Left Behind and the Translation of God | Renegade Cut

[Applause] [Music] eschatology is a branch of study within the theology of Christianity it comes from a Greek translation roughly meaning last study or end study this can refer to a variety of different things such as death and the fate of the human soul but eschatology is also widely known for studying the end times the belief in the destruction or rebirth of what we presently consider the world in modernity a relatively new doctrine about the end times has become familiar among certain denominations of Christianity and in popular culture the rapture it's a prediction of an event in which all Christian believers will disappear from the earth itself and leave the unfaithful behind for the vast majority of the existence of Christianity the faithful did not believe in or even consider this version of the rapture as a possibility Christians believed that the event documented in the Bible which is never called the rapture in Scripture was simply an instance in which humans will rise and gather around Christ and nothing more there was and still is nothing particularly controversial about the older interpretation in mainstream Christianity but others have extrapolated this belief into something far more elaborate a whisking away of human bodies followed by the contents of a secondary prediction what is called a period of tribulation in which those who have been left behind must exist on earth and await the next phase in God's plan judgment modern rapture doctrine also casts a singular Antichrist as a figure who will play the role of antagonist in this event or series of events belief in this often called pre-tribulation dispensational premillennialism has overshadowed discussion of the christian end times in certain parts of the world especially due to the rise of popular media that dramatizes said event and all of it is bunk [Music] what do Christians believe now if one is a Christian one might think the answer is obvious but when one considers that there are quite literally thousands of Christian denominations each with their own perspective on the greater faith the answer to that is actually incredibly complicated in the broadest possible terms Christians believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God and that he was crucified and later resurrected this is something that one might assume would be a universal belief among those who identify as Christians yet for some religion is cultural and not spiritual meaning some who identify as Christians believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ important things like love for Humanity compassion towards the poor and sick etc but doubt either his historicity or divinity religion has evolved to be something that need not be so fundamentalist but rather cultural or personal in other words even in the very bedrock of what Christianity is there can only be a majority consensus among Christians but not universal agreement now another way to answer what do Christians believe is to point to how they perceive the universe after life daily rituals prayer and other common aspects of religion but of course there are a great number of key differences among the many denominations of Christianity when someone says there are thousands of denominations this is controversial to some because many Christians believe some denominations are simply part of the whole of another denomination but even if our arithmetic were more conservative there are at least hundreds and even if there were only two that would still disqualify the possibility of universal agreement there are countless disagreements Eastern Orthodox for example believes that God's inspiration in the scriptures is confined to the original languages and not translations many other denominations disagree Catholicism grants powerful authority to some human beings bishops the Pope and others whereas other denominations disagree you could fill a library dedicated to contradictions and incongruity 's the Christian denominations it's not just consubstantiation versus transubstantiation now another way to answer what do Christians believe is to simply respond with the Bible the answers are contained in this canonical infallible collection of books and that all Christians believe in what is contained in here and nothing more except that there is no singular Christian Bible this might come as a surprise to some Christians who have only read from one variety of Bible in their lives but there is no universal consensus on what is and is not canonical the most obvious example of lack of consensus comes from the difference between a Protestant Bible and a Catholic Bible the Protestant Bible such as the New International Version is seven books shorter than the Bible used by Roman Catholics the Hebrew Bible has 24 books the Protestant Old Testament uses the same information but organized into 39 books for example the Hebrew Bible has one book of Samuel but the Protestant Bible has first Samuel and second Samuel the Catholic Old Testament contains Tobit Judith wisdom of Solomon Ciroc baruk first and second Maccabees and some additions to Daniel and Esther but that's not all Orthodox Christians have a different Bible which includes everything from the Bible used by Catholics but also 1st and 2nd is dress prayer of Manasseh Psalm 151 and 3rd Maccabees not to mention the fact that some Bibles come with the Apocrypha included and there are some churches that consider pieces of the Apocrypha to be canon basically pointing to the Bible for a consensus on what Christians believe is fallacious when Christianity itself has no agreement on what makes up the Bible and of course even among denominational canons there are a myriad of different translations in fact translating the Bible has never stopped new allegedly more accurate translations are created from biblical scholars all the time a new version in the faith of Messianic Judaism for example created the Tree of Life version in 2014 there are literally thousands of different versions of the Bible upon hearing this someone might try to answer what do Christians believe by saying that Christians believe in the commonalities among all of the versions of the Bible as if the connections in a Venn diagram would neatly solve the question except even then every verse of every chapter of every book of the Bible can be interpreted in many ways some stories are seen as literal by many Christians and the very same stories are viewed by Christians as attea logical myths meaning supernatural origins or mythic histories to explain real events or natural phenomena even Christians with similar views on the fundamental and absolute truth of the Bible interpret a great many other things differently in addition to all of this Christians speak of a personal relationship with God and not simply an understanding of his works from a distance Christianity and all of its denominations make up approximately 31 percent of the world's population a plurality among world religions that's roughly 2.3 billion Christians so what do Christians believe the answer is that Christians maintain a great multitude of world views up to how many in total well maybe the same as there are Christians now that might seem hyperbolic to some and it probably is but the point is that it might be the only estimate Christianity is not one system of beliefs it can't be it's two internally contentious and systemically incongruous there is no one way to be a Christian but that's not an attack on the faith far from it this actually gives Christianity a surprising amount of flexibility the Bible's Authority does not arise from some consistency that's a modern notion based on Hellenistic ideals of truth as singular Western culture is influenced by Greek philosophical traditions and defines truth in concrete terms and maybe it should but the Bible's origins are from the ancient Near East and instead presents the best efforts of prophets to respond to and to explain the crises of the nation over a period of centuries so there can be no universal agreement because bible was not made that way but there can be a majority opinion or general consensus on individual beliefs within Christianity not the totality of it but individual beliefs like how long did it take God to create the world and how many plagues were there in the book of Exodus and so forth and that's important to understand going forward now on the opposite end of the spectrum far off from general consensus are the regional beliefs in other words minority opinions that are predominantly confined to certain areas of the world in South Korea Christianity is often mixed with shamanism now because the shamanism is indigenous to Korea it's generally not a form of Christianity that is practiced elsewhere except where there are high populations of Korean immigrants the Ethiopian Orthodox Church makes the fantastic claim that it possesses the Ark of the Covenant historians believe this claim was used to legitimize the new dynasty in Ethiopia following its establishment in 1270 this is not widely believed outside of Ethiopia obviously especially considering the numerous other claims worldwide of the Ark's location and then there's the American South and its embrace of rapture theology the concept certainly did not originate there and it is definitely not confined there but the popularization of premillennial dispensationalism in the american south is intertwined with the region's history of social conservatism and fundamentalist Christianity it's the perfect incubator for the expansion of rapture doomsday theology I'll get into its history later but there's a lot to cover anyway for now let's focus on one of the causes of the modern boom of the rapture in the public consciousness especially in America the Left Behind novel series and later the film trilogy the novels were predominantly written by Jerry B Jenkins and the late Tim LaHaye the story of Left Behind follows a group of people who remain on earth after a large portion of humanity disappears Kamryn buck Williams is a world-famous journalist Rayford Steele is an airline pilot who converts to Christianity after the rapture and Chloe is his daughter whose skepticism is important in the first novel but plays a minor role in the first film in the beginning of the film buck interviews Haim Rosen's wife an Israeli scientist Bruce and Spike has developed a new technique for growing food that the entire world could use to wipe out hunger suddenly enemy fighter planes attack Israel the Sun disappears in the middle of the day and without warning the planes explode in the sky of course left behind begins here and makes Israel a significant location in its story some Christians including many believers in pre-tribulation eschatology believe that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 is part of Biblical prophecy and that the gathering of Jews in Israel is a prerequisite for the second coming of Jesus this is a view that is especially popular in America and specifically in conservative politics in the film and the novel when Israel is attacked by two nations and saved by God this is a reference to an end of days story in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament that of Gog and Magog Christian interpretation is more catastrophic which is why the authors of left-behind thought to include it in their mishmash of end times prophecies GOG originally appears in the Book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament as GOG from Magog but this was changed to Gog and Magog in the book of Revelation in the New Testament the novel explicitly references the two powers being Russia and a secret alliance of Middle Eastern nations including Ethiopia which is absolutely not part of the Middle East but because Ethiopia is spoken of derisively in the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament it gets shoehorned in here too later on a plane captain Rayford Steele discovers that many of his passengers have suddenly disappeared their clothes left on their seats the rapture has occurred the true Christians have been taken up and everyone else has been left behind and now seems like a good a time as any to explain what that really means to understand the rapture we have to understand dispensationalism it's a method of biblical interpretation related to different time periods defined by God each dispensation is a new age in which God reveals himself to his children in a new way the cycle continues until God's final plan is fulfilled the number of dispensations when they begin and end and also dispensations that have not yet taken place vary from belief system to belief system within Christianity for example most systems of dispensational belief posit that the first dispensation was the innocence of humankind meaning Adam and Eve before their fall this marks only a small portion of one book of the Holy Bible other dispensations are from the moment of the fall to the great flood and so forth let's focus on how this relates specifically to Christianity though people who believe in the duction of Left Behind would say we are currently living in a long dispensation between the time of Jesus's crucifixion to the rapture itself the dispensation they believe we are all working towards is the thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ sometime in the future belief in this thousand-year reign is called millennialism or millennial dispensationalism post millennial dispensationalists believe we will receive the thousand-year reign so something to look forward to and then the second coming of Jesus Christ and his judgment premillennialists or premillennial dispensationalists believe that Jesus will return to earth for one reason or another and then we will have the thousand years before final judgment these may sound at a glance like minor differences I mean we are all getting Jesus in the end but they diverge to create entirely disparate outlooks on God's judgement premillennial dispensationalism itself divides into a few categories some denominations and faiths have their own variations the Jehovah's Witnesses have their own special