{"id":47412,"date":"2019-06-21T07:00:55","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T11:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=47412"},"modified":"2019-06-20T17:35:02","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T21:35:02","slug":"lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/06\/21\/lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"LBCF, No. 238: ‘The end of the interview’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Originally posted February 15, 2010.<\/em><\/p>\n
You can read this entire series, for free, via the convenient\u00a0Left Behind Index<\/a>. The ebook collection\u00a0The Anti-Christ Handbook: Volume 1<\/a>, is available on Amazon for just $0.99. Nationalize insulin. And epi-pens too, while we\u2019re at it.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Volume 2 of The Anti-Christ Handbook<\/a>, completing all the posts on the first Left Behind book, is also now available. Volume 3 is coming someday.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n*
**
Tribulation Force,<\/em>\u00a0pp. 151-157<\/strong><\/p>\n
**
*We return to Capt. Rayford Steele, still reeling from being accused of religious harassment toward the one co-worker with whom he has not been guilty of religious harassment.<\/p>\n
"
\u201cWho\u2019s out to get you?\u201d Earl had asked.<\/p>\n*
**
\u201cI can\u2019t imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n
**
Francine reported that the call she took that morning had been traced to New York. \u201cIt\u2019ll take them a few hours to get an exact phone number,\u201d she said, but Rayford knew in a flash who it was. He couldn\u2019t be sure\u00a0why\u00a0she would do it, but only Hattie Durham would pull a stunt like that. Only she would have access to Pan-Con people who would know where he was and what he was doing that morning. And what was that business about Air Force One?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
**
*Francine was apparently so busy at the\u00a0typewriter,\u00a0typing up her summary of Earl\u2019s phone call, that she forgot to get the caller\u2019s number. So now she has to get \u201cthem\u201d to track it down for her. I can\u2019t imagine who \u201cthey\u201d might be, nor what they might be doing for the next few hours to produce this \u201cexact phone number.\u201d One gets the sense here that Jerry Jenkins envisions the Pan-Continental Airlines offices as having a room somewhere with dozens of young women in skirts working a manual switchboard. I\u2019m starting to suspect that maybe Jenkins\u2019 strange obsession with telephony arises from his never having actually\u00a0used<\/em>\u00a0a telephone.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s Francine, second from the right, at Pan-Continental\u2019s switchboard. (Yes, in a post with a Sugar Kane reference, this could\u2019ve been a picture of Marilyn Monroe in \u201cSome Like It Hot.\u201d But this picture is funnier.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n***
**
***After dozens of pages in which Buck agonized over his Christian duty to never tell a lie \u2014 not even a life-saving lie to the Antichrist himself \u2014 it\u2019s interesting that Rayford doesn\u2019t hesitate to mislead his kind and cooperative boss:<\/p>\n
"
\u201cI can\u2019t imagine.\u201d \u2026 But Rayford knew.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n***
**
So for the record: Lying to the Antichrist to keep him from slaughtering everyone in the congregation at your church would be a\u00a0sin<\/em>.\u00a0Lying to your boss to avoid having to mention the embarrassing details of your platonically kinky non-affair with a subordinate is perfectly fine.<\/p>\n
**
***Rayford\u2019s guess about Hattie turns out to be right, even if his reasoning \u2014 that only a former flight attendant \u201cwould have access to Pan-Con people who would know where he was\u201d \u2014 seems dubious. He calls Hattie at the United Nations and she quickly confesses that the whole fake harassment complaint against him was her doing.<\/p>\n
The conversation between Rayford and Hattie offers his usual contemptuous asides \u2014 her voice makes him \u201ccringe,\u201d and he marvels at how \u201cvapid\u201d she seems. And the authors write her dialogue as though they\u2019re intent on proving his low opinion of her is right. She sounds like a bad imitation of the stock \u201cditzy\u201d blonde from old screwball comedies. \u201cWasn\u2019t that just the funniest?\u201d she asks,\u00a0a la<\/em>\u00a0Sugar Kane Kowalczyk<\/a>. \u201cI love practical jokes!\u201d<\/p>\n
In the larger context of the series, this would seem to fit the pattern in which all women are madonnas (Lucinda, Marge, Irene) or mannish lesbians (Verna) or vapid airheads (Alice, Hattie). What\u2019s notable in LaHaye & Jenkins\u2019 reliance on these stereotypes is that they never quite get them right. The airheads sound just enough like airheads that the reader can guess that\u2019s what the authors were attempting to convey, but they never sound enough like real airheads for the reader to believe the authors had ever met the genuine article. That shows the authors\u2019 deep commitment to their preconceptions. It takes work to maintain a stereotyping prejudice when you\u2019ve lived well past middle age without\u00a0ever<\/em> meeting anyone who lived up to it.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, a few pages later we learn that Hattie\u2019s actions and her conversation with Rayford were part of some nefarious master plan of Nicolae\u2019s. So it\u2019s possible that she\u2019s just putting on an act here \u2014 playing the part of the ditzy airhead just to prevent Rayford from suspecting her boss\u2019s involvement. The problem with that theory is that Hattie started playing this role way back in Chapter 1 of the last book, long before she\u2019d ever met or heard of Nicolae.<\/p>\n
