If you’re followed any of the links I’ve posted to Slacktivist, you know he’s a clever, witty sort. He’s also a Christian, and not of the knee-jerk Fundamentalist right-winger sort, either.
Lately, he’s been writing a series of entries analyzing the extraordinarily popular Left Behind series of books. The books purport to be “Christian thrillers,” and deal with events that happen in the End Times, after all the good people have been taken to Heaven (hence the title). They are, of course, unadulterated crap, on a number of levels. Slacktivist, though, hits them where it hurts: right in the dogma.
He points out again and again how badly wrong LeHaye and Jenkins have it based on honest-to-God (literally) theological research. His ongoing point is how frighteningly misguided these books are, and how they fuel decidedly wrongheaded notions of Christianity, at least as he (and the rest of us not on the far right) sees it. His latest entry on the subject quotes a Mennonite theologian, who says:
Ultimately, it is not [LeHaye and Jenkins’] interpretation of the end times that troubles me so much as their interpretation of Christianity. It is devoid of any real theology, or substantial Christology, or any ethics that are recognizably Christian. This is a vision of unredeemed Christianity. Loren L. Johns
Ouch. But Slacktivist goes further:
L&J present a political perspective that is every bit as corrosive as their theological views. And that political perspective is being read and absorbed by millions of Americans. The political impact of L&J’s brand of dispensationalism is difficult to measure and difficult to overstate. It affects people’s attitudes toward religious pluralism, multilateral and international institutions, diplomacy and peacemaking. To give one specific example, adherents of L&J’s apocalyptic worldview are vocally opposed to the “road map” peace initiative in the Middle East. At a very basic level, this worldview opposes and undermines any long-term thinking, any sustained effort to make the world a better place — replacing the hope of redemption with a perverse longing for apocalypse.
He wraps with this, which is impossible not to love:
As such, L&J ultimately are like any given set of villains from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They want to open the Hellmouth and bring about the end of the world. Stopping them, as always, begins with research. So let’s send Xander out for donuts and get back to hitting the books.
Amen.