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No Longer Left Behind Amazon.com, Reader-Response, and the Changing Fortunes of the Christian Novel in America

Paul C. Gutjahr

Much ink has been spilled on the topic of the uneasy relationship between American Christians and the novel. The vast majority of this scholarship has centered on American Protestantism’s antagonism toward the novel in the early nineteenth century. With few exceptions, the dominant narrative of this relationship goes something like this: American Protestants viewed Wction writing in general, and the novel in particular, as a serious threat to the virtue and well-being of every American up until the 1850s, when their opposition began to gradually erode until it was washed away completely by the astounding popularity of Lew Wallace’s Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Wrst published in 1880.1 As with so many grand narratives, this one is Xawed. American Protes- tantism has never been a monolithic entity. It has varied according to region- alism, denominationalism, and its connections to other American cultural practices such as science, education, and politics. Perhaps the most important, and most ignored, part of this accepted narrative centers on how

The author would like to gratefully acknowledge two fellowship grants that helped bring this article to completion. These grants were awarded by the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University under the directorship of Robert Wuthnow and Marie GrifWth and the Christian Scholars Foundation under the directorship of Bernard Draper. 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:21 AM Page 210

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inXuential conservative elements within American Protestantism continued to show a distrust toward the novel through much of the twentieth century. This distrust manifested itself most clearly in a vibrant opposition to novels with overtly Christian content, echoing long-standing arguments declaring that fact and Wction cannot be proWtably commingled. As late as 1993, one irate Protestant author captured the longevity of Protestantism’s aversion to the novel when she titled a pleading article that appeared in the major Protestant periodical Christianity Today “Stop Rejecting Fiction!”2 The intention in this essay is to correct the long-held view that Protes- tant opposition to the novel all but ended in the late nineteenth century. Instead, as the title lists of the most important Christian publishing Wrms show, a pronounced opposition by various segments of Christian Protes- tantism to certain forms of Wction lasted well into the 1980s. American Christians may have begun to read more and more novels as the nineteenth century progressed, but even at the close of the twentieth century there existed severe doubts about the propriety and efWcacy of Christian novels— novels explicitly populated with Christian characters who partake in edifying narratives bent on espousing orthodox Christian doctrine and encour- aging a Christ-like ethic of behavior. The corrective this essay offers is all the more important because of the size and vibrancy of twentieth-century American Protestant publishing. With a growth rate at times nearly twice that of the twentieth-century American publishing industry in general, Christian book sales in 1996 reached three billion dollars, a 14 percent share of the country’s publishing industry.3 Yet this segment of American publishing is so noticeably understudied that the religious historian Martin Marty has rightly named it “largely an invisible phenomenon.”4 Only in the last two decades have American Evangelicals—an umbrella category for certain more conservative American Protestants and 38 percent of the United States’ general population in 1990—begun to warm to the presence of Christian novels.5 Although this fact is striking in itself, it is made all the more intriguing by the reasons that lie behind this acceptance. By examining the history of twentieth-century Protestant book publishing in the United States in general, and the reasons behind the astounding success of the Left Behind novel series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins in particular, I will argue in this essay that the last signiWcant vestiges of opposition to the Christian novel receded from American Protestantism because the Wctional form of the novel became an important, and largely untapped, resource for explicating the nonWctional content of the Bible. Further, the ability of Wction to explain scripture has not only helped pave the way for American Evangelicals more readily embracing the Christian novel, but has also led to blurring the line between the categories of sacred and Wctional literature. 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:21 AM Page 211

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American Protestant Publishing and the Novel

Timothy Dwight—poet, theologian, and president of Yale—captured the early American Protestant resistance to the novel in stating, “Between the Bible and novels there is a gulph Wxed which few readers are willing to pass.”6 He was not alone in his condemnation of novel reading; a host of religious and nonreligious commentators condemned the form as hope- lessly corrupting. Such censures would Wnd a wide circulation in the United States as the American Tract Society issued tracts on the subject; gift books and advice manuals included articles on the dangers of novel reading; and a host of other printed material would warn readers away from the insid- ious novel form.7 Religious and nonreligious antinovel writers most often grounded their arguments in two lines of deeply intertwined reasoning. Preeminent among these was a Scottish Common Sense philosophical notion of the importance of basing one’s life on the truth. As one critic preached in 1807, novels removed one from the truth through their tendency to “give false notions of things, to pervert the consequences of human actions, and to misrepre- sent the ways of divine providence.”8 Virtuous action, and thus the ability to lead a worthwhile life, depended on embracing what was true and avoid- ing even the slightest hint of dissimulation or falseness. A second line of reasoning argued that novels with their romantic and adventurous tales inXamed the imagination, and thus the passions. Awakening uncontrollable animal instincts once again worked at cross purposes with ideals of virtue, which were heavily dependent on notions of hard work, discipline, and perseverance.9 Finally, Protestants added a third line of reasoning to these antinovel polemics. They protested that novels were dangerous because they took time away from more worthy activities, principal among these being Bible reading and other devotional practices. Further, they feared that novels, even more dangerously, might so inXuence American reading tastes that the Bible would come to seem nothing more than “a wearisome book.”10 In the end, it was this concern with the Bible that fueled much of the Protestant hesitancy to accept the novel form. A concern with truth (as most explicitly revealed in the Bible) was the cornerstone of American Protes- tantism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It is not sur- prising, then, to note that various theological camps that held more tightly to the importance of Bible reading and a biblical hermeneutic propounding of the absolute historicity of the Bible played a key role in the development of the acceptance of Wction among American Protestants. Examining these camps as they manifested themselves under the auspices of different 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:21 AM Page 212

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denominations is one of the best ways to trace the changing attitudes among American Protestants toward the novel in general, and the Chris- tian novel in particular. Seven Protestant denominations have functioned for so long in the United States that they have come to earn the title “mainline denominations.” These include Congregationalists, Presbyterians, American Baptists, Meth- odists, Disciples of Christ, Lutherans, and Episcopalians. Episcopalians, with their early interest in German higher criticism, and thus a more Xexible view of biblical language and interpretation, were among the Wrst denominations to embrace Wction more widely in the 1830s. The other mainline denominations would begin showing openness to the novel beginning in the 1840s as they too became more open to higher criticism, but various degrees of opposition to the novel would linger for decades.11 As the nineteenth century began to draw to a close, a new kind of denominationalism began to arise, growing out of an ever more militant commitment to biblical literalism and various theological stances focused on the centrality of the Bible in everyday life. These newer denominations came to be classed under the rubric “Fundamentalist” after the turn of the century because of their commitment to the fundamentals of biblical orthodoxy.12 More theologically conservative elements among the Meth- odist, Presbyterian, and Congregational denominations joined with Ply- mouth Brethren, various independent churches, and certain strains of the nineteenth-century Restorationist movement to be associated with Ameri- can “Fundamentalism.”13 Near the end of the nineteenth century, as what would become known as American Christian Fundamentalism began to gather strength, a different kind of Protestant publishing was emerging. Denominations had long had their own publishing enterprises to facilitate their efforts in religious education, governance, and missions, but the new breed of Protestant publishers was not linked to particular denominations. These publishers sought to work with broader constituencies, which shared core theological beliefs rather than denominational labels. Such common commitment could be traced back to the interdenominational publishing efforts of the American Bible Society, American Tract Society and American Sunday School Union, but by the end of the nineteenth century cross-denominational publishing would begin to move away from the nonproWt realm of these earlier publishers.14 The advent of this new type of Protestant publishing came with the founding of Revell Publishing by Fleming H. Revell in 1870.15 The brother- in-law of the renowned evangelist Dwight L. Moody, Revell quickly built a publishing house that eclipsed all other Wrms in its annual production of Christian titles. For more than a century, Revell would maintain its spot 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:21 AM Page 213

