The Slacktivist has some excellent running commentary on Left Behind and its implications for Christianity and faith with its pulp treatment of eschatology, doctrine, and fiction. It’s not just bad writing or rapture-obsessed dispensational premillenialism that’s the issue here: there’s something wrong with LaHaye and Jenkins’ characters, the manner in which they conduct themselves, the manner in which the fictional world behaves around them, which betrays a worldview which is, at best, barely Christian. Of special note: mention of Captain Findiesen (that notorious American Airlines pilot who used the cabin PA to point out “crazy” Christians, and the only reporter on board the plane who got the story right); “don’t look in first class”; “his fully loaded 747 on autopilot”; miracles, exploding warheads, Russia, Ethiopia, and implausibility.

Glorious Appearing is out, and you can read the first chapter. Better hurry, before the sequel and the prequel come out. Myself, I’ll stick to my copy of Right Behind.