Left Behind Analysis

[darkauthor26]

I'm reading an extensive analysis of the Left Behind series. For those of you who haven't heard of it, the Left Behind series is an End of Days story. It begins with the Rapture and thus with mass disappearances of people all over the planet as God takes the true believes up to heaven. The story follows a band of people who were left behind as they witness the Tribulation and the rising of the Anti-Christ. The series, in my opinion, is horrible, full of bad writing and bad theology, but it provides some great discussion and the comment section is as worth reading as the posts. It contains some of the most thoughtful and respectful theological debates and discussion in the comments (mostly) that I've ever seen. I also love insights like this:

The other option is to read such tirades as wholly directed at Other People. Judgement is never for Us, only for Them. This is one of the main points of LB and indeed of the entire pseudotheological framework of premillennial dispensationalism on which it is based.

This approach -- judgement for Thee but not for Me -- also helps to account for the current antigay mania of American evangelicalism. In a couple of Paul's other rants, he includes "sodomites" in his bestiaries of badness. Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, the dubious assumption that Paul misunderstood the story of Sodom, and therefore used this as a synonym for "homosexuals," it doesn't follow that "homosexuals are bad" is the main lesson that heterosexuals should be gleaning from such passages. But if you read such passages looking for any excuse to exempt yourself from the apostle's condemnation, this offers an ideal escape hatch. Preaching against self-love, ingratitude, love of money or love of pleasure can be a two-edged sword. But if you're heterosexual, and you're preaching against homosexuality, then you're safe. You've found the ideal target for self-exempting, self-justifying self-righteousness.

Judgment is for Other People.

-- Fred Clark (emphasis mine)

It's really best to read the the post "Other People" to understand the whole context of this passage. Personally, I think it's best to just read the whole thing because of the theological discussions as well as those on how horrible the writing is.

But here are a couple of gems from the comments section:

"But if you're heterosexual, and you're preaching against homosexuality, then you're safe."

I'm so glad to see this pointed out. Attending any of the serious social or spiritual concerns the bible tends to focus on involves, too often, both a conscious acceptance of our own failings as well as admonishments to change our own behavior. The bible's far too likely to tell us that we're too interested in wealth, not doing enough to help other people and overly judgmental, and nobody likes to hear that.

On the other hand, if we scrounge through the bible to find some obscure condemnation of a behavior we've never even wanted to commit, then suddenly our souls are clean, we don't need to change who we are and, best of all, there's someone else distinctly more 'sinful' than us we can point a finger at.

Of course, the bible speaks out far more fervently against this kind of judgmental lambasting than it does homosexuality, reminding us that condemnation and judgment are God's affairs, not ours, which renders this attitude about as 'christian' as whacking strangers for the KaliMa, but all shapes and sizes, right?

-- Michael "Vendor X" Heaney

If I highlighted everything I loved about this particular comment, the whole thing would be in bold. So I decided I'd better not.
 

Martin: The Bible is quite clear that homosexuality is not the reason the Sodom was destroyed, but rather it was they they didn't feed the poor or clothe the naked:

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

(Ezekiel 16: 49-50 NIV)

-- wintermute (emphasis mine)
 

I have to thank wintermute for supplying this verse. I'd never seen or heard that verse before, but thank you, God! I've finally found a definitive verse to quote the next time someone starts to say that the sin of Sodom was homosexuality.

Following this was an interesting discussion on why the sin of Sodom wasn't homosexuality--in addition to the verse supplied above--because of the social context as well as the context of some actions in the story. There was then a discussion on whether angels were or are sexless which--if they are--would render the possibility of homosexuality moot.

I'm going to stop quoting things here and just roll around on the floor in glee at the fact that I've found a religious discussion that hasn't descended into madness and stupidity and which actually has something I can sink my teeth into. It makes me want to pick up my Bible and just start reading.

 

Comments

[tehlobster.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's why I have his RSS feed on my flist. That way I can see exactly when a new post goes live. Though he's currently on Left Behind hiatus.

[darkauthor26.livejournal.com]

I'll have to figure out how to do that, because I've read a couple other posts by him that were non-Left Behind related and they were really interesting too. And it sucks about the hiatus, but I can understand. It's a lot of work, and I personally would have torn my eyeballs out a long time ago if I had undertaken something like this--especially since there's next to nothing that's redeemable about this series it seems.

[tehlobster.livejournal.com]

I dunno, the homoerotic subtext that's so close to the surface it's basically text is lots of fun. XD It's like, "HOW DO YOU NOT SEE THIS, L&J?" and then you giggle madly at the irony.

Also definitely the fans (of the dissection). And, of course, the fact that you can point to it and say, "That got published. So can I." My NaNo first draft is more coherent. Though admittedly this fact also makes me weep sometimes. :P

But yeah, what's it been, five, six years? Brave, brave soul.

[darkauthor26.livejournal.com]

I haven't really gotten far enough to have encountered the homoerotic subtext, I don't think. Buck is off somewhere investigating his friend's death and Rayford's daughter just got home. So mostly the characters have been wondering around in their own little vacuums at the moment. But I look forward to encountering that. Homoerotic subtext is always awesome especially when coupled with irony. XD

I hadn't thought of it that way, but that's a good point. And now that you mention it, it makes me feel better about my NaNo from last year.

It's six. I just checked the date of the first post and it was toward the end of 2003. So...damn. I gotta ditto the brave soul.

[elphies-galinda.livejournal.com]

I definitely have to read this. Good thing I have time off today! :D

But that comment about homosexuality not being the thing that brought down Sodom...that's interesting. It's particularly fascinating that Leviticus holds such power in what we can and can't do that everything related to it in other chapters is either looked over or forgotten. I've never seen read Ezekial (and I've never really read my Bible) so I think I should start doing so.

I'm only guessing here (and it's sort of off-topic), but maybe God said "thou shalt not lie with a man as you would another woman" because it was one of those time-out things. My parents used to take away something considered good in addition to something bad just to prove that our actions have higher consequences...or something like that. ...Anyway, I'll have to pull out my Bible and take a look at that. :)

[tehlobster.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, I was always taught the sin of Sodom was violation of hospitality/guest right, which was SUPER SUPER IMPORTANT to that culture. Lot offering his virgin daughters to the crowd to be raped instead of the angels was in line with what someone desperate to preserve that guest right might do in that situation.

[darkauthor26.livejournal.com]

That's also very true, and I'm sure that's part of what's meant by Sodom being arrogant and haughty. And that also, I believe, is why more churches need to include history lessons in their sermons and bible studies.

...I have the strange feeling that those two thoughts might not logically context to anyone other than me. >.>

[darkauthor26.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it is really interesting. I've also read that there's a story almost exactly like Sodom elsewhere in the Bible, but no one remembers that story because in the end the crowd raped and killed the woman that was offered to them thereby...what, proving their heterosexuality? I don't know.

I'm not proud to admit that I haven't really read my Bible either. I've read a couple of the books, but not as many as I should, and I barely remember what I have read. :/

LOL, I love the idea of homosexuality being taken away as a time out.

God: You've been a bad boy. I'm taking away your right to sleep with men. For all of you.

Man 1: You're taking away my hot buttsex? Nuuuuuuuuuuu!! Take my Nintendo instead! Please! T_T

Man 2: Nice work, asshole. Way to ruin it for the rest of us.

Man 3: This is why we can't have nice things. -__-