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as the preeminent nondenominational publisher of Christian titles, only to be challenged in terms of its power and prestige by the aggressive houses of Zondervan and Thomas Nelson in the 1950s and 1960s.16 Although Revell would maintain its immense inXuence and importance in nondenominational publishing circles well into the 1970s, by the mid- twentieth century a host of other American nondenominational houses had also been established. To name only a few, these houses included David C. Cook (1875), Broadman (1891), Moody (1894), Kregel Books (1909), Eerdmans Publishing (1910), Zondervan Publishing (1931), Crossway Books (1938), and Baker Book House (1939). These Wrms gained greater and greater popularity by focusing on “Evangelical-Christians” or “Evan- gelicals,” a group composed of a wide spectrum of differing denominations and backgrounds who share a commitment to the historicity and trustwor- thiness of the biblical text, as well as a belief that salvation comes through living a spiritually transformed life based on the redemptive work of Christ alone.17 While membership in mainline denominations has declined since World War II, Evangelicalism has experienced consistent growth. Denom- inations with the highest percentage of Evangelicals, such as Southern Bap- tists and Assemblies of God, have grown substantially in the postwar years, while denominations with a lower percentage, such as the Congregational- ists and Episcopalians, have suffered serious declines in membership.18 Because of its focus on Evangelical-Christians, this kind of for-proWt nondenominational publishing has come to be called Evangelical-Christian publishing.19 These publishing houses also became the most active and successful segment of American religious book production in the second half of the twentieth century. The publishers were so successful that by the 1970s major media companies were taking notice of these houses and moving in to acquire them. ABC acquired Word Publishing in 1974, while Rupert Murdoch’s Harper bought Zondervan.20 Crucial to our concern here, however, is the fact that even as Evangelical- Christian publishing expanded both in titles and volume of sales throughout the twentieth century, with the notable exception of historical romances there continued to be a strong reserve against Christian novel titles. Nov- els had been largely accepted by American Protestants by the early twentieth century, but more conservative Christians still withheld their approval and support from novels that explicitly commingled Christian teaching and the novel format. A clear example of this reluctance toward Christian novels can be seen in the publishing endeavors of the house of Zondervan. Zondervan became the Evangelical-Christian publisher most committed to producing Chris- tian novels in the mid-twentieth century, but it was constantly questioned 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:21 AM Page 214

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by Christian bookstore owners who thought that such works were out- side the bounds of proper Christian publishing.21 Such questioning is no small factor, considering that Christian publishers have long sold their wares through a network of religious bookstores that stands apart from normal channels of public book buying.22 Although patterns of Christian book distribution have begun to change in the past decade, resistance from local Christian booksellers is of crucial importance for Evangelical-Christian publishers. Partly in response to this criticism, Zondervan’s interest in novel publishing would recede in the 1960s, only to be reawakened two decades later. Other Christian publishers, whether from mainline or nondenominational houses, did not pour major energy or resources into the production of Christian novels. For the mainline Wrms it was largely a matter of shrink- ing resources and no real precedent for publishing Christian Wction. For Evangelical-Christian publishing, it was a continued reserve about the spiritual efWcacy of Wction. When Christian novels were published, they tended to be books that had appeared years earlier and had a track record of being both good sellers and religiously acceptable, such as Joseph Holt Ingra- ham’s biblical tale Prince of the House of David (1854); Social Gospel morality narratives, such as Charles Sheldon’s immensely popular In His Steps (1897); or—as already alluded to—historical romances, such as the countless titles of Grace Livingston Hill.23

The Gradual Acceptance of Christian Fiction

Although American Protestants had a history of meeting Wction with wary skepticism, they nevertheless did read novels in ever increasing quantities as the nineteenth century wore on. The reluctance to read novels, however, remained more pronounced in the fundamentalist wings of American Protestantism well into the twentieth century, showing itself most viru- lently in the area of Christian Wction. This is most clearly seen in how Evangelical-Christian publishing did not engage in the production of novels on any large scale until the closing decades of the twentieth century.24 In- stead, the most powerful segments of the more conservatively bent Christian- Evangelical publishing world focused on producing self-help books, biblical commentaries, and devotional guides, rather than Christian Wction. In fact, most of the bestselling Christian novels of the Wrst three quar- ters of the twentieth century were not produced by Christian publishing Wrms, but trade houses such as Harper and Brothers, Grosset and Dunlap, Macmillan, and Houghton MifXin. Such bestsellers included Bruce Barton’s 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:21 AM Page 215

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The Man Nobody Knows (1925), William Lyon Phelps’s The Carpenter of Nazareth (1926), and Lloyd Douglas’s The Robe (1942). It should be noted that in the Wrst half of the twentieth century, trade houses had a clear advantage over their Evangelical-Christian counterparts in the areas of marketing and distribution. Far superior resources in advertising and a far greater number of sales venues made them better able to produce bestselling Wction. Yet seeing successful religious Wction titles appear from trade presses did little to move Evangelical-Christian publishers toward producing their own Wction titles. Even when Evangelical-Christian publishers did produce these titles, they usually did not promote them as aggressively as their other books. A noticeable, large-scale commitment on the part of Evangelical-Christian publishing houses to adding Christian Wction titles did not appear until the 1980s. This shift in the 1980s toward a pronounced interest in Wction titles appeared in two genres that Evangelical-Christian publishing houses showed themselves increasingly eager to produce.25 The Wrst of these was the Chris- tian romance, the one genre in which Christian novels had appeared in sig- niWcant numbers throughout the early twentieth century. The all-important distribution link for Christian publishers, the local Christian bookstore, has long had as its main clientele homemakers in their twenties and thir- ties.26 Christian publishers began to discover that in adopting the romance formulas of such successful series as Harlequin, they could sell a great number of Wction titles to their customers. Perhaps more than any other single author, Janette Oke would rock the Christian publishing world, with her Wrst romance, Love Comes Softly (1979). Over the next decade, Oke would sell more than eight million copies of her novels, starting a Wction boom among Christians that would only gain speed throughout the 1980s and 1990s.27 Oke’s success did much to open the door to a host of new Christian romances, which would appear in series such as Zondervan Publisher’s romance lines, Serenade Serenata and Serenade Saga.28 The other genre is more singularly Christian and of more recent incep- tion. It centers on issues of supernatural intervention and warfare, as God and Satan battle for human souls.29 While romances have clear precedents in American Protestant and trade publishing, spiritual warfare novels do not. These novels are a more unique genre, almost totally monopolized by Evangelical-Christian publishing. This kind of Wction saw its Wrst break- away bestseller with Frank Peretti’s This Present Darkness (1986). Peretti would follow up the vast success of this novel with others in the same genre, but a host of imitators would also join the market. The most successful of those to follow in Peretti’s wake would be Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye’s novel series on the end times, Left Behind. 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:21 AM Page 216

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The Emergence of the Left Behind Series

