Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
LBCF, No. 165: ‘Dear Captain’

LBCF, No. 165: ‘Dear Captain’

Last updated on: December 22, 2017 at 7:56 am by Fred Clark

LBCF, No. 165: ‘Dear Captain’ 2017-12-22T07:56:20-05:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Originally posted May 23, 2008.

Read this entire series, for free, via the convenient Left Behind Index. This post is also part of the ebook collection The Anti-Christ Handbook: Volume 1, available on Amazon for just $2.99. Diversity; fetus; transgender; vulnerable; entitlement; science-based; evidence-based. Volume 2 of The Anti-Christ Handbook, completing all the posts on the first Left Behind book, is also now available.

Left Behind, pp. 438-440

New Hope Village Church’s Sunday service is drawing SRO crowds.

Rayford and Chloe watched for Buck until the last minute the next morning, but they could no longer save a seat for him when the sanctuary and the balcony filled. When Bruce began his message, Chloe nudged her father and pointed out the window, down onto the walk before the front door. There, in a small crowd listening to an external speaker, was Buck. Rayford raised a celebratory fist and whispered to Chloe, “Wonder what you’re going to pray for this morning?”

(Out of sympathy for Chloe’s embarrassment, we’ll just ignore Rayford here and pretend that whole fist-pumping bit didn’t happen.)

Post-Event I would think every house of worship would be jammed with overflow crowds like this one. This is one of the things we humans do in the wake of tragedy — we gather together, often in churches. One baby trapped in a well will fill every pew in town for a week. The Event is a much bigger deal — imagine every baby and young child on the planet lost down that well.

A mere 13 days after The Event, the world would still be reeling from the trauma and the impulse to gather together and hold vigils would be overwhelming. People wouldn’t be able to hold vigils at the scene of The Event because it happened everywhere and nowhere. Churches would thus be the most likely place for such vigiling to occur — they’re easy to find, open to the public, and they’ve already got candles and experience conducting this sort of thing. Schools might be another gathering place* — somewhere people could leave notes at impromptu shrines piled high with flowers, candles and stuffed animals. But those empty schools might also be a bit too much, too overwhelming. All those stuffed animals mouldering in the rain — the last of the pre-Event plush manufactured before the stuffed-animal companies closed their doors on a world without children.

After the Event, there would be shrines like this at every school, playground, and Chuck E. Cheese. But there are no memorials to any of the missing children in "Left Behind."

After the Event, there would be shrines like this at every school, playground, and Chuck E. Cheese. But there are no memorials to any of the missing children in “Left Behind.”

So even though most Americans don’t go to church on most Sundays, most would likely do so on the Sundays following The Event. Out of civil custom, if not religious conviction, they would have swarmed their local churches and thus, rather quickly, people would have begun to notice a pattern — an undeniable, unmistakable clustering of missing adults at many of these churches. Each of those churches would have their own versions of Bruce or Loretta, people who could tell them what had happened.

Every local paper would’ve soon been reporting this story, some reporting it as theory, but more than a few likely reporting it as fact, supported by the evidence that only certain adults of a particular kind seemed to be among the vanished. That evidence would make this explanation far more convincing than Nicolae’s official story about electromagnetic something or other.

The Rapture theory would thus have been old news long before Buck even started on his Global Weekly story. While Bruce was conducting secret meetings with his inner-core core-groups, Loretta would be appearing on Larry King Live, playing the in-case-of-rapture video for the entire country.**

None of that happens here in Left Behind, of course. All those other towns are filled with Other People and the authors don’t really care or wonder about Other People all that much. They imagine that New Hope Village Church is an exception — perhaps the only church drawing such crowds. But even the Other People filling New Hope’s sanctuary barely register in this story:

Bruce played the former pastor’s videotape, told his own story again, talked briefly about prophecy, invited people to receive Christ, and then opened the microphone for personal accounts. As had happened the previous two weeks, people streamed forward and stood in line until well after one in the afternoon, eager to tell how they had now, finally, trusted Christ.

Chloe told her father she had wanted to be first, as he had been, but by the time she made her way down front the last row of the balcony, she was one of the last.

That’s verbatim: “… she made her way down front the last row of the balcony.” And so is “the previous two weeks,” even though The Event happened 13 days ago, on a Monday night, and I’m pretty sure you can’t fit three Sundays into 13 days.

