Left Behind: Chapter 12
Before the news of his death gets out, Buck reaches out to his family and colleagues. As you might have imagined from our short time with Buck and/or the typical quality of writing in Left Behind, Buck does not handle this particularly tactfully.
“I’m really sorry about this, Dad, but you’re going to head I was killed in some sort of a car bombing, terrorist attack, that kind of thing.”
Granted, I’m not sure what a tactful way to bring up that you had to fake your death would look like, exactly, but it’s probably not that.
“Your sister-in-law and niece and nephew’s memorial services are tomorrow evening,” Mr. Williams said.
“Oh, no. Dad, it would really be obvious if I showed up there. I’m sorry. Tell Jeff how really sorry I am.”
I love how somehow neither of them seem like real people in this conversation. “Powerful men are trying to kill you and you had to fake your death? But you’re supposed to be here this weekend!” “Daaaaaaad, I can’t! Tell my brother I’m super sorry about his dead family, k?”
Meanwhile, Rayford watches the pastor’s DVD. The book is still trying to convince us that Ray is totally struggling with this whole God thing, even though he’s been 100% on board since like chapter two.
It was time to move beyond being a critic, an analyst never satisfied with the evidence. The proof was before him: the empty chairs, the lonely bed, the hole in his heart. There was only one course of action. He punched the play button.
Because just in case roughly a dozen chapters of seeing Ray struggled with this wasn’t enough, what if we sweetened the deal with a dramatic scene of him… pressing a play button on a DVD player!!!
He wanted to study, to pray, to be sure. But wasn’t that just insurance? Could he be more sure?
I feel like “Could he be more sure?” is my own sarcastic feedback on how insanely quickly he came around to this major revelation, suddenly here in the book.
Ariel and I have both remarked on how odd it is that things seem pretty much back to normal already. The Rapture only happened a few days ago and airlines are working again (Buck had no problem just hopping on last minute flights to London, to Frankfurt, to New York, etc). Apparently Left Behind has also just realized that this is a little odd.
The news was full of crime, looting, people taking advantage of the chaos. People were being shot, maimed, raped, killed. The roadways were more dangerous than ever.
…really? Because we’ve seen exactly zero of this. In fact, given all the walking around Manhattan – of all places – Buck did with not only no issues, but finding free bikes and shit, I’d say we’ve only seen the opposite of what’s in this news report. Which kind of makes me wonder who this book is for, because if it’s not interested in anything more more than briefly mentioning that Biblical endtimes shit is going down, why wouldn’t I just read… you know… the Bible?
It had become an ugly world overnight
This statement is true for more reasons than the book realizes.
As for the pastor’s DVD, it is 100% exactly what you would expect an independently made DVD from a local church would be:
“That you are watching indicates you have been left behind. You are no doubt stunned, shocked, afraid, and remorseful. I would like you to consider what I have to say here as instructions for life following Christ’s rapture of his church. […] Ask yourself, how did he know? Here’s how, from 1 Corinthians 15:51-57.”
The screen began to scroll with the passage of Scripture.
The pastor kicks things off with the same thing Left Behind has been rehashing over and over again, which is 1) the rapture happened, and 2) whoaaaaa. Apparently Left Behind is very concerned that we might not have picked up on that. It next moves on from covering things that the entire book has already been about to things that none of the book has ever been about:
“You may have already found that martial law is in effect in many places, emergency measures trying to keep evil elements from looting and fighting over the spoils of what is left.”
Whoa! That’s exactly what we were told is apparently happening about four pages ago! Spooky!
“Governments will tumble and there will be international disorder. You may wonder why this has happened. Some believe this is the judgment of God on an ungodly world. Actually, that is to come later.”
“In the meantime, please enjoy this book where people mostly complain about airplanes.”
Left Behind finally starts to hint at what this story will eventually come to be about.
“Strange as this may sound to you, this is God’s final effort to get the attention of every person who has ignored or rejected him. He is allowing now a vast period of trial and tribulation to come to you who remain.”
Although the writing continues to be… let’s say redundant.
“Bible prophecy is history written in advance.”
And also somewhat unbelievably convenient.
“Also, Scripture indicates that there will be a great lie, announced with the help of the media and perpetrated by a self-styled world leader. […] Let me warn you personally to beware of such a leader of humanity who may emerge from Europe.”
Wait, seriously? How the fuck would he know about Europe, specifically?
“He will turn out to be a great deceiver who will step forward with signs and wonders that will be so impressive that many will believe he is of God. […] This person is known in the Bible as Antichrist.”
We’ve never even seen Carpathia, and Left Behind has already spelled out the twist that he’s the antichrist. I’m not saying that this necessarily had to be a twist, if the narrative didn’t want to go that way, but this is a lot of narrative focus on someone we’re only being told exists.
“If you accept God’s message of salvation, his Holy Spirit will come in unto you and make you spiritually born anew. You don’t need to understand all this theologically.”