In the early 1990s, author and theologian Tim LaHaye approached Frank Peretti about co-authoring a book about the end of the world and the return of Christ.30 Peretti turned down LaHayes’s offer because he wished to continue working on his own projects, but LaHaye did not give up on his idea and eventually enlisted the help of another established Christian author, Jerry B. Jenkins. Out of this collaboration, Left Behind, the Wrst book of the series, appeared from Tyndale Publishing House in 1995. Any doubt about the rising importance and popularity of Protestant Wction disappeared in the face of the absolutely astonishing sales of this book and the series it spawned. A one-book contract turned into a six- book series as hundreds of thousands of copies of Left Behind Xew off the bookstore shelves. Eventually, Tyndale Publishing House would expand the series deal to an expected twelve books as sales for the sixth volume, Assassins, topped 1.4 million copies in the Wrst Wve months of its release. During the summer of 1999, many of the titles from this series climbed up and down the bestseller lists of Amazon.com and the New York Times. The rise of Protestant Wction had found a new champion, as seven million copies of the series were in circulation by the end of 1999. The reasons for the popularity of the series are complex and enigmatic. The series itself is based on a premillennial dispensational theological view of the end of the world. This view espouses that all those who have acknowledged Jesus Christ as their savior will be taken to be with Christ in Heaven before the world is given over to the horrendously destructive reign of Satan’s most evil henchman, the Antichrist. The reign of the Anti- christ will last for seven years and is commonly known as the Tribulation. The Tribulation only ends with the second coming of Jesus Christ, who takes dominion over the earth and establishes his millennial (one-thousand- year) reign of peace. Christ’s millennial rule will be ended by yet another battle, which Christ wins, followed by the creation of a new Heaven on Earth. In this premillennial view, believers are saved from having to expe- rience the Tribulation, but nonbelievers are not. They are forced to live in a world ruled not by God’s grace but by the diabolical and deadly will of the Antichrist. There is little doubt that one of the appeals of these books is that they comfort Christians with a view of the end times that allows them to forego the torturous pain of the Tribulation. LaHaye and Jenkins go beyond this conclusion, however, and broaden their explanation of the series’s success by saying that the books meet Americans’ immense spiritual hunger. Other factors almost certainly come into play when one considers the immense 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:21 AM Page 217

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success of this series at the close of the twentieth century. The approach of the end of a millennium, fears over Y2K computer problems, and how these events might Wt into biblical prophecy have clearly helped the series sell.31 It is also important to note that the Left Behind series grows out of a Wrmly established tradition of books on biblical prophecy long popular in the United States; this popularity was only enhanced by the approach of the year 2000. It is estimated that in 1999 alone more than one hundred apocalyptic titles appeared in the United States.32 Many of the prominent books in this genre have sold extraordinary numbers of copies. Paul Bill- heimer’s Destined for the Throne has sold more than 750,000 copies since it was Wrst published in 1975, and David Wilkerson’s Set the Trumpet to Thy Mouth (1985) has sold more than a million copies.33 Clearly the most prominent book in the category of prophetic bestsellers is Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth. First published in 1970, Lindsay’s work, pre- senting his view of the end of the world, became the bestselling nonWction title of the entire decade.34 By 1999, The Late Great Planet Earth had sold thirty-Wve million copies, leading one scholar to comment that “only the Bible itself has outsold Hal’s” book.35 Books in this prophetic tradition, and the countless others like them, have done much to blur the line between fact and Wction. Speculations about various biblical passages along with would-be end times scenarios prepared the way for books marketed as Wction titles. The Left Behind series came as a natural outgrowth of a biblical-prophecy genre that had already gone a considerable distance in fusing nonWctional biblical commentary with Wctional representations of what certain biblical prophecies might look like in the near future. Thus, the Left Behind series came to be the most popular manifestation of an already established and immensely popular Protestant genre. From a literary point of view, the Left Behind series seems to have little to offer. Of the Wrst six books in the series, the Wrst, Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days, is clearly the most carefully crafted. This makes sense given how tight the production schedule became for Jenkins and LaHaye once the series became popular. Jenkins and LaHaye increased their production speed to release two books a year by 1999, as they were at the same time becoming increasingly involved in a number of projects connected to the series, such as a movie version, graphic renditions of the novels in a comic-book format, and a Left Behind series for teenagers. Even in the Wrst volume, however, certain traits—which become more pronounced as the series continued—stand out. The characterization is two- dimensional. There is little or no use of metaphoric language or sustained thematic development. The dialogue is stilted. There is not much time spent on establishing setting or atmosphere. Consequently, if one subtracts an 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:21 AM Page 218

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interest in the theological stakes involved in the narrative, the attraction of these books seems to rely almost entirely on the fact that the plot is stripped down, fast-paced, and constructed around a cliff-hanger type of strategy as the chapters progress. As one newspaper writer posited in an attempt to describe why these books are read by Christians as well as non- Christians, “Most people just Wnd them a ripping yarn, a good story.”36 As is clearly evident in this case, what may appeal to the professional scholar or literary sophisticate is not always a good indication of public taste or overall popularity. While scholars of the Left Behind phenomenon often Wnd it hard to get through the books in order to analyze them, the books themselves continue to sell in the millions. Any understanding of such popularity is usually left to the realm of conjecture and anecdotal evidence, but there does exist another source of information on what has moved readers—particularly Christian readers—to embrace these books. This source is Amazon.com’s Web site, home of the world’s largest Inter- net bookseller. Information made available on this Web site enables one to gain a much fuller picture of what reasons lie behind the colossal sales statistics of this book series.

Amazon.com and the Left Behind Series

On the simplest of levels, the popularity of a book depends not only on its content, but also on the power of its publisher to accomplish certain tasks. Critical among these tasks is an ability to produce and distribute the book in sufWcient volume, along with getting the book placed in sales venues that will make it widely available to the reading public. The family-owned Evangelical-Christian publishing Wrm of Tyndale, which is small compared to most trade publishing enterprises, has done a magniWcent job in accom- plishing these basic tasks. Once the popularity of the Left Behind series had been established through their more traditional sales outlets such as Chris- tian bookstores, mail-order catalogues, and bookselling Web sites, Tyndale found itself able to place the book series in key sales outlets that do a high- volume business and carry only a limited number of titles. Such outlets include grocery stores; retail chains such as Wal-Mart, Target, and K-Mart; airports; and hotel shops. By 1999, it was easy to buy any one of the series titles because of their wide availability. Contributing to this increased availability was the Internet’s largest bookselling Web site, Amazon.com. Aside from its absolutely massive inventory, Amazon.com has also made itself famous in terms of its commitment to excellent customer service.37 Among the many services it offers its customers 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:21 AM Page 219