version for example but for our purposes when the term premillennial dispensationalism is used here it will be shorthand for pre tribulation 'l dispensational premillennialism espoused by Evangelical Protestant Christians let's just really cumbersome so premillennial dispensationalism for short this is what Tim LaHaye and Jerry B Jenkins helped popularize to LaHaye and everyone who bought into this the end times go thusly first the rapture happens and true Christians disappear from earth and appear in heaven then there are seven years of tribulation bad times with the Antichrist then we get our thousand years of good times before the final judgment the rapture excites Americans because it taps into their survivalist frontier spirits manipulating them into believing they will be among the chosen few selected by God so they better get ready to be raptured or if they do not initially make the cut build a shelter and by seven years worth of canned foods if the view of premillennial dispensationalism is that Jesus Christ will return to murder everyone that should be cause for concern and public scrutiny of the belief pre-tribulation rapture has become so popular that one might incorrectly assume that it was always part of church doctrine or that it at least has been around since the Reformation or something but the reality is that the doctrine contained and left behind is fairly recent at least by the standards of how long christianity and judaism have existed John Nelson Darby planted the seeds of this dispensational thought in the nineteenth century but here in America we like media more than sermons and it took a popular book by William Eugene Blackstone called Jesus is coming for it to enter the popular consciousness this was in 1878 this means that while the rapture is only a small blip in the history of most countries it has been a topic in Christianity for a large percentage of the comparatively short history of America so if the rapture seems ubiquitous in America but not in other countries with high Christian populations that may be why the rapture grew because of books and movies notably Hal Lindsey's the late great planet Earth and the incredibly creepy film a thief in the night then LaHaye and jenkins put left-behind together in 1995 and wouldn't you know it this was right around the time when the internet could help this spread like a plague so let's examine why premillennial dispensationalists believe in the rapture I mean besides as a political tool this is Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 13 to 18 it says that the Lord will descend from the heavens with a shout and that we who are alive will be caught up in the clouds first of all how can this supposedly secret rapture happen when it is supposed to begin with a shout when Jesus returns nobody is going to miss that second people who actually know the Bible would say that this alleged event cannot be accomplished apart from the resurrection and punishment of the unrighteous because the very next chapter talks about this whole thing being the day of the Lord which also brings judgment on the unrighteous basically this chapter is meant to teach Christians that the resurrection of Christians and destruction of the wicked occurs on the same day there is no seven-year tribulation or any other time period between them most of the Left Behind novels and nearly all of the film trilogy happens during this time period that is absolutely not biblically accurate in fact the Gospel of John says it will happen in about an hour in other words Thessalonians does not support some pre-tribulation rapture premillennial dispensationalists also say that Matthew 24 42 41 supports the rapture - they think this means the Christians will be taken up into the clouds and the non-christians will not but this is completely out of context not to mention it is reaching so far that Tim LaHaye must have strained his arm these verses are about fleeing to the mountains to avoid armies in Jerusalem in other words it is about contemporary issues of the time it was written not a prophecy of the distant future again it's important to note that the term rapture never appears in the Bible rapture believers would claim that other important words like Trinity do not appear in the Bible but the concept of the triune God shows up a lot in the New Testament in fact so much that it is widely accepted many Christians biblical scholars or otherwise accept that being caught up in the air is metaphorical Paul does not say that Christians will suddenly disappear before God the size that is about to get real there are other reasons why the pick and choose prophecy of the rapture and tribulation make no sense and are entirely fabricated and they mostly pertain to just how the Bible was written put a pin in that more on that later everyone but in short left behind and other rapture doctrines use unrelated and misinterpreted Bible passages out of context and form a narrative that does not actually exist in scripture it might be helpful to understand just who Tim LaHaye was he was an evangelical Christian minister who was heavily involved in politics in 1979 he encouraged Jerry Falwell to found the moral majority where he sat on its board of directors the moral majority worked towards limiting rights for homosexuals and championed other socially conservative causes LaHaye was even co-chairman of Republican Jack Kemp's 1988 presidential campaign at least until the authors deeply anti-catholic views were known oh yes LaHaye hated Catholics as much as he hated homosexuals and women's rights he believed in the Illuminati organized by the devil himself and he made no secret that he was in opposition to the n-double a-c-p an organization that supports civil rights and hopes to end racial discrimination to LaHaye civil rights were destroying America LaHaye supported dominionism the movement to make the United States of America a Christian theocracy LaHaye founded the council for national policy a conservative activist group a 1999 speech by then Governor George W Bush to the council helped him gain a lot of support among social conservatives leading to his presidential bid in 2000 the point is this Left Behind is not just a religious it's not just about matters of private personal faith it has an overt political agenda specifically for America co-author Jerry B Jenkins is somewhat less extreme at least in public but his belief in the rapture and his work on left behind still had the same consequences as LaHaye the brilliance of left behind is that it uses its poorly written fiction and poorly acted movies to advance political change the real danger of premillennial dispensationalism is that believers take this view and follow it into the political arena either as voters or as elected officials LaHaye believed in Earth's destruction and the creation of a new earth a new planet the first destruction he claimed will be by fire and the second destruction will destroy the atmosphere he falsified a distinction among three different heavens in the Bible the atmosphere which he called the abode of Satan and another heaven among the stars only after destroying the terrestrial heaven and the atmospheric heaven will God allow us to have the third heaven in outer space belief that the atmosphere is ruled by Satan and can be neglected allows for premillennial dispensationalists to ignore climate change and other environmental issues social conservatives in America want the population to believe climate change is a hoax and one of the tools they use is rapture theology disasters are blamed on prophecy instead of natural phenomena some of which is influenced by human affect on the environment ever heard a preacher or Christian conservative politicians say that a hurricane was God's wrath on homosexuals or feminism it's ignorant sure but it's also a means in which to obfuscate the causes of climate change just like Tim LaHaye wanted religious belief influences environmental politics as much as energy lobbyists in fact even without the whole Satan is in the air fing prophesies of an impending doomsday promote carelessness with our planet in general if the world is in the process of being obliterated by God they rationalize then why even bother investigating alternative energy sources are being good custodians of our planet in fact why bother with anything premillennial dispensationalists have adamant religious convictions and yet their attitude in contradiction creates a kind of paradoxical nihilism Left Behind supports military expansion in the Middle East and strengthening ties to America's greatest military ally in the region Israel premillennial dispensationalists and evangelical Christians in general believe that this is the land of Jesus Christ's return evangelicals hoping to keep Israel a Jewish state might seem contradictory but not if you listen to the eschatology endgame a lot of Christian end-times theology revolves our the idea that the Jewish people must control Israel specifically Jerusalem and the Dome of the rock these events they believe are necessary for the return of Christ American ties with Israel are a lot more complicated than that but this eschatological aspect of it bolsters American public support of the two nations continued relations evangelicals control more than 60,000 American radio stations they meet in twenty five thousand member mega churches they are everywhere from local school boards to Congress evangelical is poorly defined as it can sometimes include and sometimes exclude some Christian denominations but by most accounts they are about one-quarter or one-third of America belief in the rapture exists elsewhere in the world but when people say it is a uniquely American problem it is a reference to both these demographic statistics and to its effect on American military intervention ISM in the Middle East to sum up the rapture is definitely not real even for devout Christians and belief in an imminent doomsday has had and will continue to have severe political and environmental consequences following the rapture Rayford Steele goes home to discover that his Christian wife has disappeared he finds a Bible and throws it at a mirror in a moment that is one part movie cliche and another part embarrassing but then oh look he picks it up and begins his path to becoming a born-again Christian he reads the Word of God accept even devoutly Christian biblical scholars know that is not exactly true I'm going to try to explain thousands of years of history and Bible scholarship in about 15 minutes don't blink the Holy Bible was written by a great many people and the individuals who were through tradition originally attributed as the authors have in many cases been disproved the first five books of the Bible for example are sometimes called the five books of Moses because tradition insisted that Moses himself wrote them even the parts after he died somehow leading to the term mosaic authorship this is not believed among biblical scholars today for reasons we will tackle mosaic authorship is a belief held only by holdouts and deeply conservative divisions of Christianity and Judaism and among those ignorant of the evidence the problem with explaining this to a devout Christian or Jew who has never heard of it is that it sounds like the same smug assertion of an angry anti religious ranter in reality this assertion is usually in the preface of the Bible itself my physical copy of the English standard version reminds the reader that the Old Testament was a product of many authors most of whom are anonymous in fact biblical authorship is referenced in almost any standard introduction to the Old Testament or New Testament and countless commentaries on the Bible and in most university and Seminary courses on the Bible everyone who is educated in these matters is aware of this it is not controversial among scholars anymore yet it is still not widely known or understood among laymen scholars have been studying the question of authorship for centuries and contrary to what one might think most of the investigators were trained in the religious traditions and knew the Bible as well as those who accepted the traditional answers biblical scholars of old and modern times are not debunkers they are usually Christians and Jews with deep spiritual convictions let's start at the beginning the five books of Moses also called the Torah or the Pentateuch some things in the Pentateuch made some scholars and religious leaders skeptical about mosaic authorship there are a great number of contradictions like who did what and in what order Moses is referred to in the third person and the author uses terms that Moses would not know and places Moses never visited there is also the fact that the books described Moses death also the books described Moses as the humblest man on earth which is not something a humble person would say early objections to mosaic Arthur ship were famously rejected by a the idea that the books of Moses spoke of events after his death because he was a prophet and the books were just written before the events happened which is the third century equivalent of saying a wizard did it in the 11th century Idzik eben Yahoo SH a Jewish court physician of a leader in Muslims bein noted that a list of the Edomite Kings that appears in Genesis chapter 36 named rulers who lived long after Moses was supposed to have died instead of rejecting mosaic authorship altogether he simply claimed that someone else may have added those names later in the 15th century toss tosses the Bishop of avila declared that some parts of the Pentateuch could not have been written by Moses he may have believed that Moses is successor Joshua wrote the sections after Moses is death however that argument has a big hole in it the account of Moses death is written in the same style as the text that preceded it so either Moses wrote it and of course he did not or someone else did it's kind of all or nothing in the 16th century Andreas von may suggested that the Pentateuch was originally written by Moses but was later edited his book on the matter was prohibited by Catholics eventually investigators and scholars concluded