"
Rayford didn\u2019t buy a word of it. Carpathia had to know about the White House offer. Hattie\u2019s note and that offer, and what her little joke almost did to scotch the deal, were too coincidental to be her lame attempt at a practical joke.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Rayford guesses that Carpathia is behind both the job offer to become pilot of Air Force One\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0the false accusation designed to disqualify him from the job. And Rayford once again will be proved correct. He\u2019s showing an uncanny knack for suspecting the truth even when it makes absolutely no sense.<\/p>\n
Buck Williams, meanwhile, is still doing his best to evade his own job offer from Nicolae, who has now spent the better part of his day trying to secure Buck as his first One World Media Empire hire, a publisher for the\u00a0Chicago Tribune<\/em>.<\/p>\n
The Antichrist is going to have to get better at delegating or else he\u2019s going to have to pick up the pace. If he intends to personally hire minions to run every newspaper, magazine, radio and television station in the world then he can\u2019t afford to spend this much time interviewing just one of them.<\/p>\n
Some quick diner-napkin arithmetic: The world will end in 6 years 11 months, or roughly 2,500 days from now. Just looking at the United States \u2014 set aside the\u00a0entire rest of the world for the moment \u2014 he\u2019s got to hire minions for about 1,400 daily newspapers, 13,000 radio stations, 1,700 TV stations, and 18,000 magazines. So if he schedules about 14 interviews a day, every day, from now until the end of time, he\u2019ll manage to just barely have filled the executive posts for only one country in his global media monopoly.<\/p>\n
(And\u00a0that\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0assuming that none of those 34,000 or so people he\u2019s busily hiring is among the fourth of the world\u2019s population about to be slain by his three fellow Horsemen of the Apocalypse.)<\/p>\n
If Nicolae Carpathia wants to have any time left to himself for the business of Antichristing, he\u2019s going to need a massive, efficient and professionally run HR Department of the Beast.<\/p>\n
After another perfunctory page of \u201cI don\u2019t want the job\u201d\/\u201dAh, my friend, you cannot say no,\u201d Hattie re-enters Nicolae\u2019s office to update him on their\u00a0ecret-say an-play<\/em>:<\/p>\n
"
\u201cI just took a call from the target,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes? And?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t take him long to figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Air Force One?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think he has a clue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood work. And the other?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo response yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you, dear.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Two weeks into his tenure as Antichrist, Nicolae has yet to do much in the way of riding out as a conqueror bent on conquest. So far all he\u2019s done is hire his core staff from Buck Williams\u2019 closest circle of friends. He\u2019s hired Chaim, Steve, and Hattie and now he\u2019s working hard to hire Rayford. Jenkins\u2019 model for telling a global epic seems to be Noah\u2019s Ark \u2014 the whole world gets slaughtered while the plot revolves around just eight characters who are all related.<\/p>\n
We get another page of thrust-and-parry job-offer-and-refusal, featuring Nicolae saying things like: \u201cYou are in a seller\u2019s market. I am the buyer, and I will get the man I want.\u201d (This is the man who\u2019s going to run the One World Economy?)<\/p>\n
This monotonous repetition gets to be so much that even Buck seems bored and his mind begins to wander. He suddenly remembers that Steve, Chaim and Hattie are all his friends, and that thanks to the Great Deceiver, they\u2019re all doomed to be damned.<\/p>\n
"
Was it too late to plead with Steve, to warn him of what he had gotten into? Too late to rescue Hattie from the stupidity of his introduction? Was Chaim too enamored with the geopolitical possibilities to listen to reason and truth?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
These are rhetorical questions. Buck doesn\u2019t seem to think any of them require actual answers. And he certainly doesn\u2019t seem to feel obliged to\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0anything to help his friends. As obnoxious as Rayford can be with his aggressive, intentionally offensive proselytizing, he at least seems more concerned with the eternal fate of his van driver than Buck is for any of his supposed friends.<\/p>\n
Was it too late to save Steve? Buck thinks.\u00a0Whatever<\/em>.\u00a0Chloe sure is pretty.<\/p>\n
"
It was Chloe he missed the most. Was this of God? Had God impressed her upon Buck\u2019s mind at his most vulnerable moment with Carpathia? Buck hardly knew the woman. Woman? She was barely more than a girl, but she seemed \u2026 what? Mature? More than mature. Magnetic. When she listened to him, her eyes seemed to drink him in. She understood, empathized. She could give advice and feedback without saying a word.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Phew. OK. We could note that everything Buck seems to admire about Chloe is something he might see in his own reflection, but I don\u2019t really have a specific comment here. It\u2019s just that there\u2019re three straight paragraphs of this and I need a little breather in between typing them in.\u00a0Ack<\/em>.<\/p>\n
Deep breath. Here we go:<\/p>\n
"
