The Conservative Discourse and Critical Function of the Left Behind Series
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Mass Market Mayhem: The Conservative Discourse and Critical Function of the Left Behind Series A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Comparative Religion by Michael Gavriel Einstein Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2004 Advisor _________________________ Dr. Peter W. Williams Reader __________________________ Dr. Lisa Poirier Reader __________________________ Dr. James Constantine Hanges ABSTRACT MASS MARKET MAYHEM: THE CONSERVATIVE DISCOURSE AND CRITICAL FUNCTION OF THE LEFT BEHIND SERIES by Michael G. Einstein This thesis explores the religious and political motifs of the popular Left Behind series. The thesis argues that the texts create a specific religious identity to which the reader can relate through political actions. Chapter One discusses both the political and religious views of the main characters based upon premillennial dispensationalism and a literal interpretation of the Bible. Chapter Two focuses on the history of premillennial dispensationalism in the context of popular seminaries and mass media and how this apocalyptic belief has developed into a conservative political discourse. Chapter Three contextualizes the fictional series with other famous American political fictions like Uncle Tom’s Cabin and George Lippard’s The Quaker City. The final conclusion recognizes the series as a byproduct of capitalism where a specific commodity, in this case, a fictional series, produces religious beliefs supporting conservative politics. Introduction The first Chinese emperor, Emperor Qin, at the time of his death, made clay replicas of every individual in his army instead of having them buried with him to attend to his needs in the afterlife. The late 1970’s and early 1980’s saw archeologists return to the Xi’an region of China to begin the excavations of Qin’s clay army, entrenched in thousands of years of loess soil deposits. Annie Dillard recalls her own observations when she first encountered the excavation. She describes the half-uncovered statues as “chysalids,” still emerging from the dirt walls formed by the excavation’s trenches. “At one end of this trench—fully dug out, reassembled, and patched—a clay platoon stood in ranks. …Each different, all alert, they gazed forward. Some scowled, and some looked wry. Living people, soldiers from different regions of China, posed for these portraits.”1 By 1995 archeologists had unearthed around 7,000 clay statues and estimated the final number to be around 10,000. Soon various museums will purchase the clay statues, separating individual portraits from their Chinese acreage. Visitors will observe the magnificent facial detail, warrior-like expressions, differing armors, and various military statures. Each statue, posing in a museum, is an individual statue—the grandeur of 10,000 of these statues emerging from the soil left only to the imagination. After reflecting upon the archeological dig, Dillard concludes, “There are 1,198,500,000 people alive now in China. To get a feel for what this means, simply take yourself—in all your singularity, importance, complexity, and love—and multiply by 1,198,500,000. See? Nothing to it.”2 Dillard, an American writer, demonstrates a double perspective perplexing to historians and philosophers alike, as she uses both collective and individualistic vantage points to collect her thoughts about the ancient clay army. To perceive of an army of 10,000 foot soldiers is not impossible; to imagine an army of 10,000 individuals each with his/her own families, emotions, and opinions begins to overload the thought process of any one person. Americans prize the individual over the collective, as does the American religious tradition. In the case of American evangelical Christianity, the bond between the individual and the collective grows increasingly sophisticated with their 1 Annie Dillard, For the Time Being, (New York: Vintage, 1999), 16-17. 2 Ibid., 47. i involvement in marketing religious goods and the absence of a specific liturgical authority. These are necessary considerations when analyzing a particular evangelical phenomenon. At the present time, the Left Behind series, a collection of novels totaling twelve installments written by evangelicals Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins has sold over 62 million copies outselling popular American novelist John Grisham. By 2003 two out of every five self-identified American evangelicals had read at least part of the series, according to the Barna Research Institute.3 The Institute also discovered that 60% of Left Behind readers have read at least seven books in the series. The Left Behind series is a fictional tale encompassing the premillennial dispensationalist account of the end of the world. Premillennial dispensationalism is a theological paradigm dependent upon a literal interpretation of the Bible’s historically validity. Dispensationalists believe God has separated history into distinct epochs or periods and that Jesus will return to establish a utopian-like millennial rule after the present period known as the Church Age. According to the premillennial dispensationalist time table, the “end times” covers a period of seven years (although LaHaye admits it could be closer to ten years) in which all of the judgments mentioned in the New Testament book of Revelation fall upon the earth. The first stage of this process, according to premillennial dispensationalists, is the rapture of the Church, where Jesus takes all true believers to heaven escaping the judgment of God upon the earth. The tribulation begins after the rapture as the Antichrist comes to power unifying all national politics, economies and religions. He makes a covenant with Israel promising peace. There is relative peace and harmony in the world for the first half of the tribulation. At the halfway point, the Antichrist dies only to rise from the dead a few days later, mimicking the resurrection of Jesus. The Antichrist then breaks his covenant with Israel and commits the “abomination that causes desolation,” ‘foretold’ in Daniel. The most terrible plagues torment the earth at this time. Sometime during this period, the Antichrist will make everyone take “the mark of the beast.” This mark will allow all those who receive it to buy and sell in a normal capacity as well as giving homage to the Antichrist. The Antichrist will persecute and kill those who do not receive the mark. After God unleashes all the bowl, vial, and trumpet judgments upon the earth, Jesus returns to the earth to battle the Antichrist in the battle of Armageddon. Soundly defeating the Antichrist 3 Barna Research Group, “Left Behind Series Research Facts,” 2003, http://www.leftbehind.com/publicityfactsheet.asp?mode=view&factsheetid=2, accessed 24 April 2004. ii and his forces, Jesus establishes his millennial kingdom and reigns for one thousand years while God imprisons Satan in a bottomless pit. At the end of this thousand year millennial reign, God unleashes Satan for one final battle, where he defeats him yet again and then judges all humanity and angelic spirits ushering in the “new heaven” and “new earth.” Although this is the complete dispensational premillennial timetable at this time, LaHaye and Jenkins’ series of novels begins with the Rapture and continues through the tribulation until Jesus returns to defeat Satan and judge humanity.4 The apocalyptic genre is a form of literary communication originating from ancient Jewish sources around 400 B.C.E. John Collins defines the Jewish apocalyptic genre as: A genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spacial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.5 Although speaking primarily about the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible, Collins definition applies to the Christian book of Revelation. In addition, certain literary works building on previous apocalyptic texts within certain theological frameworks are apocalyptic in present-day culture because of the function and uses of apocalyptic literature. Collins says that the apocalyptic genre functions as an exhortation and a consolation to the particular group who accepts the writings.6 The motivation driving most apocalyptic literature deals specifically with a dissatisfaction of the present world and focuses on another world “in the heavens or eschatological future.”7 Individuals such as Joachim of Fiore and groups like the Branch Davidians have interpreted Revelation apocalyptically as they expected an imminent new age that appealed to their immediate concerns and dissatisfactions. Christian apocalyptic groups rely on various interpretations of Revelation and rarely engage in writing new “sacred” texts. The precedent of reinterpreting Revelation as an apocalyptic text allows one to classify the fictional Left Behind series as apocalyptic. The Left Behind series conveys dissatisfaction with secular humanism and its perceived permeation of American society in addition to exhorting a conservative evangelical identity to oppose political and social liberalism. 4 For a further discussion of the storyline, see Appendix. 5 John Collins, Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewish Matrix of Christianity, (New York: Crossroad, 1984), 4. 6 John Collins, “From Prophecy to Apocalypticism: The Expectation of the End,” The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism,