Interpretation, Discourse and Ideology in the Left Behind Corpus, Rhetoric
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CREEPING CRUSADE: INTERPRETATION, DISCOURSE AND IDEOLOGY IN THE LEFT BEHIND CORPUS. RHETORIC AND SOCIETY IN THE LIGHT OF REVELATION 7 by MARGARET MOLLETT submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY in the subject BIBLICAL STUDIES Supervisor PROFESSOR G.A. VAN DEN HEEVER UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA FEBRUARY 2010 i DECLARATION Student Number: 536-786-7 I declare that CREEPING CRUSADE: INTERPRETATION, DISCOURSE AND IDEOLOGY IN THE LEFT BEHIND CORPUS: RHETORIC AND SOCIETY IN THE LIGHT OF REVELATION 7 is my own work and that all the sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references. _____________________ MARGARET MOLLETT 3 February 2010 ii ABSTRACT While the Left Behind Corpus may be commended for being an effective tool for evangelism, the question arises of whether or not its themes engender a theology of extermination, indeed a creeping crusade; “creeping” in the sense of it being a movement of stealth and not one of high visibility – “crusade” in the sense of a militaristic movement, similar to that of the medieval crusades. I span my research across three artefacts in the LB Corpus in terms of its embedded interpretation, discourse and ideology; in fact three separate entities for explanatory purposes, but in effect they form a single entity of interaction and cross-production. I am therefore extending many niches of research and critical discourse to what I envisage as the wider context of the LB Corpus: its potential for social construction, and its enigmatic connections with other apocalyptic-driven and crusade-like movements. Based as it is on “consistent literalism,” the LB Corpus can only be countered by an exegetical approach that situates the foundational text for the Left Behind phenomenon, Revelation 7, in its historical setting, while taking cognisance of the particularities of early Christianity, with its Jewish heritage lived out in a Graeco-Roman environment. In offering an alternative reading, I take some cues from Vernon Robbins‟ socio-rhetorical approach and draw from perspectives of theorists across several disciplinary fields in pointing out anomalies in a consistent literalism driven interpretation of Revelation 7. Key terms: Apocalypticism; Crusade; Left Behind; LaHaye; Premillennial Dispensationalism; Dominionism; Consistent Literalism; Revelation; Socio- rhetorical Criticism iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES iv PREFACE viii DISCLAIMERS x GLOSSARY OF SELECT TERMS xii ABBREVIATIONS xv CHAPTER 1: ENTERING THE WORLD OF LEFT BEHIND 1. Introduction 1 2. Statement of the Research Question 2 3 Outlines of Chapters 4 4. Methodological Framework 5 5. A Review of Literature on Left Behind 6 5.1 The Scope Outlined 6 5.2 Research into Reader-responses and Literary Genre 7 5.3 Apologetic Works 9 5.4 Theological Critiques 11 5.5 Scholarly Perspectives 13 6. The Contribution of the Thesis 14 7. Conclusions 16 CHAPTER 2: LEFT BEHIND IN CONTEXT OF THE CHRISTIAN MEDIA 1. Introduction 17 2. An Overview of the Left Behind Corpus 17 3 The Position of Left Behind in the Christian Media 20 3.1 A Review of the Christian Novel 20 3.2 Responses to the Left Behind Novels 22 3.2 1 Research findings of Paul Gutjahr and Amy Frykholm 22 3.2.2 Left Behind a Sacred Text? 24 3.2.3 Perceptions of Violence 26 3.3 Response to the Left Behind Films 28 3.4 Response to Left Behind: Eternal Forces 30 4. The Social Context of the Christian Media 32 4.1 Cultural Production, Culture Industries, and Culture Wars 32 4.2 A Case in Point: Purpose Driven Ministries and Left Behind 37 Games 5. Conclusions 42 iv CHAPTER 3: INTERPRETATION: WHAT STANDS WRITTEN HERE? 1. Introduction 44 2. Consistent Literalism 45 2.1 Definitions and Applications 45 2.2 Prophecy as Consistent Literalism in LaHaye‟s Interpretation 48 2.3 Excursus: Hal Lindsay‟s Decoding Practice 49 3. LaHaye and Jenkins‟s Interpretation of Revelation 7 52 3.1 On the “144, 000 sealed” and the “Multitude too Great to Count” 52 3.2 LaHaye and Jenkins‟s Methodological Approach 56 3.3 The 144, 000 and the Seal: Consistencies and Inconsistencies 57 3.4 The Two Witnesses 58 3.5 Narrative Exegesis or Historical Novel? 60 4. LaHaye in a Hermeneutical and Philosophical Framework 63 4.1 Epistemological Framework 68 4.2 Rabbinic Exegesis 64 4.3 Aristotelian Metaphysics 67 4.4 Scottish Common Sense Realism 69 4.5 American Pragmatism 74 5. The Evangelical Imagination 76 5.1 Imagination and the Media 76 5.2 Left Behind as Science Fiction? 