Perhaps this would be a good time to mention again that Jerry Jenkins runs a writing school, with a starting tuition of only $1,365. Their critique service is also available to non-students. For just $30, “a team of writing professionals” will “evaluate your work on the basis of five core issues: Proper language usage, Pacing, Presentation, Purpose and Persuasiveness of the content.” (In Jenkins’ defense, “Continuity” isn’t one of their five core issues.)

Chloe “told her story, including the sign she believed God had given her in the form of a friend who sat beside her on the flight home.”

These folks really know how to bury the lede. Chloe’s “sign” from God isn’t really all that compelling when compared to what everyone in the room witnessed firsthand 13 days ago. Worse than that is the way Bruce never seems to move beyond a basic I-told-you-so message about the Rapture. He told Buck this is the same theme he plans to preach every Sunday. If I were one of those Other People gathered at New Hope I wouldn’t be nearly as interested in this endless rehashing of prophecies fulfilled as I would be in prophecies yet to come. What happens next? Bruce knows, but he’s not telling. And the congregation knows he knows, but they’re not asking. This is deeply weird — particularly since part of what Bruce knows is that everyone in that room will be dead within six years, 11 months and 19 days, and most sooner than that.

When the meeting was over, Rayford and Chloe went outside to find Buck, but he was gone. They went for lunch with Bruce, and when they got home, Chloe found a note from Buck on the front door.

Closer inspection would also likely have revealed footprints and cigarette butts in the shrubbery outside of Chloe’s bedroom window. I’m joking. There’s nothing creepy at all about the idea of him avoiding contact with them at the church, then looking up their home address and driving to their house to leave a note while they’re not there. Nothing creepy at all about that.

It isn’t that I didn’t want to say good-bye. But I don’t. …

That’s how the note begins. The odd lack of a salutation there has the same presumed familiarity as starting a phone conversation, “Hi, it’s me.” I wouldn’t recommend using “Hi, it’s me” after only one date.

That lack of salutation also means there was a 50/50 chance that Rayford, rather than Chloe, would’ve found this note first. The fact that the entire note is included in this Rayford-POV section implies, at least, that he must’ve read it after his daughter did. The end of this section is much more entertaining, though, if we imagine that Capt. Steele found the note first, believing it was addressed to him:

… I’ll be back for bureau business and maybe just to see you, if you’ll allow it. …

“Hmm,” Rayford thinks. “Perhaps my passionate sincerity has begun to persuade him and he wants to hear more about my new-found faith. …”

… I’ve got a lot to think about right now, as you know, and frankly, I don’t want my attraction to you to get in the way of that thinking. And it would. …

“Oh, my,” Rayford thinks, remembering that Buck did look strangely sweaty the other night at the restaurant. …

You are a lovely person, Chloe …

Oh, phew. “Honey, I think this is for you.”

You are a lovely person, Chloe, and I was moved to tears by your story. You had told me before, but to hear it in that place and in that circumstance this morning was beautiful. Would you do something I have never asked anyone to do for me ever before? …

“Oh, my,” Chloe thinks, remembering that Buck did look strangely sweaty the other night at the restaurant. …

… Would you pray for me?

Oh, phew.

I will call you or see you soon. I promise. Buck.

I will see you soon. I promise. And now I know where you live.

– – – – – – – – – – – –

* The Event took place at night here in the States, but I’d imagine a very different atmosphere at school buildings in those countries where it took place during school hours. There school buildings would be cordoned off with police tape as moon-suited government investigators armed with geiger-counters and EMF-readers scoured the kindergarten desks for some clue as to What Happened. And what of the teachers, left bewildered in their suddenly empty classrooms? Some would have gone mad. Others would have been arrested and interrogated, and still others scapegoated and slaughtered by angry mobs. …

** LaHaye’s End Times check list does not allow for this kind of mass-conversion and religious revival, but I don’t see any way for it not to happen given the scenario the authors present. And just ask Hezekiah or Jonah what that would mean — what it always means when the threat of judgment produces repentance and revival. The shadow would move back ten steps and God would relent from sending calamity. Nicolae would be swept away like Sennacherib and poor old Tim LaHaye would be left muttering that he’s angry enough to die.

Uncategorized

Left Behind

Previous Post

December 21, 2017

The best that we are able

Next Post

December 22, 2017 Hallelujah, everybody say cheese: The 2017 Christmas Keendex

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: Eve was created from Adam's rib.

Select your answer to see how you score.

FALSE TRUE