that all the rationalization for what was and was not mosaic was skirting the real issue Moses did not write the Pentateuch this new way of thinking was held by philosopher Thomas Hobbes and Isaac de la pajarera the latter of whom was admonished by the church his book was burned and banned in the 17th century Richard Simon a Catholic priest believed that there were many biblical authors and part of this belief came from what were called doublets a doublet is the same story told twice whether looking at the original language or in translation it is plain to see these doublets there are two stories about the Covenant between God and Abraham there are two stories of the creation of earth two stories of ten commandments and dozens more some are even triplets and many contain explicit contradictions much of Simon's work was not surprisingly suppressed by religious authorities and the Royal Council of France but work on doublets and other things eventually led to a to source hypothesis and later after greater research by karl heinrich graf and perhaps most importantly julius wellhausen the scholarly world began to recognize that there were four sources for the Pentateuch well houses model became known as the documentary hypothesis although there was still some resistance to this in 1943 after centuries of book burning and banning and overt opposition the Catholic Church under the guidance of Pope Pius the 12th encouraged the study of Biblical authorship today if you want to study the Bible in university you learn this if you want to become a priest you learned this if you want to read the Bible you learn this if you read most preface 'as before the book of Genesis now some would say that the mere existence of doublets is not in and of itself a great argument one could argue that it is a matter of style there are hundreds of contradictions but one could try to find some vague and probably supernatural explanation for all of them sometimes God has called one thing and sometimes another but that could be countered by claiming that people are often called by their name and often by their title by the same person someone for example calling the President of the United States the president and sometimes using his name is not a contradiction that was the argument against the documentary hypothesis for a while but the argument that supports the hypothesis is how all of these matters connect see when the doublets are separated it resolves nearly all of the contradictions and the name of God divides consistently in all but 3 out of more than 2,000 occurrences modern biblical scholars like Richard Elliot Friedman and his contemporaries have learned a lot through both study and recent archaeological evidence so what are these four sources that comprise a great deal of the Old Testament well from 922 to 722 BC God's chosen people were divided into two kingdoms Israel in the north and Judah in the south an account of their history and relationship with God was written in the south and we call that the J source so-called because it refers to God by his proper name Yahweh in German this starts with a J the J source has stories about the Garden of Eden Mount Sinai and a great many other thing J is believed by modern scholars to have been written in the southern kingdom of Judah based on many instances in the text that honor their past their rituals and their people in the Northern Kingdom of Israel and author most likely a priest created a separate text that we now call the e source so named because it refers to God as L or Elohim it is generally translated in English simply as God it also includes stories about Moses and the revelation on the mountain although there are noticeable differences including the name of the mountain itself the two sources are purposefully biased towards their respective political leaders and ancestors the story of the blasphemy of the golden calf for example is a shot across the bow the stories were not only historical and spiritual they were political in the text of the J source God promises Abraham the land from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates which just so happens to match the borders attributed to David the first king of Judah in J the Ark of the Covenant is very important but it is never mentioned in E the ark was located in Judah where J was written not in Israel where he was written there are countless other religious and political examples but to sum up J was either written by the priests of the southern kingdom of Judah or someone connected to its royalty or both he was likely written by the Shiloh priests of a Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC the Assyrian Empire invaded the Kingdom of Israel which meant there was no longer a border between the two peoples an editor combined J and E into a single work this editor is sometimes called the redactor or rje the two sources contradict one another but these contradictions could not be removed because it would mean removing huge parts of the text a compromise that would benefit neither side and destroy centuries of history instead they were combined in such a way that these contradictions were apparent but acceptable to both kingdoms another text that became part of the Pentateuch was the pea source so named because of its concerns with the priesthood most scholars now believe it was written after J and E were combined but there is some debate over exactly scholars previously thought it was written much earlier the D source is called this because of the book of Deuteronomy and it had its own biases and political mechanisms although we do not have all the answers or universal consensus because like I said there never is much of the Old Testaments authorship has been uncovered many scholars even have a name for the editor of the Pentateuch Ezra and Aaron eight priests and an important biblical figure the canonical Gospels of Matthew Mark Luke and John follow a different path than that of the Pentateuch but with some similarities including the political bent the authorship question has been hampered by traditions that state the writers of the Gospels were first-hand accounts of either Jesus's Twelve Apostles or companions of the Apostles depending on the gospel and interpretation the Gospel of Mark was likely written first between 66 and 70 AD in Rome during numerous persecution of early Christians the hypothesis that mark was written first is called mark and priority its main rival is matthean priority which is a minority scholarly opinion but regardless of which was written first all were written long after the death of Jesus Christ regardless of whether marker Matthew were written first the other three were clearly influenced by the first meaning three of the four Gospels were not first-hand accounts of the life of Jesus Christ and quite possibly none of them were most mythical scholars reject these traditional attributions of authorship and again most biblical scholars are not debunkers but are actually devoted Christians and Jews it's important to understand that saying a gospel was not written by a member of Jesus's inner circle is not some gotcha accusation that denounces the Bible it's just what most educated Christians have come to understand searching for biblical authorship is not an attack it's the search for truth and greater meaning and what are arguably the most influential writings in human history the Gospels were also highly political as was the book of Revelation both subjects which will be tackled later hang on they're coming so why is this important to understanding left behind and premillennial dispensationalism because understanding that the Bible has always been political is a prerequisite to understanding that left behind is political when premillennial dispensationalists defend their theology and their popular media they claim that their motives are purely spiritual and that the words of the Bible are simply the words of God even among the most devout Christians it is unthinkable that God told the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah to prop themselves up politically in their sacred texts and write scandalous damaging rhetoric about other members of God's chosen people living just across the border it is unthinkable that God told the authors of the Gospels to write anti-semitism into the Bible and absolve the Romans of their role in the death of Jesus Christ as a means of placating roman leaders and if it is unthinkable then what remains is that human beings made these decisions the Bible has always been used for political ends it was written into the Pentateuch and the Gospels the politics of the Bible are terrestrial they are of Earth not heaven and so the politics of the Bible have come full circle in modern times the authors of Left Behind and the other premillennial dispensationalists spread conspiracy theories about the United Nations fostering xenophobia American premillennial dispensationalists use their twisted interpretation of the Bible to manipulate politics especially concerned with the Middle East the other reason why it is important to understand how the Bible was created to understand premillennial dispensationalism is that their defense of well it can't be wrong or hateful it's in the Bible does not add up when one takes into account its authorship the Bible was made by many people over many centuries premillennial dispensationalism takes a verse from the Old Testament here and a verse from the New Testament there and forces these pieces together but considering the books of the Bible were written by different people with different agendas in different centuries they were not meant to fit together the novel series narrates raiford's indoctrination into both Christianity and premillennial dispensationalism but a movie is a movie and it's short cuts raiford's born-again status without much soul-searching buck meets with Ritz who believes the event was actually caused by extraterrestrials Ritz seems to be the only dissenting theorist in the film as everyone else throws their hands up in confusion or accepts that this was the rapture both the novel and the film framed the alien invader theory as ridiculous and something to be dismissed but it is not functionally different from the actual religious belief a mass abduction by a power above earth UFO conspiracy theorists are nutty but left behind takes time from its evangelism to say their bizarre theories are wrong but our bizarre theories are right buck investigates the death of Dirk a paranoid friend of his buck seems to know a lot of people like that but whatever Dirk was onto something big like maybe the United Nations taking over the world with the help of the Antichrist or something but nothing implausible like space aliens of course Rayford meets up with Pastor Bruce Barnes a Christian who is not good enough to be raptured because he had reasonable doubts about the existence of God Barnes dedicated his life to his church and his parishioners he does good deeds he preaches the Bible his church undoubtedly does charity work perhaps for the poor yet because he sometimes had doubts about whether God exists the authors of Left Behind believe he is presently unworthy of salvation this is not exclusive to these authors though sometime after the Protestant Reformation belief became seen as the core of Western religion churches formed split and even made war over differences in doctrine which is really more important belief or action is faith without action better than action without faith is belief without action better than acting despite disbelief which has a better outcome what if your actions contradict your beliefs for example a Christian might believe in Jesus Christ's golden rule in the Gospel of Luke do to others as you would have them do to you but what if this Christian believes this and believes in Jesus Christ who said it but does not treat others well at all many Christians would argue that God wants his children to both believe and treat others well but in left behind it seems clear that belief is given weight and importance of her action pastor Barnes is a decent man by almost any metric but his education about the Bible has left him with some understandable doubts and for this alone he is left on earth outside of the grace of God this is why evangelicals have a reputation of recruitment over action creed instead of deeds Rayford and Bruce watch a tape of another pastor he made it in case the rapture happened in his lifetime and wanted to leave everyone instructions and I really wonder if people do this later when they watch more the pastor invokes good old Thessalonians as evidence of what just happened for the Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a loud command with the voice of the Archangel and with the trumpet call of God and the dead in Christ will rise first after that we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds and meet the Lord in the air and so we will be with the Lord forever yeah except none of that happened in the movie or novel the Lord did not come down from heaven with a shout and there was no voice of the Archangel or the trumpet of God and the dead did not rise but sure besides all that exactly what happened buck and company learned that the Temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt which premillennial dispensationalists believe is a sign after the rapture related to the Antichrist being revealed speaking of which Nicolae Carpathia pops up on television and brings about global nuclear disarmament a fine gold devil or not but why would all nations with nuclear capabilities suddenly do this nothing about the rapture was related to nuclear weapons or even war in general well it's happening because left behind needs it to happen and left behind needs it to happen because it mistakenly believes that the Antichrist will bring about a one-world government in the real world not the movie and in order for the rapture to fit the UN has to become all-powerful anyway the God Squad should really start putting together the identity of Nicolae Carpathia by now because he is the one who wants to rebuild a temple Kirk Cameron