Are you ready (to buy a T-shirt)?

“I think this is what you call The Singularity,” Laura Turner writes:

Turner is as charitable and generous as possible:

I don’t think Robertson (or most people associated with the film, for example) mean to encourage a kind of schlocky materialism when they talk about the Left Behind merch. I think we’ve been swimming in these waters for so long as a culture that Christians don’t see how we have taken a wrong turn sometimes, how we’ve mistaken cultural influence for actual power, how we’ve conflated empire and kingdom. There are so many wonderful things to spend our money on, and great films and good clothing can fall under that umbrella. But this, unfortunately, is neither.

That’s really the nicest possible thing to say here — that these folks are encouraging “a kind of schlocky materialism” but doing so unintentionally. But if that’s the case, though, what else have they got? What is it they’re intending to do?

Well, they’re also intending to equip real, true Christians to spread the gospel by donning their stylish new witnessing tools, of course.

See, here’s the plan: you put on your spiffy new Left Behind T-shirt (just $18.99 + $6 shipping) and matching baseball cap with the lofted embroidery (also $18.99) —

— and everyone will see that question, “Are You Ready?” and be intrigued.

They’ll come up to you — friends, relatives, neighbors, strangers on the bus, all the popular kids at your school — and they’ll ask you, “Ready for what?”

And then you can share the gospel with them. You can answer, “Ready for the day that Jesus takes away all the righteous in the Rapture, leaving the rest of you behind for seven years of torment and anguish before you’re all slaughtered and damned to an eternity of conscious torture in Hell.”

“Please go on,” they’ll say. “Tell me more … is there some way I can escape this horrifying fate?”

And then you can teach them to pray the magic prayer. And then, after they say “In Jesus name, Amen” you can give them the link to this website — www.kerusso.com/leftbehind/products — and they’ll be able to buy their own T-shirts, hats, silicon wristbands, and 16-oz., stainless steel-lined, BPA-free tumblers with powerful graphics and messaging.

This officially licensed Left Behind™ witnessing merchandise will also set you apart from those infidels and impostors heading out tonight to go see The Remaining — the competing post-Rapture horror movie from Sony’s Affirm Pictures studios.

Matthew Hagee says The Remaining’s graphic, PG-13 depiction of the Great Tribulation is bound to scare the unsaved right into Heaven:

Or, at least, it will scare them into the Republican Party — which Matt Hagee says is the same thing.

This will be a long weekend at the movies for loyal evangelical consumers, as The Identical — “an evangelical Elvis parable” also opens tonight. (Good Christians in line to see The Remaining or The Identical will have the chance to look disapprovingly over at the bad Christians who are instead going to see Stuart Murdoch’s directorial debut, God Help the Girl.)