77 6. Conclusions 81 CHAPTER 4: DISCOURSE: WHO SPEAKS HERE? 1. Introduction 83 2. The Nature of Discourse and Rhetoric 85 2.1 Discourse and its Products 85 2.2 Apocalyptic Rhetoric 87 3. Apocalyptic Master Frames 88 3.1 Theorists on Frames and Social Movements 88 3.2 The Left Behind Master Frame 91 4. Rhetorical strategies 95 4.1 The Videocasts from the Future 95 4.2 Left Behind Tribulation Force 101 4.2 1 Management of Meaning 101 4.2.2 Internalisation and Externalisation 105 5. Rhetor‟s Strategies 106 6. Left Behind: Eternal Forces 111 6.1 Basic Information 111 6.2 The Outline 112 6.2.1 The Opening Video 112 6.2.2 The Missions 113 6.2.3 Video Game Theory and Procedural Rhetoric 115 6.3 LB: EF: A Theology of Extermination? 117 7. Conclusions 129 v CHAPTER 5: IDEOLOGY: WHO WINS AND HOW MUCH? 1. Introduction 131 2. Ideology 131 2.1 A Dichotomy of Ideologies 131 2.2 First Thoughts on Ideology 133 3. Scenario 1: The Rebuilding of the Temple and Armageddon 134 3.1 The Outcome 134 3.2 An Overview of Jewish and Christian Zionism 135 3.3 The Scofield Reference Bible 138 3.4 Preparations for the New Temple 140 3.5 Igniting the Keg – Armageddon! 144 4. Scenario 2: Establishment of a Theocracy 147 4.1 The Outcome 147 4.2 Dominionism and its Many Movements 147 4.3 LaHaye and Dominionism 150 4.3.1 The Influence of Rushdoony 150 4.3.2 Dominionist Movements and the LB Corpus 151 4.4 The Revival of Fascism 154 5. The Crusader Divinity 156 5.1 In Service of God and Christendom 156 5.2 Demotion of the Divinity 158 6. Conclusions 159 CHAPTER 6: SOCIETY AND RHETORIC IN THE LIGHT OF REVELATION 7 1. Introduction 161 2. The Seventieth Week in Daniel as a Key to Revelation 162 2.1 The Seventieth Week in the New Scofield Study Bible 162 2.2 The Rhetoric of Canon and Translation 165 2.3 The Seventieth Week in the New Interpreter‟s Study Bible 167 3. Chapter 7 within the Literary Structure of Revelation 168 4. A Reading of Revelation 7 172 5. Inner Texture 173 5.1 Repetitive Texture 173 5.2 Revelation 7 –The World Behind the Text – and of the Text 176 6. Excursus: The Scholarly Debates around Revelation 7 185 7. Social and Cultural Texture 186 7.1 Definitions of Social and Cultural Texture 188 7.2 Christians in Asia and the Empire 190 7.3 Christian Rhetoric in Imperial Society 194 7.4 Contemporary Reader-expectations of Apocalyptic 199 8. Ideological Texture 200 8.1 Definitions 200 8.2 Ideology of the Author 202 8.3 Ideology of the Reader/Interpreter 206 8.4 Ideology of the Researcher/Scholar 213 9. Conclusions 214 vi CHAPTER 7: LEAVING BEHIND LEFT BEHIND 1. Introduction 217 2. The Research Question Assessed 217 3. Excursus: A Day Tour Through the Future 220 3.1 As Utopias Come – and Go 220 3.2 Utopia or Dystopia –A Matter of Choice 221 3.3 All is Well in Utopia, or not so Well? 224 4. What is the Future of the LB Corpus? 226 4.1 An Update of Publishing and Marketing 226 4.2 Rapture Readiness 230 5. Conclusions 231 6. Post-script: Conversations, Debates and Interventions 232 BIBLIOGRAPHY 235 LIST OF TABLES Table I A Depiction of LaHaye and Jenkins‟s Interpretation of 54 Revelation 7 Table II: A Videocast from the Future 97 Table III: Another Videocast from the Future 98 Table IV: A Final Videocast from the Future 99 Table V: The Rhetorical Stance on Left Behind 103 Table VI: Left Behind: Eternal Forces: The Opening Video 112 Table VII: Left Behind: Eternal Forces the Missions 113 Table VIII: Dominionist-orientated Movements 148 Table IX: The Seventy Weeks in the New Scofield Study Bible 163 Table X: The Seventy Weeks in the New Interpreter‟s Study Bible 167 Table XI: Visions in the Literary Structure of Revelation 170 Table XII: Pattern of Repetitive Texture in Revelation 7 174 vii PREFACE Frank Kermode describes Apocalypse as “depending on a concord of recorded past and imaginatively predicted future, achieved on behalf of us „in the middest‟”1 But many difficulties, he says, arise from the expectation that the figures must conform to the future: “We ask questions as, “Who is the Beast from the land?” the Woman Clothed with the Sun? . “Where, on the body of history shall we look for the scars of that three-and-a-half reign?”2 Yet as Kermode intimates, “It is not expected of critics as it is of poets that they should help us make sense of our lives; they are bound only to attempt the lesser feat of making sense of the ways we try to make sense of our lives.” I come therefore not as poet but as critic, performing the lesser feat of making sense of the ways in which latter-day apocalyptists are making sense of future predictions – the Left Behind Corpus being a prime example.