does his best crying to convey Bucks conversion Christianity and then we rushed to the conclusion of the first film buck attends a meeting at the UN and finally figures out that Carpathia is the Antichrist because of the misunderstood prophecies and then Carpathia murders some people assumes power and now he is Lord Dracula of the UN or something Carpathia uses his mind-control powers to make everyone believe it was a murder-suicide Buck's voiceover narration tells us that the next seven years are going to be the worst mankind has ever seen maybe maybe not but the next two movies are definitely going to meet that criteria left behind to tribulation force expands on the series bad theology in this scene pastor Bruce Barnes and buck Williams discussed the murder that Nicolae Carpathia committed buck saw it for what it was but everyone else is claiming that it was a suicide Pastor bruce says that the only recent buck is able to see the truth is because he accepted Christ this seems like the best time to discuss Universal salvation verses special salvation the premise of Christianity is that the birth and death of Jesus Christ was necessary for the salvation of humanity in Christian thought the fall of Adam from Israelite to Judy and religion and later Judaism provoked a plan by God to save humanity from its sins when Jesus is called the Lamb of God in John 1:29 in John 136 it is referring to him as the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of humanity subsequently Christian tradition insists that this plan will be completed at the Last Judgement and second coming of Christ the end times events that Left Behind has twisted salvation means many things sins washed away in the light of Jesus Christ permitted to enter the kingdom of God or heaven or say from the end times for our purposes we will focus on salvation as depicted in left behind able to enter heaven and safe from the tribulation in Christianity salvation is only possible through Jesus Christ but this has created a debate about what through Jesus Christ means does it mean that because of Jesus's sacrifice we all have been saved or does it mean that only Christians may be saved Universal salvation posits that all of humanity has the potential to be saved enter the kingdom of God and special salvation posits that only true Christians may be saved and all others are condemned Universal salvation is an appealing concept to inclusive Christians Universal salvation proposes that Jesus Christ has a complete total victory over evil that Jesus's sacrifice and his inevitable return will save all humanity total victory over evil part of the doctrine of universal salvation is the rejection of hell many Christians believe that hell is not some fiery afterlife but instead more of a separation from God conversely for Christians to believe in eternal torment in some fire pit they would have to argue against the language of the Bible that unanimously describes the fate of the unjust or sinful as being defeat or death these three Psalms describe the unjust as perishing not tormented forever there are some proverbs and other verses too but any mention of Hell does not exist in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament for all the reasons given earlier about the discrepancies between Jewish tradition and Christian tradition but you might surprise some to know that the same is nearly true in the New Testament in Christianity there is a hell but it is not what one might think in many verses Jesus uses the metaphor of fire to consume not torture meaning defeat or annihilate not damn for eternal fiery torture there are dozens of other verses in the New Testament that speak of punishment being death not eternal torment here are just some of them scripture does not claim that hell is a place where you go and you are conscious and tortured for all eternity scripture warns humanity that refusing to be reconciled to God results in the most natural outcome support for Hell as a physical place in which humanity is tortured throughout all eternity for its sins is much like the rapture a patchwork of vague unsubstantiated verses that only reveal what the proponents want to see in the first place rather than what is actually there in the text this image of Hell comes more from Dante's Inferno which is basically Christian fanfiction and not the Bible hell this we at underworld in which the devil is king was never meant to be part of Christianity it's more pop culture than it is truth so back to universal salvation the non-existence of Hell as a physical place or fiery pit supports this viewpoint it is a piece of evidence in universal salvation but there is more believers in universal salvation point to scripture like Matthew 19 25 to 26 when the disciples heard this they were greatly astonished saying who then can be saved but Jesus looked at them and said with man this is impossible but with God all things are possible it's rather absolute proponents of universal salvation also cite the First Epistle to the Corinthians as all die in Adam so all will be made alive in Christ the First Epistle of Paul to Timothy says that the Living God meaning Jesus is the savior of all people especially those who believe notice it references people who believe and people who do not believe and yet it says that Christ is Savior to all of them especially to Christian believers yes but not exclusively to even a casual observer that would seem like case closed Universal salvation this could go on and on but the point is that there is a great deal of scriptural evidence that points towards universal salvation believers in special salvation like Tim LaHaye and the disciples of Left Behind have the opposite approach they point to the Gospel of John chapter 3 verse 16 for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life it sounds rather important it's why sports fans hold this verse up during games it does say that believers in the Son of God Jesus Christ will have eternal life but opponents would say that it does not exclusively say only believers believers and special salvation argue that if universal salvation exists why would anyone be a Christian well that question can be best answered with another question for Christians do you believe it is more important that everyone is loved by Jesus Christ or that everyone on earth goes to the same church on Sunday your answer should tell you a lot about your beliefs also Christian opponents of universal salvation those who believe in salvation should know that there exists other benefits to being Christian and then salvation going back to the book of Timothy it says especially those who believe in the Savior meaning there may be some added consideration some added benefit not to mention the community that belonging to Christianity gives oneself also if one opposes a universal salvation on grounds of simply disliking not feeling special then one would have to emit some level of pride which itself is a sin and left behind we see this exclusivity in action as true Christians are saved and everyone else is forced to share the earth with the Antichrist evangelicals the target audience of Left Behind believe in the conversion or the born-again experience of salvation conversion they would claim that they are inclusive but converting others is not inclusivity it is assimilation evangelicals in practice believe in special salvation if they did not they would not be so intent on converting others to Christianity in order to save them left behind is a grandiose parable about the importance of converting to Christianity specifically the evangelical special salvation socially conservative variety it shows in very explicit language the absolute necessity of being Christian and only Christian while portraying anyone who is not Christian as someone unworthy of God's love unworthy of being saved but definitely worthy of being condemned it is a scare tactic of the worst kind most evangelical fiction simply attempts to convert but left behind goes further and left behind there is little concern or even a sense of responsibility for the damnation of billions Fred Clark author of the Antichrist handbook the horror and hilarity of left behind says what one finds instead is a sense of triumphalism those inside the fold feel no sense of obligation to those on the outside they are bad people who are getting what they deserve and the godly remnant gets to watch more in delight than in sadness in addition to leaving out non-christians left behind leaves out a great many Christians as well but only because LaHaye and Jenkins do not see them as true Christians there is a prevailing ugly side to interdenominational relations within Christianity the idea that some Christians are not true Christians because they worship somewhat differently or go to a different church remember what I said earlier there are so many denominations Catholics for example are broadly condemned by a Left Behind version of Christianity premillennial dispensationalists and American fundamentalists have a long tradition of anti-catholic sentiment including but not limited to the belief that the Pope is often on the shortlist of suspected antichrists in the novel series the Pope is a true Christian who has been taken in the rapture but this is because as the novel's explained this Pope is saved only because he embraced the teachings of Martin Luther the father of Protestantism this is a way of both condemning Catholicism within its story but also throwing the Catholics a bone and saying that their Pope was saved a way for the authors to have plausible deniability for their anti-catholic hatred of course outside of the novels Tim LaHaye stated that he believed Catholicism was a false religion and pseudo Christianity litter in the novel series there is a new pope a more traditional Roman Catholic of course and he is one of the villains of the story he helps establish a one-world religion called the enigma Babylon one world faith working alongside the Antichrist he is later murdered all Catholics many Christians who have reasonable doubts and really anyone besides the narrow version of Christianity as explained by the authors are not saved in the rapture and left behind now one might wonder why all of this Universal salvation and special salvation matters to anyone outside of the faith of the authors have left behind why should use for example care if Christians think they are not good enough for their heaven why should Catholics bother with the salvation beliefs of Protestants because it's adjustment of character and it engenders bigotry unearned righteousness and blind faith without cause let's delve into the character of Nikolai Carpathia when we were first introduced to him in the first film characters remarked that he is a Mother Teresa figure and that if we all behave like Carpathia we would just be one big happy family suggesting he is world famous for just being the best the unanimously named nicest guy in the world and of course he's the Antichrist he's literally Satan made flesh this is slowly revealed over the course of the first film following the disappearance of the world's true Christians Carpathia assumes control of the United Nations and has the world reject all previous religions in favor of a unified singular vision of the future in the real world believers in the coming rapture and other end times obsessed Christians cite the formation of the United Nations as a key development in the end of the world as we know it this is because a prophecy of a global one world government is compiled from verses in Revelation and Daniel believers in this site Revelation chapter 13 verse 1 Daniel chapter 2 verses 41 42 and Daniel chapter 7 verses 16 through 24 the ten horns are 10 Kings who will come from the kingdom after them another King will arise different from the earlier ones he will subdue three kings he will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws the holy people will be delivered into the hands for a time times and half a time now this does not actually say New World Order or United Nations or anything remotely resembling that but bear in mind that religion and politics feed each other xenophobic ideas that historically flow through social conservatism Breed interpretations of the Bible that reflect the same nationalistic outlook there is a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram of people who believe in the rapture and people who believe in the United Nations black helicopter conspiracy theory and that is not a coincidence the United Nations is simply a voluntary diplomatic cooperative not the devil left behind speaks of the UN as an all-powerful villainous organization because this is also how the target readers and viewers of Left Behind think of the UN or any other international cooperation or a multinational treaty by portraying Nicolae Carpathia the new head of the United Nations as the single greatest threat to Christianity and humanity at large the authors have left behind helped popularize and legitimize fears that are both politically socially conservative and also theological II bunk and that brings us to the Antichrist in order to understand the Antichrist and how poorly this theology fits into Abrahamic faiths we need to first understand certain concepts in ancient Israelite Judy and religion in Israelite Judy and religion and later Judaism there is no devil the Satan in the Hebrew Bible occurs a few times such as in the book of Job numbers and Zechariah but the Satan is simply a member of the divine council one of God's minions whose function is to investigate Affairs among the Israelites and to act as prosecuting attorney it was never meant to be a proper name it's only in later jewish but more significantly christian thought that the term loses the definite article from the tsaatan to a proper name Satan Satan in Christianity is almost a kind of ancient alternate universe fanfiction taking a character from Judaism and completely changing his meaning to suit the purposes of the author in Israelite judy and religion the Satan worked for God in the book of Job he is clearly working with God to clarify something about