Why There Was Every Reason for Left Behind to be Completely Ignored

Yet sadly, it wasn't...

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Photo by Giulio Gabrieli on Unsplash

Dear reader,

When I edited this, I got a warning to say the article was too long for email. I’ve scaled it back to fit, but I’ve not had that before, so settle in for a lengthy one!

I want to be clear before I begin, that this is a critique of some ideas and the culture around those ideas, not individual people in the pews who hold to these ideas. They’ve been influenced by many voices. Powerbrokers who wield influence are worth calling out, but for this I want to make sure it’s understood that it’s the ideas and the associated culture that I have an issue with.

Across much of the 2000s I hosted a weekly Sunday night talkback show (The Greenroom) on Christian radio (Life FM). I’m really grateful for that time, and the chance I was given. It was a significant part of making me, and giving me the public voice that I have. During that time, among many and varied topics I found myself consistently wrangling with a number of ideas and movements. One of them was the Left Behind series of books that were published from 1995-2007, with the movie of the first book being released in 2000.

The fact that I found myself denouncing it regularly is something that still dismays me since there was every reason for it to have been completely ignored when the first book came out. I want to dive into that here. Ultimately, it’s about the highly questionable theology behind it.