There was a comfort zone with her, a feeling of safety. He had barely touched her twice. Once to wipe from her mouth a dab of chocolate from a cookie, and in church the morning before, just to get her attention. And yet now, a two-hour plane ride from her, he felt an overwhelming need to embrace her.<\/p>\n
He couldn\u2019t do that, of course. He scarcely knew her and didn\u2019t want to scare her away. And yet in his mind he looked forward to the day when they felt comfortable enough to hold hands or draw close to each other. He imagined them sitting somewhere, just enjoying each other\u2019s company, her head on his chest, his arm around her.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That\u2019s where the paragraph ends in the book.<\/p>\n
Probably no need to point out that it\u2019s\u00a0begging<\/em>\u00a0for one or two inappropriately filthy clauses or sentences to be tacked on.<\/p>\n
And now some good news and some bad news.<\/p>\n
The good news is that after more than 100 pages of our heroes stalwartly resisting the job advancement deviously being offered them by the embodiment of evil, the job-interview business is finally over with.<\/p>\n
The bad news is that the next two chapters are preoccupied with the unfolding of the Not What It Looks Like rom-com of errors.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jerry Jenkins’ model for telling a global epic seems to be Noah’s Ark \u2014 the whole world gets slaughtered while the plot revolves around just eight characters who are all related.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[238],"class_list":["post-47412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-left-behind"],"yoast_head":"\nLBCF, No. 238: 'The end of the interview'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jerry Jenkins' model for telling a global epic seems to be Noah's Ark \u2014 the whole world gets slaughtered while the plot revolves around just eight characters who are all related.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/06\/21\/lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LBCF, No. 238: 'The end of the interview'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jerry Jenkins' model for telling a global epic seems to be Noah's Ark \u2014 the whole world gets slaughtered while the plot revolves around just eight characters who are all related.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/06\/21\/lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-06-21T11:00:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-06-20T21:35:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2019\/06\/Francine.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/06\/21\/lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/06\/21\/lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview\/\",\"name\":\"LBCF, No. 238: 'The end of the interview'\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-06-21T11:00:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-06-20T21:35:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"Jerry Jenkins' model for telling a global epic seems to be Noah's Ark \u2014 the whole world gets slaughtered while the plot revolves around just eight characters who are all related.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/06\/21\/lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/06\/21\/lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/06\/21\/lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"LBCF, No. 238: ‘The end of the interview’\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\",\"name\":\"Fred Clark\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Fred Clark\"},\"description\":\"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"LBCF, No. 238: 'The end of the interview'","description":"Jerry Jenkins' model for telling a global epic seems to be Noah's Ark \u2014 the whole world gets slaughtered while the plot revolves around just eight characters who are all related.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/06\/21\/lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"LBCF, No. 238: 'The end of the interview'","og_description":"Jerry Jenkins' model for telling a global epic seems to be Noah's Ark \u2014 the whole world gets slaughtered while the plot revolves around just eight characters who are all related.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/06\/21\/lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview\/","og_site_name":"slacktivist","article_published_time":"2019-06-21T11:00:55+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-06-20T21:35:02+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2019\/06\/Francine.jpg"}],"author":"Fred Clark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fred Clark","Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/06\/21\/lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/06\/21\/lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview\/","name":"LBCF, No. 238: 'The end of the interview'","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-06-21T11:00:55+00:00","dateModified":"2019-06-20T21:35:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47"},"description":"Jerry Jenkins' model for telling a global epic seems to be Noah's Ark \u2014 the whole world gets slaughtered while the plot revolves around just eight characters who are all related.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/06\/21\/lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/06\/21\/lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/06\/21\/lbcf-no-238-the-end-of-the-interview\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"LBCF, No. 238: ‘The end of the interview’"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/","name":"slacktivist","description":""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47","name":"Fred Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Fred Clark"},"description":"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
" " " " " "
"