human morality to the Jews this was just the satang to Christians it is Satan in Israelite judy and religion the serpent in the Garden of Eden was not this Satan this devil explaining the serpent in the Garden of Eden as Satan would have been a foreign concept to the ancient authors of the text an enemy as a serpent has ancient Near Eastern roots specifically Canaanite the devil as a concept is something that did not exist for millennia and then rewritten edit and reinterpreted to suit the beliefs of early Christians evidence for the devil was not discovered in the Old Testament it was as many things are manufactured later israelite judy in religion and later judaism conceived of sin as a human failing and morality as a human matter there is no temptation from an underground supervillain so what is this Antichrist is he the son of the devil the way he is often portrayed in popular culture is he a figure in rapture theology the way he is portrayed and left behind is he actually the devil himself but made flesh well the real answer to that is simple no such character appears in Scripture Tim LaHaye was one of the loudest proponents of the singular Antichrist theory in his book the popular encyclopedia of Bible prophecy he wrote biblical prophecies clearly predict the rise of the Antichrist in the end times and more than 100 passages of scripture described the antichrists origin nationality character career and global conquest it's important to understand that LaHaye was not just some hack writer who wrote a series of awful novels that spawned a series of awful films he preached this even outside of the realm of the fiction section of the library so let's look at what the Bible actually says and perform some basic analysis the word Antichrist comes directly from the Greek word Antichrist DOS and can be found in the First Epistle of John children it is the last hour and as you have heard that Antichrist is coming so now many antichrists have come therefore we know that it is the last hour from this we immediately learn a few things first Antichrist is not a singular person Antichrist is a descriptive term for a group or a type of person it is absolutely not a title for a special single person the author does not describe a single world ruler who would come and fill some prophesized role of the Antichrist second important thing we learn from the First Epistle of John is that these antichrists whoever they are appeared and disappeared during the time of the author they went out from us but they were not of us and they might be made manifest that they were not all of a Christians are not meant to be waiting for an antichrist or a group of antichrists they came and they went proponents of the single Antichrist Theory misunderstand this next verse as being about a coming single entity who is the liar if not the one denying that Jesus is the Christ he is the Antichrist the one denying the father and the son true this passage does employ the definite article via both in Greek and in modern English translations of the passage but it should be cleared that since the author has already established Antichrist as a general group a few verses prior he is now merely providing criteria by which his audience can judge cases of heresy among them so the author individualizes the language to correspond he who denies that Jesus is the Christ he is the Antichrist any biblical scholar worth his salt knows that the categories that the author set up in the previous verses should determine the context of this one in fact for this reason the King James translators went so far as to exclude definite article the from the second passage he is Antichrist that denieth the father and the son even though it existed in their Greek text this is meant as a clarification that men like Tim LaHaye clearly needed but chose to ignore LaHaye tries to justify his belief in a singular Antichrist and arch-nemesis of Jesus by claiming that many completely unrelated names and characters in the Bible refer to this fictitious composite character the little horn the fierce King a master of intrigue all from the Book of Daniel the king of Assyria from the book of Isaiah the worthless Shepherd from the book of Zechariah and so forth first of all Jewish writings do not prophesies Jesus Christ Jesus did not meet the criteria for being the Jewish Messiah and yes we will get into that so the idea that the same Jewish writings were also about Jesus Christ's opposite is simply impossible for LaHaye the anti-crisis both the king of the north in the book of daniel and the king of the south in the same book for someone who definitely does not exist he sure does get around second of all this is like reading a prophecy backwards for LaHaye and his comrades once such a concept is made up they read there are official character back into the Bible and find a way to claim he was always there every reference to every evil man or false prophet becomes a reference to this invented single Antichrist basically the idea of a single Antichrist is a patchwork of unrelated references throughout the Bible a theological abstraction believers in the single Antichrist have a variety of competing ideas about what the Antichrist is and who he is but many connect him as being either in league with the devil or the spawn of the devil or the devil himself remember Christians portray the devil they're capitalized Satan as the primary enemy of God so naturally this Lesa Antichrist believer is connecting the devil and the Antichrist well they have already connected this Antichrist to so many other unrelated figures so one more for the pile right and left behind the Antichrist Nicolae Carpathia is connected to the devil as the series progresses he gives his followers a mark this is a reference to the book of Revelation some doomsday believing Christians cast Satan as one of the two beasts or the dragon some Antichrist believers consider the first beast is Satan and the second beast the Antichrist because the latter is referred to as a false prophet and though many scholars are skeptical of that interpretation to summarize the devil is a late addition to Scripture a kind of retroactive continuity and the Antichrist in league with the devil is considerably more dubious the antichrists inclusion and Left Behind makes sense for this story left behind is already a hodgepodge of doomsday prophecies that are loosely mentioned or wildly misinterpreted in the Bible so of course this telling of the end of days has its central antagonist as theme non existent Antichrist and not just any Antichrist a European Antichrist with a foreign accent remember left behind is a distinctly American novel series with distinctly American especially southern and conservative American political values isolationism fear of European socialism etc it's all there Carpathia's ascent to power is absolutely ridiculous left behind suggests that the disappearance of Christians leads people to lose their faith and be more willing to trust this charismatic Antichrist they abandoned their previous beliefs form a unified world government adopt a single currency and become a secular global powerhouse with the United Nations as its center in reality religious faith actually is more likely to increase following a disaster not decrease statistically speaking a catastrophe will lead to conversions and renewed interest in one's faith there are a lot of studies that confirm this most Christians know that the existence or non-existence of God is not dictated by whether or not bad things happen something bad happening is not proof alone that one's religion is false a completely unexplainable event like the rapture as depicted and left behind would be the closest mankind has ever come to widespread proof of the supernatural or God himself but left behind portrays people who are not Christian enough to be spared the tribulation as fickle and easily swayed enough to abandon modern spirituality as well as our political and economic systems almost overnight so bucks says he needs to meet with Nicolae Carpathia because if he does not the Antichrist may become suspicious but first church pastor Bruce Barnes tells his congregation about the rapture and this scene plays out like baby's 1st rapture brainwashing Bruce says that everyone who believed in Christ was taken nobody in the crowd bothers to ask him why he a pastor was not taken we the audience are previously told that the pastor's faith was not strong enough but if a Christian pastor told me that all Christians are gone I would have questions for him anyway in spite of Bruce's unworthiness he is eminently qualified to tell others how to live Bruce tells the crowd that the Antichrist will preach peace and then reveals that Carpathia is that Antichrist then just to make sure left behind tells non-christians how ignorant they are immediately after Bruce says that the Antichrist will preach peace and that he is Carpathia an old man stands up and says Carpathia can't possibly be the Antichrist because he preaches peace to left behind we are all dummies Bruce tells everyone to reject the Antichrist the false Savior because there is only one Savior Jesus Christ and only through believing in him can we be protected further hammering in the concept of special salvation Bruce also mentions the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse figures from the book of Revelation the title comes from the Greek word apocalypsis meaning revelation or unveiling or disclosure the English word derived from this apocalypse has come to mean the end of the world but that is not what apocalypsis meant it had a far more positive meaning that we have perverted into something dire although doom and gloom premillennial dispensationalists would claim otherwise most theologians consider the revelation a message of hope for Christians and most biblical scholars know that the revelation is not a vision of the future but a message about late first century politics both religious and secular the revelation has a particular audience in mind John to the seven churches that are in Asia he goes on to say that the churches are in seven cities in Western Asia Minor those cities were Pergamum Thyatira Sardis Philadelphia Smyrna Ephesus and laude SIA basically modern-day Turkey John describes the challenges facing these churches in the first century persecution of Christians was local and sporadic it was not widespread because neither were the Christians in the Acts of the Apostles remember that Paul was able to work freely sometimes and sometimes not so much Roman officials had concerns over Christianity less for spiritual reasons and more for political reasons calling Jesus Christ the Messiah had political overtones revolutionary overtones the author of Revelation claimed that there was persecution in Smyrna but said that other cities had other challenges for a couple cities the author had concerns about assimilation idol worship and feasts related to greco-roman God's another church was complacent and so forth in the chapters that follow the author who calls himself John sees a lion who is meant to represent Jesus Christ and then the lion becomes a lay meaning a sacrificial animal a reference to Christ's sacrifice in Revelation God is a creator not a destroyer premillennial dispensationalists pick apart bits and pieces of Revelation to bolster their vision of the future but the book of Revelation is not a vision for the world a prophecy for 20th or 21st century Christians so far removed from the creation of the text the book of Revelation is a message with a very specific audience Christians in these seven cities and uses fanciful allegorical language to make its point about assimilation about a complacency about persecution concerns that the early church has had it was a warning about these things but it was also a message of hope that such concerns could be overcome with vigilance and also with God on their side when revelation was written it was common for the citizens of the Roman Empire to treat their Emperor as divine to Christians this was blasphemous also they found the justification for this out of touch with their beliefs the ability for a Roman Emperor to conquer through warfare was seen as something granted by the gods if Rome is able to conquer than the gods must deem it so in Revelation John attacks this notion by showing the lamp conquering through sacrifice only the Beast conquers through warfare the Beast of Revelation is wafer John to insult the Roman Emperor and condemn his violent conquests John says the Roman conquest is a monstrous beast not something to glorify through this John is asking the people of the seven churches a question will you follow the path of the Beast or the path of the Lamb it is absolutely essential to understand the time and place in which the writer of Revelation lived the book is generally believed to have been written towards the end of the first century that means it was written after the year 70 AD when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and it's temple the writer of Revelation speaks of a New Jerusalem a heavenly Jerusalem this is meant to give hope to dispirited Christians who were mired in political unrest premillennial dispensationalists sometimes take this vision of a New Jerusalem and twist it to mean that modern-day Jerusalem is part of their end times theology in reality this New Jerusalem revelation is supernatural divine not terrestrial a simple reading of the text shows this to be so the first century writer of Revelation is not making a prophecy about the 21st century Middle East he is giving basic instructions to the early Christian communities of seven cities in a very specific corner of the world and also telling them not to give up on their faith revelation is not about the rapture or other end times nonsense John's statement that the time is near is not about impending doom but simply to be taken literally act now do not be complacent embrace your faith and do not conform to the Empire's customs and spirituality left behind cast Nicolae Carpathia as the beast or the Antichrist remember the Antichrist is not really part of the Bible and