Wait, why? I feel like this thing we were just told we don’t have to worry about is exactly what Ray’s personal challenge is in this plot. Does this one make sense to anyone with a better grasp on Christianity than I do? Because it sort of sounds like if he doesn’t have to actually understand the theology of accepting God, then Ray’s pretty much good to go now. I mean, there’s a whole other scene where Rayford goes to church, thinks its “the most moving moment of his life”, and even the new pastor wants to be his BFF. Seriously, how is there more story for Rayford at this point? His character development kinda seems 100% done already.
Rayford also gets on the phone with Hattie, who gives him the news that Buck has been killed in a car bombing. Rayford, of course, has never met Buck, and only sort of cares about him. Much like us.
Meanwhile, the not-actually-dead Buck gets back to New York and gets on the phone with his editor, and the plot gets even more weirdly convenient.
“Stay right where you are, Buck, you renegade. Do you know who wants to talk with you?”
“I couldn’t guess.”
“Nicolae Carpathia himself.”
“Yeah, right.”
What’s funny is that that was my reaction too.
Buck hung up and clapped. This is too good to be true, he thought.
“A shadowy world-wide conspiracy has infiltrated the British police force and tried to have me killed, but surely a phone call to my only remaining family won’t hurt.”
-the decoy protagonist at the beginning of a Bourne movie
“You don’t need to understand all this theologically.”
After all the blatant misogyny of this series, hearing a man tell another man “Don’t worry your pretty little head over it” is actually refreshing. I think it’s also a handwave to all those heathen non-believers who point out how all this “Bible prophecy” is made up out of whole cloth. “Of COURSE you don’t understand it! You just need to believe what I’m telling you
and probably make a generous donation to my church!”I’m not super Christian either (I pray and I believe there’s something spiritually bigger than humans out there but I don’t go to church except special occasions.) However, everything in my shaky memory sounds like Rayford’s down with the Lord now.
I do NOT remember hearing either from Lutheran Sunday School/Confirmation/bible summer camp or from my Baptist friend’s youth group that you automatically have to understand the theology of accepting the Lord into your heart/soul to make your acceptance valid.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
FWIW, I tried googling “accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior” and this was the first result. Most of the other links I clicked on the first page don’t talk about theology either, just sincere acceptance.
http://www.intouch.org/read/content/how-do-i-accept-jesus-as-my-savior
This wikihow link does appear to require at least some understanding of the theology involved, however. So maybe it’s a church-by-church thing?
http://www.wikihow.com/Accept-Christ-As-Your-Savior
“Understanding the theology” is a delightfully vague phrase that could mean any number of things. It puts me in the mind of how some denominations baptize at birth vs. baptism after confirmation or similar that’s a conscious choice on the part of the believer. However, IMO, “you don’t need to understand this theologically” coming from this particular source sounds more like “blindly follow my lead unquestioningly” rather than assuring people that they don’t need to attend seminary to be a true follower of Christ.
“It had become an ugly world overnight”
I’m starting to think that the writer has forgotten that there are big parts of the world where Christianity isn’t the main religion. Sure, if all the children suddenly were gone people would panic, but there would still be more than enough people around to keep the peace and considering there are still intercontinental passenger flights I there cannot be that much chaos going on.
If only a specific group of Christians has been taken, then most of Europe might be alright as well. It would be interessting if the pope turned up in this book, or the leader of the Orthodox church, or any other religious leader.
Jews have been mentioned multiple times, but aside from Israel being better of than normal I don’t understand there role in this yet. I have not read the Torah, but if I remember correctly they are waiting for the Messiah to appear and when he comes he will help the Jews and create peace. The detailed description of the apocalypse that the writer seems to use for his book is only in the New Testament of the bible.
Unless the Jews are going to think that the Antichrist is the Messiah, in which case I’m going to track down a copy of the book, just so I can throw it across my room. Then I’m going to cry about the fact that books like this get sold.
The pope got raptured despite being catholic. Or maybe better: he was never catholic, but believed in a different brand of Christianity. Honestly, I have no clue why the authors included this idiotic “plottwist”. The Jews in these books are either unrepentant sinners who after 2000 years still deny the wrongness of their ways or they become Christians.
The “don’t worry about theology”-part is highly problematic for me. Maybe it wasn’t meant this way, but as it appears here to me (and seems to be confirmed by later chapters) what Father Gone-with-the-wind says is that you don’t need to understand God as long as you worship him in the correct way and go through the motions. For me, as someone who thinks that a personal relationship to God – or whoever your spiritually guiding entity/ies may be – is the most important part of, well, spirituality, this appears extremely bland and soulless.
But, ah, well, Rayford is just some minutes away from learning the secret real-true-Christians-handshake and that’s what’s important for these books.
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I think this story would have been absolutely fascinating from the prospective of a Christian church that didn’t get the rules of the true God completely right. Can you imagine how pissed they’d be? Not s single person in their congregation raptured but Bill’s church down the street- no ones left. Dammit! I knew we should have gone to Bill’s church!
Also on the subject of understanding theology, I could be wrong of course because I’m not a religious person myself. But I think I remember sitting in on a youth group discussion about faith. And how actually meeting God or being fully aware of God would actually take away your faith and make you less Christian. My cousin told me once she didn’t want to study theology because she’d risk her faith. And while that certainly could be true, blindly following something you don’t understand always seemed kinda dumb to me.
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