and missing out on God's etenal Love forever, called Hell."

So, what happened to the Christ Message that there are "No Gaps in God," which he proceeded to demonstrate?

Saul of Tarsus (and some of the other early followers of Jesus) either misunderstood or couldn't accept what Jesus came to teach. Primarily because they couldn't stop judging. Primarily because they had been raised by other "Gap in God" worshippers.

And this was the essential split that occurred among the early Christian groups. The core message, "No Gaps in God," that Jesus came to teach and demonstrate is still evident in the gospels (even today), but the "Gaps in God" worshippers have done everything they could over the past nineteen centuries to replace what Jesus taught with their own judgments. The "Left Behind" people are no different than the millions of "Gaps in God" worshippers before them...or the millions that will follow into the far distant future.

So, are "Gaps in God" worshippers limited to only the pseudo-Christians of the orthodox persuasion? Of course not. Orthodox Muslims (especially the shariah kind), orthodox Jews, orthodox Hindus, orthodox Communists, all have the same judgments which lead to the same condemnations...and often to the "well-intentioned" killings of others.

Wait? Orthodox Communists? Sure. You see, it is not so much the ideology that is espoused that matters, but the actions that arise from the ideology. Therefore, in 1999, the Red Chinese Communist leader proclaimed himself a "moral" fellow and launched a crack-down on immorality and corruption in Red China. The article reporting this back then said that one of the first "cleaning-up-of-society" acts undertaken by the Chinese "morality" police was the arrest of a Beijing woman accused of running a brothel out of her local business. She was then summarily executed. Sound familiar? Sure. The article could have been referring to news reports coming out of any number of theocratic dictatorships around the world.

The "Gaps in God" worshippers all have the same mentality, the same judgments, and conduct the same "cleaning-up-of-society" campaigns. A religious book states, "By their fruit you will know them." The "Gaps in God" worshippers are therefore easy to spot because their "actions" are all the same. And their "actions" inevitably lead to "hell on earth" for so many other people. And the "Gaps in God" worshipping Left Behind people are not different.

[Shapeshifter]

Okay, i'm going to do my best to slay the Sodom story here. Wish me luck.

First of all, someone noted that the angels were NOT male. This, in fact, is the case. The angels were "enosh", which is (deep breath--i hope i'm getting this right) the non-gendered pronoun. Conversely, Lot was "ish" which is (another deep breath) the male pronoun.

In other words, Lot was male (the default) and the angels were neither male nor female and the pronoun used would be considered, in the original language, an explicit reference to their non-male/female status. (Pause for some Milton. Not because it's scripturally relevant, just 'cuz it's nice:

For spirits when they please

Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure,
Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,
Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones.

Okay, digression over)

Moreover, the crowd was (in the original language) not gender specific (again, according to my somewhat shaky understanding--consult someone familiar with the original language version (i suggest a Rabbi or other Judaic scholar) before assuming this is correct. The assigning of gender (specifically, of male gender) was introduced in English translations.

Furthermore: whoever it was that pointed out God, through Ezekiel, declared the sin of Sodom quite explicitly not buttsex or even desiring buttsex but rather a number of other nasty things which plague the modern world still to this day. Other than buttsex, i mean. Furthermore, Ezekiel/God goes on to say something along the lines of: they did some pretty bad shit, yo; but you, my Chosen people, are even worse than they ever were and you had better recognize! (Sorry, too late at night to dig out my Bible for the precise quote.)

One would assume that the various fundamentalist Christians (and whoever else) do not believe the Israelites were plagued with rampant buttsex endemics worse than even their vaunted Sodom.

Furthermore, by denying (or more commently: casually ignoring) Ezekiel/God's words on the matter they're asserting that they are more accurate than God--or at least more accurate than Ezekiel and/or their Bibles. Of course they would deny this, but another nice Biblical quote goes something like: By their deeds shall ye know them.

Next up, there's a line that refers to how the people of Sodom "lusted affter strange flesh" and this was their sign. The various anti-gay Christians interpret "strange flesh" as "same sex flesh". This is nice in that it fits with their philosophy--that homosexuality is and always has been an absolute violation of God's natural order. Unfortunately it does not fit with the original language of the text, once again. The original of "strange flesh" was "heterosarkos" (or something familiar--forgive me, Biblical scholars!) which means literally "different flesh". As in the same way heterosexual literally means "different sex", or something to that effect. There is no doubt, in the original language, that the flesh is "strange"--or rather, "different"--not because it is the same sex of the people demanding some fine angel-ass (it would be a pretty awkward reference if it were, i would say!) but rather because the humans lusted after the divine flesh of the angels of God. Somehow i don't think that "angel rape fetish" is one of the things God thinks is "really neat, but only when it's heterosexual".

Okay. Anyway. I could go on, but i believe i've made the contribution i set out to make.

As an aside, i like the idea of terming these folks the "'Gaps in God' Christians". They'll of course counter "You're just spouting New Age hippie BS!" But that's not really relevant.

All in all, i think the Islamic practice of treating the original language version of the Koran as the only acceptable version has some merits. Of course, it's nice for the laypeople to be able to read the book their religion is based on, too. Provided they ACTUALLY READ IT.

[aunursa]

So...when he calls Irene's church, who's left there to answer the phone?

The answering machine, with a message from the associate pastor Bruce Barnes, who was Left Behind.

[Nick Kiddle]

Re Bibles as gifts: a former boyfriend melted my heart by giving me a German Bible as a Christmas present a few years ago. I'd remarked sometime in the previous summer that I'd like to read the Gospels in German, and he remembered that at present-choosing time.

Re "salvation of souls": I don't remember my church using precisely that formulation, and when you're as stuck on language as Rayford apparently is you probably think the same concept with a different formulation is something radically different.

[excatholic]

Related to the subject of the definition of a Sodomite, the stories of Greek mythology are consistent on at least one point: Zeus would come down in a fit of unrestrained and vengeful fury on anyone who failed to show proper hospitality to travelers and strangers. It was the number one sin of ancient Greek society. The Bible was originally compiled and edited in Greece, wasn't it? Would this belief have likely still been in place at the time of the screening process for which books to include in the Bible and which to reject?

[Michael]

Oracle has got it right. The "Gap in God" gaggle are, in my most humble estimation, fracked when it comes to true Jesus spirituality. I am reminded of a recent incident that happened to a dear friend of mine. She decided to work on a fundraising event to help a local women's shelter. Her job was to call churches and other appropriate venues to see if they might be willing to host one of three fundraising events. When she called the local Baptist mega-church, the answer was a flat NO. She was told that women who leave their husbands are considered whores or, worse, Lesbians. Their church, therefore, would not cooperate in any event that would help women leave their husbands and enter into the dark world of Satan. (I secretly suspect that the decision was less about the supposed "sinfulness" of a women's shelter, but, rather, the fact that the fundraiser would not enrich the church's coffers.)

Luckily, a Unity Church accepted the invitation with open arms and everything is set. My friend, however, was devestated by the comments made by the mega-Baptist church, because she had grown up in a similar Baptist environment and still held that church high in high esteem. She also had to leave her husband because of his violence toward her and their children, and she is neither a whore nor a Lesbian.

[Clint]

My friend Ken over at melancholics.typepad.com had a link to your blog. Your quotes from "Left Behind" were the first I've ever read of the books. And it was some of the worst writing I've ever seen. It's like at a junior-high level. The point is to tell by showing, not tell by telling--they fail this simple fiction maxim.

Oy, but people do love their drivel.

Peace
Clint