the beast is just figurative it's allegorical in the novels and the films Carpathia places the mark of the beast upon his followers - the authors have left behind the beast is the coming Antichrist a man such as Carpathia - the author of Revelation the beast is just the Roman Empire some scholars believe John specifically meant Emperor Nero whose rule ended a few years before the completion of the book of Revelation gematria is a Jewish interpretive method that assigns numerical values of Hebrew letters to words and phrases to find their deeper meaning sometimes such values are coincidental and sometimes they are intended by the writer in Revelation it says that the number of the beast is that of a man and his number is 666 this is an explicit reference to comet Rhea that much is clear but interpretations beyond that are varied the Nero interpretation works like this in Hebrew Neron Kassar or Nero Caesar has a numerical value of 666 tradition says that Peter and Paul were said to be martyred during his reign if the identification of Nero is correct it would also explain why some manuscripts especially earlier ones have the number of the beast as 616 because when Nero Caesars name is spelled in Latin the numerical value is 616 when using gamma tria both Adam the number of the Beast is not some prophecy of a future world leaders named Americans trying to discover whose name works out to be 666 in English of all things is deeply ignorant of the languages used in the first century and in that region not to mention deeply ignorant about how gamma tria works even the earliest forms of proto-germanic did not exist in the first century and even christians who believe john received a vision of the future from god are still making a ridiculous and arrogant leap and logic that god would only have 666 work out for americans the British and other speakers of the language it's akin to Americans mistakenly believing Jesus was white because their copy of the Bible is in English the number of the Beast is a reference to Roman persecution of the early Christian Church like many things in the Bible it is political not prophetic it's a code that the churches would be able to figure out easily but Romans would not because they were obviously less knowledgeable about geometry ax Jews and early Christians however knew what this meant the political warnings in the book of Revelation are not about the mid 20th century creation of the United Nations or the late 20th century creation of the European Union or anything like that premillennial dispensationalists and their ilk use fear-mongering that is only loosely based on the Bible to push a political agenda not a righteous agenda it is not a coincidence that there is a lot of overlap between belief in the coming end of the world and isolationist nationalist politics they feed into each other not knowing where one begins and one ends or which is the cause and which is the effect back to the church someone storms out and Buck tells the straw man that he is a bad person because he has not kept the Ten Commandments buck and by extension the creators of left-behind are making the assumption that without God there is no goodness and that only God specifically the Christian God creates the standards of what is and is not good to the audience of Left Behind this is very matter-of-fact but to everyone else it's a bizarre assumption if you are a Christian imagine telling say a Muslim that you a good person and the Muslim replies well do you follow the guidelines of the Quran you would shake your head and say no I'm not a Muslim and this does not apply to me for some religion is about one's personal relationship with their God or gods and for others like the evangelical authors and audience of Left Behind it is mandate for everyone else it's like being on a diet and refusing to allow other people to have their dessert Rayford says he is going to apply for the pilot job on Nicolae Carpathia airplane in order to get close to him buck and Chloe start a romance and it has so little to do with anything else in the overall plot or the theology of Left Behind that it's barely worth mentioning it's just a way to humanize these hollow characters and a narrative that is more sermon and than story buck has a meeting with Carpathia the Antichrist says that the United Nations is assuming control of the world's media this is beyond ridiculous and stretches suspension of disbelief so tight that it snaps even after an incredible disaster like the rapture the world would not universally give up AIDS press writes not only for the reasons of sovereignty but also because there is so much money tied up in it in the novel series Carpathia has a similarly ludicrous plan he wants to purchase every major newspaper magazine radio station and television station in the world you know the first couple novels are from the mid 90s because that would still leave the primary source of news and information unattended the internet Carpathia may have a fortune but that would still be impossible simply trying to corner the market in a single American city with land Carpathia in serious trouble with the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission not to mention facing resistance from powerful news magnets and the simple fact that powerful corporations could merely refuse this is how Tim LaHaye views the world and specifically the United Nations misunderstanding it as potentially all-powerful and something that could overrule sovereignty and international financial systems left behind does not take place in some fantasy world it takes place in the near future of the same earth that LaHaye and Jenkins inhabit so why do they do this well the authors want to show that the alleged biblical prophecies that they assure us will be fulfilled any day now require as a condition of that fulfillment that the UN be something completely different from what it actually is so the UN in Left Behind is so radically different from what it truly is in the real world because the authors have left behind needed to be for their phony prophecies to have any wait there's an old story or joke a man walks into the forest and sees circles painted on trees and arrows in the center of the circles the man finds the archer impressed with his skill in always hitting the target and asks how he doesn't the archer says that he shoots the arrows first and then draws the target around it the authors have left behind more or less do the same with their prophecies they don't hit the target they fire and then create the target afterward they create a prophecy about something invent the characters or institutions and then claim accuracy by using their invented characters and institutions as evidence LaHaye specifically was a conspiracy theory nut and a firm believer in worldwide global manipulation by the Illuminati yes seriously he once wrote I myself have been a 45-year student of the Satanic Lee inspired centuries-old conspiracy to use government education and media to destroy every vestige of Christianity within our society and establish a new world order having read at least 50 books on the Illuminati I am convinced that it exists and can be blamed for many of man's inhumane actions against his fellow man during the past 200 years yeah sure thing Mulder Carpathia wants to create a singular religion mocking Christianity as divisive this is how far-right Christian groups in America see themselves under attack despite being in the majority whereas the minority religions are the ones to be discredited more on all of that later there is so much more bad movie to get through Rayford Steele now captain of Carpathia's airplane touches the hands of the Antichrist steel seized Carpathia's true form why doesn't Carpathia know about Steel's intentions doesn't he possess supernatural powers Buchan Rayford discovered that ben-judah the world's greatest religious scholar is going to announce that Carpathia is the true Messiah so our heroes want to convince ben-judah otherwise by showing him the witnesses in the book of Revelation they are two prophets dispensationalists believe they will appear during the last days Rayford uses a magic Christian woman singing Amazing Grace to distract the one world government a United Nations Guard and I don't know how to say that without it sounding crazy this is not in a second novel by the way only in the second movie the witnesses say that Jesus Christ is the Messiah they absolutely do not say this in the book of Revelation they do however have magic fire powers in Revelation and they show that off here by roasting soldiers alive this convinces rabbi ben-judah in the authenticity of Jesus Christ as the Messiah and Son of God seems like a good a time as any to broach the uncomfortable topic of anti-semitism in left behind as the tribulation force grows in strength in the novels buck and company are joined by converts from Judaism who become main characters in the series the effort mentioned cyan Ben Judah is a rabbi who after years of study determines that Jesus Christ is the Messiah this announcement in the novel anyway when proclaimed on Israeli television leads to the murder of his wife and children David Hasid acts as a mole within the villainous United Nations run by the Antichrist crime roses fight a prominent Israeli converts and becomes the leader of the so-called remnant of Jews who accept Jesus based on the 144,000 converts prophesized in the book of Revelation the problem is not identifying anti-semitism in the left-behind movies or novels rather it is identifying anti-semitism in left behind to other people our complacency allows us to dismiss arguments of bigotry unless said bigotry is so overt that even the staunchest anti-semite apologist would not be able to properly argue its innocence such as in historical or white supremacy propaganda or something as universally reviled as the Holocaust anti-semitism like most forms of bigotry exist more subtly within systems of majority acceptability in left behind its anti-semitism is rather obvious the world's foremost expert on religion a rabbi declares that his people are wrong and that Jesus Christ is the Messiah yet among those who have followed the series there actually are varying opinions as to whether left behind is anti-semitic left behind inverts the medieval and early modern Christian apocalyptic tradition of Jews as agents of the Antichrist by instead transforming them into his victims yet it describes a world in which Jews are not as fully human as Christians unless they give up their faith and their culture to follow Jesus Christ and it generally portrays Christians as the saviors and Jews as those who require saving rosensweig and all the major Jewish characters in the left-behind film series and best I can tell the more extensive novel series are Israelis not Americans there is mention of American fundraising for rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem but it is said by an Israeli rabbi in tribulation force the novel not the movie in the chronological final novel the sole surviving named african-american character wonders if America can finally become a Christian nation making the exclusion of Jewish Americans from both a novel series and films that much more clear in its intent while the inclusion of any characters of differing faiths might seem superficially inclusive it is only the conversion of the Jews that is essential to left behind prophecy historically speaking part of anti-semitism comes from other for a long time they were without a proper homeland the aforementioned kingdoms were prized by other competing powers and were invaded and conquered immigrants in a foreign land generally faced challenges of assimilation but the combination of this and the fact that their home was conquered and utilized their own language created a lot of mistrust of people native to countries in which exiled Jews dwelt such as Alexandria in Egypt in third century BC Egyptian priests Minato infamously spread anti-semitism in his writings and this was retold by Greek writers who may or may not have shared his opinion however more specific to this topic anti-semitism within Christianity has existed nearly since its inception Arthur Roy Eckart a pioneer in the field of jewish-christian relations and writer of elder and younger brothers the encounter of Jews and Christians famously claimed that the foundation of anti-semitism and responsibility for the Holocaust lies within the New Testament of the Holy Bible as said earlier the Gospels of the New Testament were written long after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and either most of them or all of them were not written by the Apostles the Gospels are widely believed to be written more than a generation after the events ascribed in them in cities in the Roman Empire like Antioch Ephesus and even Rome itself the four Gospels were not written in Aramaic the language of Jesus and the region where he lived instead they were written in Greek which was the language of scholarship during the days of the composition of the New Testament the Gospels were far removed from the events they described they told the story of Jesus Christ in such a way that it appeared as if his real enemies were not the Romans who put them to death but rather the Jews meaning the Pharisees and the Jewish people in general it is often claimed by biblical scholars that the later the writing of each individual gospel the less anti-semitic they became like I said the Gospel of Mark was likely written first shortly after the start of the Jewish Roman Wars in 66 AD when anti-jewish resentment was strong in the capital critical scholars generally argue that the Gospel accounts place the blame on the Jewish authorities and not on Roman authorities due to the author's goal of making peace with the Roman Empire and vilifying the Jews mistrust of Jews was so widespread in the aftermath of a Jewish revolt against Rome that the young Christian churches attempted to distance themselves from their roots this schism between Judaism and early Christianity was not only spiritual it was political this hostility was written into the