Before Left Behind, before LaHaye and Jenkins, there was Hal Lindsey.
Lindsey wrote some of the best-selling books of the 1970s — titles like There's a New World Coming, The Late Great Planet Earth and The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon.
That last title, understandably, has been out of print for about 13 years.
Lindsey didn't write novels — although I don't think his books qualify as "nonfiction" either. But he had as much influence and popularity in his day as LaHaye and Jenkins enjoy now. (His publishers, hoping to reclaim some of that former glory from his literary heirs, have redesigned his books so that the covers of the new editions look like the covers of the Left Behind series.)
To really understand the popular strain of premillennial dispensationalism that L&J are exploiting, you need to read Hal Lindsey.
Fortunately, that won't require you to spend a great deal of time or money, because the Spire Comics adaptation of There's a New World Coming can be found online (warning: very large .pdf file).
Go. Read. Enjoy. Marvel at passages like this:
Well, we've read the book of Revelation — and here are today's headlines — it all fits together perfectly!!!
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