Matching Tracksuits

One of the most interesting elements of the first Left Behind book is its necessity to create some kind of imagined explanation that the non-Christians would come up with to explain the disappearance of so many people. This is what the authors come up with:

The world has been stockpiling nuclear weapons for innumerable years. Since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan in 1945 and the Soviet Union first detonated its own devices September 23, 1949, the world has been at risk of nuclear holocaust. Dr. Rosenzweig and his team of renowned scholars is close to the discovery of an atmospheric phenomenon that may have caused the vanishing of so many people instantaneously.”

“Dr. Rosenzweig believes that some confluence of electromagnetism in the atmosphere, combined with as yet unknown or unexplained atomic ionization from the nuclear power and weaponry throughout the world, could have been ignited or triggered-perhaps by a natural cause like lightning, or even by an intelligent lifeform that discovered this possibility before we did—and caused this instant action throughout the world.”

“Sort of like someone striking a match in a room full of gasoline vapors?” a journalist suggested.

This Dr. Rosenzweig character is, in fact, a botanist, and his theory becomes the prevailing explanation among non-believers. In the Left Behind authors’ world, there are no skeptics saying, “Now, wait a minute. We stopped testing nuclear weapons decades ago. Even if your idea of ‘some confluence of electromagnetism in the atmosphere, combined with as yet unknown or unexplained atomic ionization from the nuclear power and weaponry throughout the world’ itself weren’t completely bonkers, there simply wouldn’t be any remnants decades later. The whole idea is ludicrous.”

This lack of skeptical characters is hardly surprising. The Evangelical authors don’t even understand current skepticism toward their faith. Any time any idea comes close to their religious beliefs, skepticism disappears.

Early in the first Left Behind book, Rayford Steele, whose wife was raptured away, finds himself asking how he missed the rapture coming: “Yet even Captain Steele—an organized, analytical airline pilot—had missed it, and Steele claimed to have had a proponent, a devotee, almost a fanatic living under his own roof.” He should have seen it — he’s not an idiot! But he didn’t.

But miss what? The problem with Evangelical Christian prophecy is that it’s a mish-mash of weird interpretations, bad interpretations, and wrong interpretations of various parts of the Bible, all smushed together. It comes from Old Testament books like Isaiah and Daniel and New Testament books like Revelation. Nowhere in the Bible does it say anything like this:

These are the things that will happen, in order, just before the Rapture:

1. This will happen.
2. Then this will happen.
3. Next comes this.

Evangelicals love the Biblical passage about learning “here a little and there a little.” Take this, plus this, plus this, and you get the end times prophecy.

At one point, the characters sit in rapt awe as Bruce Barnes, their pastor (why wasn’t he raptured? another story altogether) explains everything:

But for now, let me just briefly outline the Seven-Sealed Scroll from Revelation five, and then I’ll let you go. On the one hand, I don’t want to give you a spirit of fear, but we all know we’re still here because we neglected salvation before the Rapture. I know we’re all grateful for the second chance, but we cannot expect to escape the trials that are coming.”

Bruce explained that the first four seals in the scroll were described as men on four horses: a white horse, a red horse, a black horse, and a pale horse. “The white horseman apparently is the Antichrist, who ushers in one to three months of diplomacy while getting organized and promising peace.

“The red horse signifies war. The Antichrist will be opposed by three rulers from the south, and millions will be killed.”

“In World War III?”

“That’s my assumption.”

“That would mean within the next six months.”

“I’m afraid so. And immediately following that, which, will take only three to six months because of the nuclear weaponry available, the Bible predicts inflation and famine, —the black horse. As the rich get richer, the poor starve to death. More millions will die that way.”

“So if we survive the war, we need to stockpile food?”

Bruce nodded. “I would.”

“We should work together.”

“Good idea, because it gets worse. That killer famine could be as short as two or three months before the arrival of the fourth Seal judgment, the fourth horseman on the pale horse—the symbol of death. Besides the post war famine, a plague will sweep the entire world. Before the fifth Seal judgment, a quarter of the world’s current population will be dead.”

“What’s the fifth Seal judgment?”

“Well,” Bruce said, “you’re going to recognize this one because we’ve talked about it before. Remember my telling you about the 144,000 Jewish witnesses who try to evangelize the world for Christ? Many of their converts, perhaps millions, will be martyred by the world leader and the harlot, which is the name for the one world religion that denies Christ.”

Rayford was furiously taking notes. He wondered what he would have thought about such crazy talk just three weeks earlier. How could he have missed this? God had tried to warn his people by putting his Word in written form centuries before. For all Rayford’s education and intelligence, he felt he had been a fool. Now he couldn’t get enough of this information, though it was becoming clear that the odds were against a person living until the Glorious Appearing of Christ.

“The sixth Seal Judgment,” Bruce continued, “is God pouring out his wrath against the killing of his saints. This will come in the form of a worldwide earthquake so devastating that no instruments would be able to measure it. It will be so bad that people will cry out for rocks to fall on them and put them out of their misery.”

Several in the room began to weep. “The seventh seal introduces the seven Trumpet judgments, which will take place in the second quarter of this seven-year period.”

“The second twenty-one months,” Rayford clarified.

Where did all this come from? Here’s the original passage in Revelation:

I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!” 2 I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.

3 When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other. To him was given a large sword.

5 When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. 6 Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “Two pounds[a] of wheat for a day’s wages,[b] and six pounds[c] of barley for a day’s wages,[d] and do not damage the oil and the wine!”

7 When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” 8 I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. 10 They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” 11 Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters,[e] were killed just as they had been.

12 I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, 13 and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. 14 The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

15 Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16 They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us[f] from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of their[g] wrath has come, and who can withstand it?”

Some of this is fairly straightforward: the interpretation follows directly from the passage. But look at verse thirteen again: “and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind.” Stars, of course, don’t fall. An omnipotent being who created them would know that, but people 2,000 years ago wouldn’t. So we have to find a way to explain that, to interpret that. Why didn’t this omnipotent god just come out and say it? Why the need for all this interpretation? Those are questions about logic, which don’t belong in esoteric interpretation of ancient writings.

The characters even seem to realize that much of this just doesn’t make any sense. Barnes also admits, “I’m no theologian, people. I’m no scholar. I have had as much trouble reading the Bible as any of you throughout my lifetime, and especially over the nearly two years since the Rapture.” Why do even Christians have trouble understanding the Bible? These are the folks who say they have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to guide them, but they can’t make heads or tails of it sometimes.

The passage continues as they struggle with Revelation 6, quoted above:

The time is short now for everyone. Revelation 6:7-8 says the rider of the pale horse is Death and that Hades follows after him. Power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth. I confess I don’t know what the Scripture is referring to when it says the beasts of the earth, but perhaps these are animals that devour people when they are left without protection due to the war. Perhaps a great beast of the earth is some symbolic metaphor for the weapons employed by the Antichrist and his enemies.

The thing is, while this is all taken from a book of fiction, this is the same kind of mental contortions Evangelicals put themselves through on a daily basis. They can’t understand what the Bible means sometimes, but instead of that being something that gets them questioning the whole enterprise, they double down.