{"id":13749,"date":"2013-03-30T09:10:05","date_gmt":"2013-03-30T13:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=13749"},"modified":"2013-03-30T09:10:05","modified_gmt":"2013-03-30T13:10:05","slug":"left-behind-in-a-nutshell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/03\/left-behind-in-a-nutshell.html","title":{"rendered":"Left Behind in a Nutshell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A quote from the latest post in Fred Clark\u2019s ongoing review of the Left Behind series<\/a> gets at the heart of his evaluation:<\/p>\n

This is a pattern in these books. \"\"<\/a>\"\"We\u2019re\u00a0told<\/em>\u00a0that Buck Williams is a master journalist, but since the authors couldn\u2019t be bothered to learn what good journalism looks like, we\u2019re\u00a0shown<\/em>\u00a0that Buck is a clumsy hack (\u201clike saying the Great Wall of China is long\u201d). We\u2019re\u00a0told<\/em>\u00a0that Nicolae is a great orator, but since the authors couldn\u2019t be bothered to learn what constitutes good oratory, we\u2019re\u00a0shown<\/em>\u00a0that Nicolae is a droning bore (\u201cAfghanistan, Albania \u2026\u201d).<\/p>\n

Worst of all, we\u2019re\u00a0told<\/em>\u00a0that Buck, Rayford, Bruce, Chloe and Tsion are devout disciples of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

And the pattern holds.<\/p>\n

The authors clearly could not be bothered to learn what real Christian discipleship looks like, and so while theytell<\/em>\u00a0us that these characters are good, Christ-like saints, what they\u00a0show<\/em>\u00a0us, instead, is a bunch of self-centered, oblivious, obnoxious sociopaths who hold all of their neighbors in contempt.<\/p>\n

Here again the authors try to lazily bluff their way through, figuring it won\u2019t much matter if they don\u2019t know the first thing about the subject because most readers probably won\u2019t know enough to tell when they\u2019re getting it wrong.<\/p>\n

I cannot claim to be an expert or to have mastered Christian discipleship any more than I could claim to have mastered journalism or oratory or political stagecraft. But I\u2019ve\u00a0seen<\/em>\u00a0all of those things done well and I\u2019ve seen all of them done poorly. And even if I\u2019m not an expert, I\u2019ve learned enough about them to recognize the difference. I suspect that\u2019s true for most readers of these books. So when the authors bluff and bluster, telling us that we\u2019re seeing mastery while showing us, instead, the clumsy posturing of ignorant amateurs, I don\u2019t think most readers are convinced. At least, I\u00a0hope<\/em>\u00a0not.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click through to read the rest<\/a>, which suggests that the authors<\/a>\"\" struggle not only to make their characters realistic Christians and orators but even realistic human beings.<\/p>\n

The reason is not just the authors\u2019 ability as writers, but because their approach to Revelation cuts so much against the grain of the book, and ignores so much of the evidence regarding what the book means and is, that it is impossible to turn it into a realistic story with realistic characters.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A quote from the latest post in Fred Clark\u2019s ongoing review of the Left Behind series gets at the heart of his evaluation: This is a pattern in these books. We\u2019re\u00a0told\u00a0that Buck Williams is a master journalist, but since the authors couldn\u2019t be bothered to learn what good journalism looks like, we\u2019re\u00a0shown\u00a0that Buck is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,135,81],"tags":[1312,1727,3592,5309,5660,6444,8126,10013,10293,12607,12609],"class_list":["post-13749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-eschatology-theology","category-revelation-bible","tag-book-review","tag-characters","tag-fred-clark","tag-interpretation","tag-jerry-b-jenkins","tag-left-behind","tag-nicolae","tag-realism","tag-revelation","tag-tim-la-haye","tag-tim-lahaye"],"yoast_head":"\nLeft Behind in a Nutshell<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A quote from the latest post in Fred Clark's ongoing review of the Left Behind series gets at the heart of his evaluation: This is a pattern in these\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/03\/left-behind-in-a-nutshell.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Left Behind in a Nutshell\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A quote from the latest post in Fred Clark's ongoing review of the Left Behind series gets at the heart of his evaluation: This is a pattern in these\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/03\/left-behind-in-a-nutshell.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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