Gospels and other books of the New Testament many biblical scholars count examples in the dozens or hundreds depending on the source the apostle Stephen is made to say what would uncomfortably become a common Christian refrain against the Jewish people that they had always been a sinful and stubborn people with a history of killing prophets which culminated in the deicide of Jesus Christ the Epistle of Titus may be the origin of the Jewish stereotype about an obsession with money or at least one reason for its proliferation into ma day this excerpt from first Thessalonians claims that the Roman destruction of Jerusalem was an act of God punishment for the Jews this part of Revelation uses the term synagogue of satan' and honestly they are so many more perhaps the most infamous is the blood curse in the Gospel of Matthew that places all of the blame in the death of Jesus Christ on the Jews and also curses their people for all time again this was added to appease the Romans and demonized the Jews this was politically motivated not a righteous or even factual condemnation theologians like Ulrich Lutz described the blood curse in the book of Matthew as redaction election invented by the author the author of the Gospel of Mark portrayed Pontius Pilate as largely innocent of Jesus's death in his account even a Roman centurion claims truly this man was the son of God the notion that Jewish leaders had Jesus arrested and forced the Romans into crucifying him has several historical and Biblical contradictions first punches pilot was a prefect a kind of governor he was not easily forced to do anything especially not by a religious minority with no real authority over him second the Jewish leaders asking Pilate to execute Jesus because as the Gospel of John claims the Jews could not execute Jesus without pilot makes very little sense the Jewish high priest probably had some authority either through legal means or by means of skirting the law to execute by stoning Jesus himself defended and Mary Magdalene from a stoning in other words the idea that Jewish authorities would even require Pontius Pilate to execute Jesus contradicts both historical records and other parts of the Bible itself which many biblical scholars believe is evidence of it being politically convenient at that time to blame the Jews entirely and completely absolve the Roman Empire of any guilt anti-semitism became part of church teaching fourth century bishop of antioch john christen dom preached fiery sermons against the jews and he was canonized a saint when Christianity became the state religion of Rome in the fourth century Jews became the object of political oppression Christian literature was hostile to Jews synagogues were burned in her marriage between unconverted and Christians was prohibited conversion of Christians to Judaism was prohibited in the fifth century Jews were barred from civil service the military and the legal profession in the Middle Ages in Europe the death of Jesus was enacted annually in passion plays using the politically biased Gospels as source material for medieval Christian thinkers Judaism and the Jew were not only ancestors but rivals the Christian tradition makes a fundamental claim to be the rightful fulfillment of Jewish prophecy within this framework Christianity believed itself to supersede Judaism and Jewish refusal to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Messiah posed a fundamental theological paradox for Christians meaning on one hand we have the Blessed Jew as the patriarch on the other the reviled contemporary Jew who was offered salvation and stubbornly refused it Christianity has taken steps to soothe the centuries old wounds between their faith and Judaism of course in the early 1960s the Catholic Church's Vatican 2 denounced anti-semitism and stated that Jews of the past and today bear no responsibility for the death of Jesus Christ this is widely believed to be ushered in due to the Holocaust and yet it continues post Holocaust it is no longer as widely acceptable to write Jews as monsters an apocalyptic Christian writings and so they have become victims instead in left behind they exist as a tool to fulfill a prophecy and as an instrument to declare their beliefs invalid by the fictional Jewish man who is the world's greatest authority of religion Jewish identity can no longer be as openly demonized without causing controversy instead in works like left behind it is quietly erased so let's go back to Sion ben-judah the most learned authority on all religions his declaration that Jesus Christ was the Messiah is a way to give a kind of kosher seal of approval to the film's theology you know in a science-fiction movie when a character needs to spelt technobabble usually that character is portrayed as an incredibly intelligent scientist so that all the nonsense and half-truths he says in regards to science are taken seriously by the audience the writers have left behind are doing more or less to say thing here creating a character who is referred to as the world's leading authority of religion and making this character as objective as possible in terms of Christianity by making him Jewish instead the rabbi says that the Bible gives clear prophecies that can only be fulfilled by one person he then declares that the Messiah is none other than Jesus Christ the film not surprisingly neglects to mention any of this supposed criteria for Christ being the Messiah of the Jewish people with the exception of the smallish sect of Messianic Judaism the Jewish people do not accept Jesus Christ as the prophesized mashayekh for a very simple reason he does not in any way meet the actual criteria for being their Messiah first and foremost most Jews do not believe that the Messiah is defined or part of God in any way in fact did use this idea would be blasphemous the Jewish Messiah will restore the royal dynasty to the descendants of David oversee the rebuilding of Jerusalem gather the people together in Israel re-establish the Assembly of Israel restore the sacrificial system and some other things this has not happened Jesus did not do any of these things anyway the point here is that there is a lot of criteria for labeling someone the Messiah he must for example be a descendant of King David which Jesus was not Christians do not claim that Jesus was born in the line of David or any line at all because Jesus is purported to be the product of a virgin birth and that he had no human father that means he could not possibly have fulfilled this requirement furthermore the Jewish Messiah is meant to be a military leader who will win several battles and Christians think of Jesus Christ as a man of peace the writing editing and redacting of the Bible is terribly complex but that should give some idea of what we're dealing with here in terms of this dispute over the Messiah part of this was the effort mentioned shunning of Jews in the New Testament so that such criteria could be ignored but also parts of the Christian Bible were written so that Jesus could be seen as the Messiah the result of which was that it shifted the function of the Messiah from something visible that could be tested to an invisible level in which he could not for example the Messiah's original goal was to be the redemption of Israel and it was changed to atonement for original sin many Jews believed that the historical Jesus accomplished good things in turning people away from idolatry but he has no special role in mainstream Judaism once again bear in mind that nothing being said here is meant to sway anyone towards Christianity or Judaism this is not theological this is not an argument of apologetics this is critical analysis not prostitute ism all of this is only meant to demonstrate that there is a reason why Jews do not believe Jesus Christ was their Messiah because based on the tenants of their faith there is just no way he could have been writings in the Hebrew Bible that Christians used to justify Jesus as the prophesized Messiah are sketchy at best and easily contradicted by the actual criteria obviously writings in the Christian New Testament were of course written after the birth of Jesus Christ and have no bearing on prophecies that were made in the past the easiest prophecy to fulfill is one written after the fact for example in the Gospel of Matthew he came and recited in a city called Nazareth that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled he shall be called the Nazarene since a Nazarene is a resident of the city of Nazareth and this city did not exist during the time period of the Hebrew Bible it is impossible to find this alleged prophecy in earlier scriptures another form of creating pre-existing support for Jesus as the Messiah comes from either accidental or purposeful mistranslation example in Romans 11:26 the Christian Bible quotes isaiah 59:20 as saying the deliverer will come from Zion he will remove ungodliness from Jacob this is an attempt to establish scriptural support for the Christian belief that the Messiah will take away our sins however a careful examination of the original Hebrew reveals 5920 actually saying the opposite a redeemer will come to Zion and those who turn from transgression in Jacob declares the Lord in Judaism of the Messiah's role is not to take away our sins rather when Jews turn away from their sins then Messiah will come the Christians had it backwards in Hebrews 1:5 the Christian New Testament quotes a verse from the Hebrew Bible second samuel 7:14 i will be a father to him and he shall be a son to me christians claim this to be a prophetic reference to jesus as the son of god however if we look at it in its entirety the verse doesn't end with the phrase quoted in the new testament but continues when he commits iniquity i will correct him with the rod of men this cannot possibly fit the Christian Bibles view of a Jesus who is perfect in addition the verse is speaking specifically about King Solomon not Jesus as is obvious from 1st chronicles 20 to 9 to 10 his name shall be Solomon he shall build a house for my name and I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me christianity claims that Jesus fulfilled a prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem it attempts to utilize this as their proof text but you Bethlehem Ephrathah though you are small among the thousands of Judah out of you will come to me one who will be ruler in Israel whose goings ought are from ancient time from days of old this verse is not a prophecy that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem the passage ashlee states that it has been preordained and then the Messiah would be able to trace his roots back to Bethlehem but this is consistent with a statement that the Messiah will be a descendant of King David who was from Bethlehem as seen in the book of Samuel there is a lot more but in hopes of not belaboring the point let's sum up the term Messiah literally means The Anointed One and refers to the ancient practice of anointing Kings with oil upon assuming the throne the word Messiah does not mean Savior or son of God yet Christians do claim that Jesus was all of these things the Savior the Son of God and the Messiah as prophesized by the Jews it is not offensive to say I believe Jesus Christ was the Messiah or I do not believe Jesus Christ was the Messiah that is not the issue here with the Left Behind movie the issue is that filling the role of the man who suddenly convinces the entire world of the rightness of Christianity with a Rabb is a deliberate attempt to undermine Jews and propagate the notion that Jews need to convert to Christianity Jews are often confronted with anti-semitism that follows this line of thinking where is your Messiah they are asked mockingly in addition it not only evangelizes about the Christian faith but attacks the Jewish faith by doing this generally speaking Jews do not believe what this Jewish character and left behind is saying his inclusion in the Left Behind novels and film series is both purposeful and clearly anti-semitic as an aside it's not strange in the religion of Judaism that the Messiah has not come the Hebrew year 6,000 marks the latest time for the initiation of the Messianic age this is night fall of September 30th 20 to 39 until nightfall of September 17 20 to 40 it's a kind of deadline by which the Messiah must appear anyway Sion ben-judah does not care about any of that he stops in the middle of his speech to make sure the crowd knows that the Messiah must definitely be a man in case any women in the crowd were hoping for a progressive plot twist and then announces that Jesus Christ was the Messiah not Nikolai Carpathia and certainly not what the Jews actually believed that the Messiah simply has not come yet Ben Judah lists something related to actual Messiah prophecies the FMN shinned bethlehem thing but then just starts mentioning things that happen to Jesus that were not prophesized in the Hebrew Bible at all the novel is more detailed giving some of the affirmation to revisionist after the fact prophecies but it's all nonsense in general left behind traffics in its own weird mishmash of phone enos see there is mainstream Christian apologetics about why Jesus was the Messiah despite all of the irregularities and then there is left behind which just pulls non-canonical nonsense out of nowhere and hopes the audience is ignorant enough to forget their Bible verses so Ben Judah says Jesus Christ is the Messiah and tells the crowd presumably mostly Jews since this is happening in Israel to turn to God's faith to summarize this rabbi character written by Christians told the Jews of Israel to abandon their faith and their culture and the movies and the books I guess a lot of them do after all these are left behind to choose that means that in the minds of the authors of the novels and the creators of the films Jews are just misguided Souls who need to convert to the one true faith after the announcement Carpathia is understandably upset and vows that this is not the end well of course not there is still another movie in the trilogy early in the third movie president Fitzhugh and his vice-president have a