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is an opportunity to write reviews of various books. Thus, thousands of short book reviews are posted on this Internet site, making it a wonder- fully rich resource for reader response explorations. Amazon.com puts but one restriction on these reviews: they must not contain offensive language or hateful content. The reviews may be of any length and are not edited by the powers-that-be at the Web site. As of 9 September 1999, seventeen hundred readers had chosen to post reviews of the Left Behind series on the Amazon.com Web site.38 As mouth-watering a possibility as having seventeen hundred responses to a literary series is, there are a host of caveats that need to be kept in mind in approaching this kind of information, some of which will be mentioned brieXy here. First, Amazon.com appeals to a speciWc, computer-literate, credit-able clientele. It is impossible to say just how accurate a representa- tion this clientele is of the nation’s reading public as a whole, as it is also impossible to say how representative these readers are of those who read this particular series. Second, it is impossible to tell much about the readers themselves. Aside from offering the content of their reviews and an occasional note on geo- graphical location, the reviewers remain largely anonymous. There is no way to conWrm either the content or the identity of those who write these reviews. Finally, those who write the reviews tend to have strong opinions about the book upon which they are commenting. They need to be motivated to get back online to key in their thoughts, and the majority of the Left Behind reviews are unabashedly positive. Amazon.com has a Wve-star rating system whereby readers can give Wve stars to their favorite books and one star to books they hate. The majority of those writing in, an impressive 73 percent, gave the books Wve stars. The average number of stars for the seventeen hundred reviews posted was 4.25. Reading these reviews is much like going to a mutual afWrmation society meeting, where only those with positive things to say make it a priority to contribute. Reviewers are also almost entirely self-professed Christians, making the pages that hold these reviews take on the air of a virtual religious tent meeting where theological quibbles, pleas for the conversion of nonbelievers, and testimonies to the power of the series are freely exchanged. These pitfalls having been acknowledged, there is still a wealth of information offered by the reviewers on why the Left Behind series has experienced such popularity. A two-step approach has been used to cull through the data of these seventeen hundred reviews. First, the reviews were ana- lyzed as they appeared on the Web site and categorized by common characteristics. Second, those who posted their reviews in the late 1990s on Amazon.com were also given the opportunity to give their e-mail accounts, 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:21 AM Page 220

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a practice that Amazon.com has since curtailed. Three hundred of the reviewers were then contacted via e-mail with the follow-up survey that appears in Appendix B.39 Out of these three hundred surveys, sixty-eight were automatically returned due to incorrect address information. Of the 232 surveys that were successfully sent out, there was a 36 percent response rate, with 83 completed surveys returned. As Appendix C shows, these 83 completed surveys break down almost equally in terms of male and female respondents. The respondents represent eighteen denominations from twenty-eight states. To take these seventeen hundred reviews as a whole, a number of characteristics stand out as giving clues to the vast popularity of the series among Christian readers.40 These characteristics can be broken down into roughly six categories, which include the sex of the readers, the age of readers, the denominational afWliation of the readers, thoughts on how exciting the books are to read, how these books promise to be useful tools for evangelism, and Wnally how these books serve to illuminate certain biblical passages. In looking over both the seventeen hundred reviews posted on the Web site and the follow-up survey material, it is immediately striking that this series has attracted male as well as female readers. Because names are not always used among the seventeen hundred posted reviews, exact Wgures are impossible to obtain, but the information that is available from the seventeen-hundred review sample afWrms the almost perfect Wfty/Wfty split noted among the eighty-three follow-up surveys. Such a ratio is particularly noteworthy because Evangelical-Christian publishers have long acknowledged women readers as their most important market segment.41 In this case, however, men as well as women are reading these books. It is also clear from the follow-up surveys that once a male reader has read one book, he is likely to go on and read the rest of the series. Seventy-six percent of the readers in the follow-up survey had read Wve of the six books released by the end of 1999. A number of reasons might account for the high percentage of male readership. First, the books are written by men, and the male characters are clearly better developed in the course of the narrative. This fact is underlined by the follow-up survey material that points to Cameron “Buck” Williams, the younger hero of the series, as clearly the most well liked of the series’s major characters. Forty percent of those surveyed pointed to Buck as their favorite character. The next favorite character was the older male hero of the series, Rayford Steele, with 14 percent of the respondents pointing to him as their favorite character. The presence of Buck Williams, a recent convert with a lot of heart, and maybe not too much sense had a wide appeal for male readers in particular in this survey. 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:21 AM Page 221

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Buck is a character, as one male respondent phrased it, who is “active and daring.”42 Another respondent underlined this sentiment by stating that he liked Buck’s “sense of adventure” (no. 7). To a man, courage in the face of tremendous opposition marks the heroes of these stories. This courage brings us to a second issue, which has distinct and wide appeal among male readers who responded to the follow-up survey, namely, an emphasis on action over relational issues in the plot. These readers constantly gave clues that they were attracted to the strong male characters in the books because of how these characters dealt with the adventures and challenges they faced in the clearly action-oriented plots. The degree to which fast-paced action makes these books appealing is captured in how one male reader stated he had a hard time picking a favorite character because “my favorites tend to be the ones that get killed off!” (no. 15). Relational issues are downplayed as world events, harrowing escapes, res- cue missions, and various murder plots are foregrounded. Not only have these books sold well because they have appealed to both men and women readers, but also they have attracted readers from a broad spectrum of ages. According to the follow-up sample, once again there is almost a perfect split between readers over the age of thirty and those who are younger than thirty. The books’ reliance on simple vocabulary and a heavy emphasis on a straightforward narrative with few Xashbacks and a clear focus on telling what are supposed to be factual events strikes one as reminiscent of a journalistic style. These books are not likely to scare off those intimidated by more sophisticated literary works. The style of fact- Wlled newspaper articles is strongly echoed in this series, and the familiar- ity that readers have with more common pieces of printed material such as newspapers and magazines may be one of the reasons that these books have been able to attract readers of such a wide range of ages. Along with revealing the books’ wide-ranging demographic appeal, the follow-up surveys show that readers associated with certain denominations also favor these books. Perhaps not surprisingly, because Tim LaHaye describes himself as a Baptist, most of the follow-up surveys came from Bap- tists. Although not every self-identiWed Baptist surveyed was speciWc about his or her particular brand of Baptist, there were several in the sample who noted an afWliation with either Southern Baptist or Independent Baptist churches. The more liberal American Baptist wing is mentioned only once in the denominational answers in the survey, and one wonders if the majority of Baptists surveyed are from more conservative theological wings of this broadly deWned denominational title. Southern and Independent Bap- tists have a strong history of being identiWed with a literal interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, a view that LaHaye and Jenkins both clearly espouse and that is reXected throughout the Left Behind series. It makes perfect 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:21 AM Page 222

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sense that those trained in a certain kind of theological thinking (in this case often favoring traditions rooted in premillennial dispensational theology) would Wnd these books particularly appealing because they would reinforce one’s already present theological view and perhaps enhance that view with even more insights. As one reader stated, these books have “served as a conWrmation for beliefs I already had, and therefore strengthened my faith” (no. 5). Aside from this demographic information on the series’s readership, many of the clues to the popularity of these books are found most directly in how readers interpret the books’ content. Chief among the attractive aspects of these books are their thrilling plots. Just how exciting the books are to read is mentioned by a noticeable 41 percent of Amazon.com reviewers. Reviewers use variations of the phrase “I could not put the book down” no fewer than 224 times when commenting on this series. Other representative comments include “It was breath taking from the Wrst to last page”;43 “I found myself reading in the car, at home, at work, anywhere I could” (1 June 1999); “I stayed up until 2am and read the entire book in 1 day” (19 August 1999); and (the rather painful) “I literally inhaled this book from cover to cover” (1 August 1999). One reviewer even wrote, “i could not put it down my family would come by the door and think i was crazy, because i was so into the book that i was shouting, ‘Go go,’! And all this crazy stuff” (15 August 1999). Clearly, the most cited reason for enjoying the book Left Behind was just how engaging and fast-moving the plot was. Readers often coupled this excitement with its spiritual message, but even when they did so, they usually Wrst mentioned the absolutely thrilling nature of the narrative. Reviewers were so enamored with these books that they wanted to tell friends about them. In this case, however, their recommendations centered on the fact that these books were not just another novel to enjoy. They hold the books up as a gripping way to talk about spiritual issues. One in ten reviewers pointed to the books as great evangelistic tools, which could be used to make non-Christians aware of central spiritual truths. One reader captured the evangelistic promise of the series in writing: “I pray that all who believe or want to believe will read this book and pass it on to someone they love, so that none may be left behind” (11 August 1999); while another wrote, “[M]y best friend read ‘Left Behind’ last night and was saved.”44 The combination of these Wrst two characteristics—Wction as an engaging, evangelistic tool—has long been recorded as explanations for the gradual acceptance of Wction among American Protestants. In 1854, Joseph Holt Ingraham speciWcally dedicated his book to the Christian women of the nation, writing in his introduction that he hoped that the work would be a means of tempting people to consider the truth of Christianity.45 The 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:21 AM Page 223

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exciting story of Lew Wallace’s Ben-Hur was not only read by millions of Americans, but sections of it became staples in Sunday school classes across the country, and Charles Sheldon used cliff-hanger sermon stories such as In His Steps to attract people, whether they belonged to his congregation or not, to his Church’s Sunday evening services.46 So, it comes as little surprise that readers are attracted to the Left Behind series because of its engaging story lines and evangelistic promise. What is of particular interest, however, is just how many of the readers of this series point to these books as interpretive aids in their study of scripture. The series clearly served as a kind of modern-day midrash on the Bible. As one reader succinctly put it, “I’m pleased the writers led me through a Bible study course in this exciting novel.”47 Although Wctional literature has inXuenced the reading of the biblical text for centuries, with the notable exception of Barbara Stedman’s disser- tation work with evangelical readers in Muncie, Indiana, comments regard- ing the interplay between the Bible and Wction are almost entirely absent in the American context.48 American comments on how Wction reading has touched upon Bible reading are virtually invisible in places where reader response material is found, such as journals, letters, book reviews, interviews, and even the abundant literature condemning novel reading.49 It is almost as if mentioning Wction and the Bible in the same breath was too inappropriate to even contemplate. Consequently, the last category that dominates the Amazon.com reviews is especially interesting. This category reveals a strong connection between reading these novels and reading the Bible. Fifteen percent of the seventeen hundred Amazon.com reviewers made a point of stating that the Left Behind series stood as a biblical interpretative asset. More speciWcally in this sample, 12 percent of reviewers drew a connection between these novels and the Book of Revelation. Repeatedly, readers of the Left Behind series commented on how the novels moved them to “spend more time reading the book of Revelation”50 and how the series “cleared up a lot of confus- ing Revelation” for them.51 Such signiWcant numbers point to the fact that the days when biblical fact and novelistic Wction should never mix are gone. Just how readers of this series used these volumes in relation to their understanding of scripture was the chief concern of the eighty-three follow- up interviews. From a desire to gain greater insight into how these novels might interact with biblical interpretation, the follow-up interviews were designed with the Wrst two questions focusing on how these book’s inXu- enced a reader’s biblical interpretation and his or her theology.52 A remarkable 70 percent of those surveyed pointed to these books as having inXuenced their interpretation of various Bible passages. The majority of changes mentioned by these readers in regard to their Bible reading 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:21 AM Page 224

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also implied theological shifts, most often identiWed with the reality and imminence of God’s coming judgment. Representative of this interpretative inXuence are comments such as “I did not know what they [Bible passages] were refuring [sic] to or what it meant that I was left behind[;] it all started making sense to me”; while another reader commented, “I GAINED A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF THE END TIMES AND THE BOOK OF REVELATION.”53 Those who felt that the series had inXuenced the way in which they interpreted scripture pointed largely to the clarifying nature of the novels when it came to the more obscure narrative of the Bible. While 20 percent of those answering the follow-up survey pointed to the series as an inXuence on their general interpretation of the Bible, well more than half of those surveyed pointed to this series as an aid in their reading of the Book of Rev- elation. Typical of the help offered by this series when it came to the Book of Revelation is a comment by a reader who wrote that she could now “comprehend exactly all that it has to say about the end times” (no. 1). The Book of Revelation is the last, and perhaps most enigmatic, book in the Christian Bible. It is full of symbolism about the judgment of God and has long been the focus of debate on whether and when these judgments might take place. The book itself is a sophisticated tapestry of analogy and symbol, history and prophecy. Its very obscurity and endless interpretational possibilities have attracted countless Christian leaders and scholars over the centuries. While it holds out possibility and challenge to certain interpreters, its complexity makes it maddening for others. Here is where the Left Behind series seems to have made itself particularly attractive to Christian readers. Left Behind tells a narrative closely bound to a certain premillennial textual interpretation of the Book of Revelation, but rather than telling it in a dry-as-dust exegetical commentary, it gives biblical interpretation to its readers in the midst of a plot full of romance, vio- lence, revenge and intrigue. These elements certainly are not lacking from the Bible itself, but they are used by LaHaye and Jenkins in a forceful way to make sense of an obscure text. The clarifying nature of the Left Behind series seemed to take three dominant forms in regard to the Book of Revelation. First, the nature and importance of biblical prophecy was strengthened through reading the series. Many readers of books in the Left Behind series seemed to become more thoughtful about the role of prophecy in their own religious beliefs. One writer summed up a common sentiment in writing, “I treat the proph- esy passages with more reverence and importance than I once did” (no. 58). The second concerned the interpretation of biblical symbolism. A large number of readers were convinced to take the book’s symbolism more seriously, with such telling confessions as “I have learned to take verses in Revelations literally” (no. 64). Several readers commented on the ability to 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:22 AM Page 225

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open new interpretative possibilities when it came to the biblical text. One reader commented that the way the Antichrist was portrayed in the novel made her realize that he is going to “appear just like you and I to win over those necessary to get him into the position he’s prophesied to be in” (no. 38). Another reader stated that the series had “shown me how symbolism in the Bible could possibly mean something more modern” (no. 76). In this instance, the reader pointed to how the word sword in Revelation 13:14 could refer to a weapon’s nickname, such as the “saber,” a high-powered handgun used to shoot the Antichrist in Assassins. The third regarded a new appreciation for the scope and importance of God’s return and judgment. One reader wrote, “In particular, their [LaHaye and Jenkins’s] portrayal of the seal and trumpet judgments (Rev. 6, 8:6– 9:21) has helped me to evaluate more closely the intense physical nature of the judgments as opposed to them being just explicit symbolism of the wrath of God” (no. 18). Another reader wrote: “The depictions in the book have provided colorful descriptions of events described in revelations that have helped me to better visualize and teach on the subject myself. For example, the series describes many of the tribulations (earthquakes, natural disasters, etc.) that are described cryptically in scripture” (no. 59). What the Bible seems all too often to describe in tantalizing and cryptic brevity is Xeshed out and made more understandable by the Left Behind series. What makes this connection between Left Behind and the Bible all the more intriguing is the fact that many of those in the follow-up survey spoke in a way that gave life-changing power to these novels in terms that are traditionally reserved for the Bible alone. SigniWcantly, 11 percent of those completing follow-up surveys pointed to these novels’ quasi-sacred quality. One reader captured this quality in writing: “I found salvation where as before I was only a believer. I feel that this is the most profound works I have ever read. I now know the meaning of being ‘saved’ . . . I had never read very much of the Bible previous” (no. 10). Another reader wrote, “This is sad but I have never been a bible reader.... Reading these books made me understand that I need to do more in trying to serve and glorify our Lord” (no. 31). Such comments show a blurring between the Bible and the Left Behind series as the series showed a tremendous ability to inXuence the religious sentiments of its readers.

Conclusion

Perhaps the most signiWcant Wnding of this study is how the reader response information located on Amazon.com challenges neat categories about what 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:22 AM Page 226

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may or may not be considered a sacred text. It is clear from the responses that in many cases the readers of the Left Behind series were inXuenced by these novels in a markedly biblical way. For example, the novels were a constant source of self-examination and spiritual introspection and a cat- alyst for evangelistic endeavors. Nearly one in three reviewers, an impressive 30 percent, said that these books had caused them to reXect on their own spiritual convictions. The truthfulness of the books, along with the way this truth could cat- alyze religious belief, is clearly seen in comments such as, “This series has had a profound impact on my life. It has made me make SURE that I am ready, as I believe that these books are not just great Wction, but PROPHETIC Wction. This stuff WILL happen!” (no. 6); “I just hope that this series isn’t seen as totally Wctional, and I cringe when it is labelled so” (no. 13); and “I can’t say I was a Christian before reading book [Left Behind], but I am a believer because of this book.”54 For many of the series’s readers, the divine truth and power once reserved only for the Bible could be found in the words of LaHaye and Jenkins, collapsing the long-standing Protestant distinction between biblical fact and novelistic Wction. Although one might anticipate some connection between the Left Behind series and the study of the Bible, that so many readers closely associated the content of the series and of the Bible is noteworthy. As one reader put it, “Left Behind is probably as close as the real thing gets next to the Bible.”55 In reXecting upon such comments, one is forced to consider whether readers of the Left Behind series are so saturated with biblical and inspirational literature that every book they read is inevitably compared to those they regularly consume as a part of their religious reading diet. Although such a connection is clearly possible, it should be noted that it may not fully explain why readers are so quick to elide books in the Left Behind series with the Bible. In a broad-based 1999 study of American Christians and the arts, Robert Wuthnow—a sociologist of American religion—reported that 45 percent of self-identiWed American Christian Fundamentalists had read at least one novel in the past year.56 Thus, evidence exists to support a view that more conservative Christian readers have reading habits that reach beyond the Bible, potentially giving them a greater ability to make distinctions between various forms of sacred and Wctional literature. Readers of the Left Behind series may so quickly connect books in the series with the Bible simply because the books themselves so clearly position themselves as an almost step-by-step guide through the Book of Revelation. As has been noted, readers constantly commented on how the series helped them understand the Book of Revelation. With the added knowledge given to them by these books, readers found themselves moved to embrace doc- trinal positions and afWrm religious allegiances in ways once only attributed 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:22 AM Page 227

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to the inXuence exercised by the Holy Scriptures and the most venerated religious works. In the Left Behind series, we have an example of just how important Wctional works can be when connected to sacred texts. By virtue of readers mentioning time and again that these novels had contained a divinely inspired truth that redirected or reafWrmed their theological stances and religious allegiances, these books move from the realm of simple Wction to sacred texts. No longer does there seem to exist Timothy Dwight’s great “gulph” between the Bible and novels, even for the most theologically conservative American Protestants. Not only are such Protestants reading Christian novels, but we now have convincing evidence that their novel reading and Bible reading are not hermetically sealed activities. In the complex interplay between different sources of information that constantly inpinge on readers, listeners, and viewers, a clear and inXuential connection exists between the reading of sacred and nonsacred works. Such a connection forces one to reconsider how best to deWne the term sacred text.

Appendix A: Overview of Review Sample from Amazon.com Web site

Left Tribulation Soul Behind Force Nicolae Harvest Apollyon Assassins Totals No. of reviews 726 136 178 204 336 120 1700 Exciting read 326 53 81 80 116 47 703 (41%) Tool for Evangelism 82 5 13 14 49 5 168 (10%) Made reader reXect on his or her theology and spiritual convictions 222 33 51 63 108 36 513 (30%) InXuenced their reading of the Bible 123 18 21 28 55 13 258 (15%) Referred to the Book of Revelation 80 8 19 25 47 22 201 (12%) Used a variation of the phrase “could not put it down” 110 13 25 29 37 10 224 (13%) 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:22 AM Page 228

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Appendix B: Follow-Up E-mail Survey for Amazon.com Readers of Left Behind Series

Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Dr. Paul Gutjahr. I am a pro- fessor at Indiana University. My Weld of research is religious print culture in the United States. I am currently a research fellow at Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Religion, and I am writing an article on Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’s Left Behind series. I know that this series has experienced extraordinary popularity, but my own interest is in whether these books have inXuenced the theology of those who have read them. By theology here, I simply mean one’s views of God, His work in the world, and the Bible. I got your e-mail address from Amazon.com, and I am contacting people who wrote reviews of this book for this Web site. I would be immensely grateful if you would take a few minutes to Wll out the following brief questionnaire. I assure you that you and your answers will remain completely anonymous. I will not give your name or e-mail address to any other par- ties. And Wnally, unless you say it is OK, I will not follow up this questionnaire with another one. Doing this kind of reader-centered research is both immensely important to scholarship and immensely difWcult to do. I would be sincerely grateful for any help you might be able to give me with these questions. Feel free to answer just one of them or all of them. It is up to you. If you are willing, just hit the reply button and Wll out the questions. Thank you for allowing me to impose and offer you this request.

Left Behind Questionnaire

1. Has your reading of these books in any way inXuenced the way in which you view God and/or His work in the world? Please be as speciWc as possible. 2. Has your reading of these books in any way inXuenced the way in which you view various passages from the Bible or the Bible itself? Please be as speciWc as possible. 3. Are you male or female? 4. Which age group do you fall under? A. Under 18 B. 18–25 C. 26–30 D. 30–40 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:22 AM Page 229

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E. 40–65 F. Over 65 5. What state do you live in? 6. Do you have any denominational afWliation? If so, what is it? 7. Do you consider yourself a Christian? If so, how many years have you been a Christian? 8. Do you consider yourself an “Evangelical”? 9. Highest educational level achieved: A. Less than high school B. High school C. College D. Postcollege 10. Approximately how many novels a year do you read? 11. Which books of the Left Behind series have you read? Left Behind Tribulation Force Nicolae Soul Harvest Apollyon Assassins 12. How long has it been since you Wnished the last one you read? 13. How did you Wrst hear about these books? 14. Which is your favorite book in the series and why? 15. Who is your favorite character in the series and why? 16. What do you like best about these books? 17. What did you like least about these books? 18. If I should need to, would you have any openness to being contacted with a follow-up questionnaire?

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!!!

Appendix C: Partial Compilation of Statistical Question Data Received from the Follow-Up E-mail Survey for Amazon.com Readers of Left Behind Series

300 surveys sent out 68 surveys immediately returned because of address error 83 surveys returned; 28 percent return rate out of 300; 36 percent out of the 232 surveys successfully distributed 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:22 AM Page 230

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Data taken from the 83 returned surveys

1. Has your reading of these books in any way inXuenced the way in which you view God and/or His work in the world? Yes: 43 No: 39 No answer: 1 2. Has your reading of these books in any way inXuenced the way in which you view various passages from the Bible or the Bible itself? Yes: 58 No: 23 No answer: 2 3. Are you male or female? Male: 41 Female: 41 No answer: 1 4. Which age group do you fall under? A. Under 18: 17 B. 18–25: 18 C. 26–30: 7 D. 30–40: 18 E. 40–65: 23 F. Over 65: 0 No answer: 0 5. What state do you live in? Alabama: 3 Arkansas: 1 California: 6 Florida: 4 Georgia: 4 Illinois: 8 Indiana: 3 Iowa: 1 Kentucky: 1 Louisiana: 3 Massachusetts: 2 Michigan: 2 Minnesota: 2 Mississippi: 3 Missouri: 1 Montana: 2 New Mexico: 1 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:22 AM Page 231

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New York: 1 North Carolina: 1 Pennsylvania: 5 Ohio: 5 South Carolina: 1 Tennessee: 4 Texas: 6 Vermont: 1 Virginia: 4 Washington: 4 West Virginia: 2 No answer: 2 6. Do you have any denominational afWliation? If so, what is it? Assemblies of God: 5 Baptist: 23 Christian Church: 1 Church of Christ: 1 Disciples of Christ: 1 Episcopalian: 1 Evangelical Free: 1 Foursquare Gospel: 1 Lutheran: 3 Mennonite: 1 Methodist: 6 Missionary Alliance: 1 Nazarene: 1 Non-denominational Church: 10 Presbyterian: 2 Roman Catholic: 8 United Brethren of Christ: 1 United Pentecostal Church International: 1 Vineyard: 1 No afWliation with a denomination: 11 No answer: 3 7. Do you consider yourself a Christian? If so, how many years have you been a Christian? Yes: 79 Less than 5 years: 11 5–15 years: 32 More than Wfteen years: 36 No: 2 No answer: 2 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:22 AM Page 232

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8. Do you consider yourself an “Evangelical”? Yes: 47 No: 22 Did not understand the deWnition of the term: 11 No answer: 3 9. Highest educational level achieved: A. Less than high school: 18 B. High school: 19 C. College: 28 D. Postcollege: 16 10. Approximately how many novels a year do you read? 0–10: 28 11–20: 16 21–30: 8 Over 30: 19 No answer: 12 11. Which books of the Left Behind series have you read? 63 respondents said they had read all the books in the series; the remaining 20 respondents recorded having read the following books: Left Behind: 17 Tribulation Force: 13 Nicolae: 12 Soul Harvest: 7 Apollyon: 7 Assassins: 0 No answer: 1 13. How did you Wrst hear about these books? Family member: 12 Friend: 36 Advertisement: 5 Given as gift: 3 Bookstore: 11 Church: 7 Other: 6 Doesn’t remember: 2 No answer: 1 14. Which is your favorite book in the series and why? Left Behind: 26 Tribulation Force: 5 Nicolae: 9 Soul Harvest: 3 Apollyon: 8 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:22 AM Page 233

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Assassins: 12 No favorite: 18 No answer: 1 15. Who is your favorite character in the series and why? All of the Tribulation Force: 1 Bruce Barnes: 1 Buck Williams: 33 Chiam: 1 Chloe Williams: 9 God: 1 Leon Fortunato: 1 Nicolae Carpathia: 1 Rayford Steele: 12 Tsion Ben-Judah: 9 Do not have a favorite: 9 All the characters are poorly written and uninteresting: 5 18. If I should need to, would you have any openness to being contacted with a follow-up questionnaire? Yes: 79 No: 2 No answer: 2

Notes 1. Good secondary-source treatments of the antagonism between American Protestants and Wction include David Reynolds, Faith in Fiction: The Emergence of Religious Literature in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981); Jan Blodgett, Protestant Evangeli- cal Literary Culture and Contemporary Society (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997); Cathy N. Davidson, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Terence Martin, The Instructed Vision: Scottish Common Sense Philosophy and the Origins of American Fiction (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961); Herbert Ross Brown, The Sentimental Novel in America, 1789–1860 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1940); G. Harrison Orians, “Censure of Fiction in American Romances and Magazines, 1789–1810,” PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Asso- ciations of America 52, no. 1 (March 1937): 195–214; and Paul Gutjahr, “‘To the Heart of Solid Puritans’: Historicizing the Popularity of Ben-Hur,” Mosaic 26, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 53–67. 2. Pamela Urfer, “Stop Rejecting Fiction,” Christianity Today, 9 April 1993, 6. See also John E. Skillen, “What Has Fiction to Do with Truth?” Christianity Today, 2 May 1980, 32–33; and Harold Fickett, “Biblical Novels: A ‘Golden Oldie’ Approach to Fiction,” Chris- tianity Today, 5 September 1980, 46–47. 3. Gene Edward Veith, “Whatever Happened to Christian Publishing?” World 12, no. 12 (1997): 11. 4. Martin E. Marty et al., The Religious Press in America (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963), vii, 16. 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:22 AM Page 234

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5. This Wgure was cited in a 1990 Gallup poll. See Barbara A. Stedman, “The Word Become Fiction: Textual Voices from the Evangelical Subculture” (Ph.D. diss., Ball State Uni- versity, July 1994), 39. For thoughtful treatments of American Evangelicalism, see George Marsden, ed. Evangelicalism and Modern America (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerd- mans, 1984); Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1991); and James Davison Hunter, Evangelicalism: The Coming Gener- ation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). An excellent treatment of the more conservative wings of American Evangelicalism is Joel A. Carpenter, Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). For Wgures on the size of American Evangelicalism, see George Gallup, Jr., Religion in America 1982 (Princeton: Princeton Religion Research Center, 1982), 31. 6. Timothy Dwight, Travels; in New-England and New-York (New Haven, Conn.: T. Dwight, 1821), 1:518. 7. Representative samples of primary source documents concerned with the evils of novel reading include “Beware of Bad Books,” tract no. 493 (New York: American Tract Soci- ety, n.d.); “Novel-Reading,” tract no. 515 (New York: American Tract Society, n.d.); Charles Wesley Andrews, Religious Novels: An Argument Against Their Use, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Anson d. F. Randolf, 1856); and Annie Apswood, “Confessions of a Novel Reader,” in The Christian Parlor Book: Devoted to Science, Literature, and Religion (New York: George Platt, 1850), 181–85. 8. Samuel F. Jarvis before the society of Phi Beta Kappa in 1807 as quoted in Martin, The Instructed Vision, 61. Martin offers a wonderful overview of Scottish Common Sense’s view of the novel in his work, at 57–103. 9. Herbert Ross Brown gives a good overview of this line of argumentation in his book, The Sentimental Novel in America, 3–51. 10. “Beware of Bad Books,” 2. For a treatment of Wction’s relationship to Bible reading, see Paul C. Gutjahr, An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777–1880 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 143–73. 11. David S. Reynolds, Faith in Fiction, 73–122. 12. The standard treatment of the emergence of Protestant Fundamentalism in the United States is George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth- Century Evangelicalism, 1870–1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980). 13. Although scholars have rightly begun to question this kind of two-party view of twentieth-century American Protestantism, it is an instructive division when considering the acceptance of Christian Wction among American Protestants. For a cogent critique of this two-party model of American Protestant historiography, see Douglas Jacobsen and William Vance Trollinger, Jr., “History of American Protestantism: The Two-Party Paradigm, and Beyond,” Fides et Historia 25 (Fall 1993): 4–15. 14. Rewarding treatments of the massive, nonproWt publishing enterprises of nineteenth- century American Protestantism include David Paul Nord, “The Evangelical Origins of Mass Media in America, 1815–1835,” Journalism Monographs 88 (May 1984); and Peter J. Wosh, Spreading the Word: The Bible Business in Nineteenth-Century America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cor- nell University Press, 1994). 15. Blodgett, Protestant Evangelical Literary Culture, 25. 16. Allan Fisher, “Evangelical-Christian Publishing,” Publishing Research Quarterly 14, no. 3 (Fall 1998): 4. 17. George Marsden, ed., Evangelicalism and Modern America (Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Eerdmans, 1984), viii; and George Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1991), 4–5. See also James Davison Hunter, Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:22 AM Page 235

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18. Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776–1990: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 248. 19. This categorization was coined by Allan Fisher in his groundbreaking overview of recent developments in this area of publishing: “Evangelical-Christian Publishing.” 20. Fisher, “Evangelical-Christian Publishing,” 4. 21. For Zondervan’s commitment to Wction publishing, see Blodgett, Protestant Evangeli- cal Literary Culture, 49; for opposition to various trends in Christian publishing, see Veith, “Whatever Happened to Christian Publishing?” 11; and John P. Dessauer, Paul D. Doebler, and Hendrik Edelman, Christian Book Publishing and Distribution in the United States and Canada (Tempe, Ariz.: Christian Book Publishing and Distribution, 1987), 80. 22. For general discussions of Protestant book distribution, see Lee Gessner’s “Book- selling in the Religious Marketplace” and Jim Carlson, “Religious Book Distributors,” in Leonard George Goss and Don M. Aycock, eds., Inside Religious Publishing (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1991), 259–79. See also Jerry B. Jenkins, Twenty-Five Years of Sterling Rewards in God’s Service (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 1974); and Fisher, “Evangelical- Christian Publishing,” 6–8. 23. A book that gives a good, though not completely accurate, sense of the popularity of religious Wction in the United States is James D. Hart, The Popular Book: A History of Amer- ica’s Literary Taste (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950). More speciWc treatments of the popularity of Ingraham’s, Sheldon’s, and Livingston’s works include Warren G. French, “A Hundred Years of a Religious Bestseller,” Western Humanities Review 10, no. 1 (Winter 1955–56): 45–54; Timothy Miller, Following in His Steps: A Biography of Charles M. Sheldon (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987); and Jean Karr, Grace Livingston Hill: Her Story and Her Writings (New York: Greenberg Publishers, 1948). 24. Blodgett, Protestant Evangelical Literary Culture, 45–46. 25. A helpful taxonomy for Christian Wction titles can be found in Blodgett, Protestant Evangelical Literary Culture, 65–113. 26. Fisher, “Evangelical-Christian Publishing,” 6. 27. Blodgett, Protestant Evangelical Literary Culture, 47. 28. A thought-provoking treatment of Oke’s work is found in Barbara A. Stedman, “The Word Become Fiction: Textual Voices from the Evangelical Subculture” (Ph.D. diss., Ball State University, 1994). Stedman does a survey and analysis of 218 readers of evangelical Wction in Muncie, Indiana; the results of this survey underscore her countless insights into contemporary Evangelical-Christian publishing. 29. Blodgett, Protestant Evangelical Literary Culture, 98–102. 30. Steve Maynard, “Christian Fiction Charts Leader Will Visit Area: Frank Peretti’s ‘Vis- itation,’” Tacoma News Tribune, 14 August 1999, B7. 31. Maynard, “Christian Fiction,” B7. See also Kenneth L. Woodward, “The Way the World Ends,” Newsweek, 1 November 1999, 67+; and Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More. It should be noted that the Amazon.com reviews and the follow-up surveys compose data all collected between September and December 1999, the Wnal few months before the advent of a new millennium. 32. Kelly Ettenborough, “Readers Snapping Up Revelation Series,” Arizona Republic, 4 August 1999, A1. 33. Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More, 6. 34. Cheryl A. Forbes, “Unlisted Bestsellers,” Christianity Today, 23 June 1972, 40. 35. Hall, “What Hal Lindsey Taught Me,” 84. 36. Bennie M. Currie, “Legion of Fans Enraptured by Latest ‘Left Behind’ Book,” Her- ald Times (Bloomington), 22 July 2000, A8. 37. Joshua Quittner, “An Eye on the Future,” Time, 27 December 1999, 60. 09chap9.qxd 10/1/02 10:22 AM Page 236

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38. The breakdown by title for these reviews is Left Behind, 726; Tribulation Force, 136; Nicolae, 178; Soul Harvest, 204; Apollyon, 336; Assassins, 120. 39. These follow-up surveys were sent out to the most recent reviewers who had listed their e-mail addresses on their Amazon.com reviews. No attempt was made to determine who might get these follow-up surveys other than the date of their posted review. The most current reviewers were targeted in the hopes that their e-mail addresses were still current. The eighty-three responses to this follow-up survey were numbered 1 through 83 and the responses are referenced to this numbering system in the following notes. 40. See Appendix A for a brief breakdown of the responses from the sample of seventeen hundred reviews. 41. Fisher, “Evangelical-Christian Publishing,” 6. 42. Follow-up survey no. 6. Further citations of follow-up surveys appear in the text. 43. Amazon.com reader review for Left Behind, 30 August 1999. Dates of further Left Behind reader reviews are cited in the text. 44. Amazon.com reader review for Apollyon, 29 April 1999. 45. Joseph Holt Ingraham, The Prince of the House of David (New York: Pudney & Rus- sell, 1855), v–vi. 46. “The Head of Medusa, and Other Novels,” Atlantic Monthly, May 1881, 711. The story of the success of In His Steps is retold in Timothy Miller’s Following in His Steps: A Biography of Charles M. Sheldon (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987), 71–95. 47. Amazon.com reader review for Soul Harvest, 19 July 1999. 48. Barbara A. Stedman. “The Word Become Fiction: Textual Voices from the Evan- gelical Subculture” (Ph.D. diss., Ball State University, 1994). Through a survey approach, Stedman examines the reading habits and tastes of 218 readers of evangelical Wction in Muncie, Indiana. Stedman argues that these novels do, in fact, play an important edifying role for their Christian readers. 49. Although the American context of reader response theory and criticism on religious reading practices is sadly lacking, the study of religious reading in other settings has not been so ignored. Notable works in this regard include Paul J. GrifWth’s Religious Reading: The Place of Reading in the Practice of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Alastair J. Minnis and A. B. Scott, Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism, c. 100–1375, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); and John B. Henderson, Scripture, Canon, and Commentary (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991). 50. Follow-up survey no. 7. 51. Follow-up survey no. 60. 52. See Appendix B for a copy of the entire follow-up survey with the introductory note that accompanied it. 53. Follow-up surveys nos. 40 and 50. (Further citations of follow-up surveys appear in the text.) 54. Amazon.com reader review for Left Behind, 10 August 1998. 55. Amazon.com reader review for Left Behind, 11 January 1999. 56. Robert Wuthnow, “Arts and Religion Survey” (unpublished results from a national survey, Princeton University, Department of Sociology, 1999).