conversation that reinforces the Nationalists and anti-globalist worldview of the authors of Left Behind the vice president is concerned about the United Nations and the fact that America stepped out whereas the President believes that a world dedicated to peace and tolerance is more important than one country now in any other movie the president's view would make him heroic and selfless he has dedicated his life to world peace even at the cost of his own power button left behind he is portrayed as naive - left behind world peace must be a sign of the end times racial harmony is a portent of doom global unity is a false flag a preamble to an invasion of America by none other than the Antichrist the vice-president dies a martyr before he can prove the invasion if anyone had any misconceptions about his role and how he is meant to be the voice of the authors of left behind buck and Chloe get married a double ceremony with Chloe's father Rayford and his new bride which is weird and awkward president fitz-hume meets with Carpathia who says thank the gods which I suppose is the movies way of reasserting monotheism if the Antichrist says gods and the Antichrist is always wrong then the Christian God is the only one president Fitz Hugh kidnaps buck puts a gun to him and asks him to renounce Jesus Christ yeah more of this buck does not and now the president can trust him buck shows him a Bible verse about pestilence believing it refers to the biological weapon that Carpathia is planning to use buck reveals that Carpathia is the Beast of Revelation remember believers in a singular Antichrist believe that the Beast and the Antichrist are the same thing buck says that the Antichrist cannot be killed which is an odd statement without context because in the book of Revelation the Beast is defeated and thrown into a lake of fire but why be precise when you can be vague and inaccurate the president makes a good point the tribulation forces have created a vaccine for the biological weapon this pestilence referenced in the Bible but what about the earthquakes and tornadoes that buck mentions well buck says he can't make a vaccine against a tornado or an earthquake okay true but they are still going to happen right this buck think that Carpathia is going to create a tornado or earthquake with technology does he think that Carpathia has a Weather Machine like a James Bond villain is he going to conjure an earthquake with magical devil powers and if so why doesn't he just do that instead of the pestilence that relies on science to create it left behind creates scenarios that seem plausible when connected to the Bible but scenarios in the Bible that seem implausible don't happen this grounds eschatology and real-world events so that believers can claim it is not only plausible but currently happening like with the advent of the United Nations if left behind were about literal dragons bursting out of the ground and a villain with horns on his head and goat feet it would feel like fantasy instead left behind creates a global conspiracy that its believers can imagine happening behind the scenes in smoke-filled rooms and no it's not just a budget limitation of these films the novel series begins and progresses much in the same way President Fitz Hugh discovers that the pestilence will be spread no kidding through Bibles unsuspecting Christians who read the tainted Bibles will be infected and die and yes this is actually a plot point in a movie this feeds into real-world fears among socially conservative Christians in America that they as the majority religion in the country face comparable or even worse discrimination than minority religions that is not how power structures work of course society generally establishes systemic power in the majority this is a misconception that is widespread a 2016 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute states that nearly half of Americans believe that discrimination against Christians in America is as common as discrimination against African Americans and other minorities the poll actually found it more likely that conservative Christians would discriminate in favor of other Christians in other words against non-christians 46% of those surveyed said immigration from Mexico and Central America has been too high in recent years when asked the same question about immigrants from quote predominantly Christian countries unquote only 10% of people said immigration has been too high this exposes their own discrimination because it is essentially the same question phrased two different ways Latin American countries are overwhelmingly Christian in many places even more so than in the United States when Americans think of those immigrants as Christians rather than foreigners and brown people only then do they accept them same question different response so a great number of American Christians believe that they are discriminated against as much as or more than racial minorities or religious minorities but roughly the same percentage believes immigration from Mexico and Central America is too high but they don't believe Christian immigration is too high even though that is nearly the same thing yeah the bias is both racial and religious attitudes towards Muslims in America are much much worse and disprove the idea that Christians are discriminated against as much as or more than religious minorities even though some Muslims have been in the United States for longer than many of the Protestant and Catholic descendants of German Irish and Italian immigrants most Americans still believe Islam is quote at odds with American values and way of life quote that includes 74% of white evangelical Protestants 66% of white mainline Protestants and 63 percent white Catholics Hispanic Catholics are statistically more accepting of Muslims perhaps due to being a minority of a different sort but the numbers are still not good people with some denomination of Christianity constitute a staggering 71 percent of the United States but since some churches struggle with attendance and many young people do not identify with any particular religion those who believe that America must be a Christian nation like the creators of left behind feel their hold on a multicultural country slipping ever so slightly not very much obviously but enough that they may one day have to share a little power someone once said when you're accustomed to privilege equality can feel like oppression when then candidate Donald Trump met with more than 1,000 predominantly evangelical leaders in New York City in June of 2016 out of tens of thousands of questions religious liberty was the primary concern but when conservative Christians like these evangelicals many of them statistically speaking premillennial dispensationalists say religious liberty what that really means is the ability to use the law and Christian majority in America to limit the liberty of others not surprisingly among the most notable Christian activists and public figures have been premillennial dispensationalists the late Jerry Falwell Ray Comfort and John F MacArthur to name a few at the risk of belaboring the point religion and politics are intertwined Christianity is influenced by politics and also itself influences politics its cycle left behind and its message is not simply a concern among Christianity but a concern among all Americans because everyone in the country faces consequences from the apocalyptic beliefs and subsequently influence in politics from this theology if church attendance is down cell Christianity in books and movies they say the problem is that while a church might temper some of its views with heart and forgiveness and also have qualified people making the sermons the most popular Christian media is made by amateurs and people with bad ideas when I was young after mass my priest would stand in the doorway shake hands with us as we left and sometimes discuss his sermon with the parishioners in case they had any questions when I was an altar boy I could discuss faith with my priest before and after services with entertainment the author is distant and not subject to direct questioning by the audience Jerry B Jenkins closes himself off in his Christian writers guild an organization he owns and Tim LaHaye passed away in 2016 the influence of their work cannot be overestimated the best-selling novel series has 16 books in the main series and almost 50 spin-off novels not to mention the film trilogy and to reboot movies speaking of which let's finish off the plot of the trilogy and wrap this up Fitzhugh confronts Carpathia but the president is shoved out a window he miraculously survives leading Carpathia to imply that God saved him so ok God can intervene in the events of the tribulation to give Christians the upper hand why doesn't God just stop Nicolae Carpathia altogether any answer to that would have to take the form of a theodicy or argument for why evil exists if God is both all good and all-powerful it's called the problem of evil to avoid the paradox Christian apologists often conclude that God may not be all good or all powerful or that God allows evil to exist to allow greater free will among human beings like a creator who winds up the universe and then allows it to progress with minimal involvement from himself for many Christians and other theists these answers make the most sense there is a lot in the Bible that humanizes God's power and complicates the rightness of God's actions however in premillennial dispensationalists thought God is actually deeply involved in the affairs of humankind even more than actually in the Bible the rapture is a worldwide event that caused by God himself so for premillennial dispensationalists God has both the power to protect Christians from the rapture and the goodness to do so but either does not have the power to stop the Antichrist on his own or the goodness to stop the Antichrist premillennial dispensationalism becomes more and more tangled the more one thinks about it because it rejects the most understandable theodicies the most common answers to the problem of evil in philosophy and instead just kind of wings it in hopes nobody notices premillennial dispensationalism assumes its believers are not ones to question doomsday christians by definition are not casual about their faith back to the film world war three breaks out it just does and president fitz hugh confronts Carpathia again and this time he launches a missile into his office to kill both himself and Carpathia back at christian headquarters Chloe discovers the cure for the biological weapon is communion wine because of course it is and Nicolae Carpathia is not dead sequel baiting a movie that never came to be years after the trilogy ended they tried to reboot left behind for modern audiences first with the Nicolas Cage Left Behind film that was understandably a critical disaster and barely broke even and the second reboot aimed at teenagers went completely under the radar left behind looked like it was about to finally fade away after the passing of Tim LaHaye but in 2017 cloud ten Pictures co-founder Paul Lalande announced that he had purchased the film rights to the entire Left Behind novel series and plans six to eight films honestly whether this happens or not the damage has already been done let's summarize Left Behind is wrong in both senses of the word in the inaccuracy of its information and the immorality of its content and beliefs left behind is wrong because the myth of the rapture is a misunderstanding of Scripture left behind is wrong because the Bible was written by many sources over the course of centuries and not by someone with a singular endgame left behind is wrong because the Antichrist does not exist left behind is wrong because it's exclusionary politics teach conservative Christians to mistrust non-christians left behind is wrong because the book of Revelation is a message of hope not doom left behind is wrong because it teaches anti-semitism left behind is wrong because it twists the Bible to both support its claims and cast Jews as misguided or worse and finally left behind is wrong because it lies to Christians about their numbers and their place in the world the Holy Bible can be challenging to understand it was written over a thousands of years and by different people with different agendas some of which purposefully contradicted earlier authors to better suit what they now wanted people to believe so it is tempting to create a system to make sense of it that's what the rapture is but there is no passage that truly reinforces their belief not only the belief that the rapture is coming but even the belief that the authors of the Bible thought the rapture was coming no biblical author ever wrote about Christians snatched away from earth before seven years of tribulation for the left behind it is a distortion of millennia of history and faith in the end it is a mistranslation not a translation of God hi everyone this feature-length video took the better part of two years to complete a year dedicated to research and the rest of the time towards writing recording and editing if you appreciate my work please consider clicking on the orange patreon link below that's how this show happens also please subscribe and click the notification bell so that you never miss an episode

Channel: Renegade Cut

Views: 890,324

Rating: 4.8055363 out of 5

Keywords: antichrist, left behind, left behind review, left behind book, left behind novel, left behind movie, left behind the movie, rapture, the rapture, rapture watchers, rapture ready, the rapture is a lie, the rapture explained, premillennialism, premillennial dispensationalism, revelation, number of the beast, 666, who is the antichrist, renegade cut, jesus, god, christianity, christianity debate, christianity in america, america, christianity in rome, donald trump, jesus christ, judaism

Id: hRxN1DXmSdA

Length: 115min 4sec (6904 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 16 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/buckiemowhawk]

It's actually more of an opinion piece than a documentary

[u/howardCK]

because they're fucking stupid duhh ;)