I love that membership in the Pan-Con Club (fremder!) is something that Rayford flaunts like a hard-earned trophy. "He's with us," he says. Don't worry, my young friend, I have pull. Stick with me and I can get you into traveler's lounges at airports all over the country. I'd bet he's the same way with his membership in the Columbia Record House. ("I know people, my friend. I can get you eight CDs for a penny.") Read more

This could work if it were intended as over-the-top satire, but that satire would have to be front-and-center as the dominant theme. It would have to be a story about the human capacity for epic denial -- a story about the way people can be so profoundly narcissistic that they could literally stroll past the burning wreckage of an airplane, side-stepping charred bodies without the slightest hesitation and tuning out the cries of the injured as though they didn't even exist. Read more

If it seems I'm being picky here, singling out their neglect of UNICEF, note that they also never explore what's going on with parents, grandparents, schools, day-care centers, nurseries, orphanages, toy stores or Nickelodeon. Even New Hope Village Church hasn't given any thought to what it means to have church without Sunday school. The only thought the authors give to the ramifications of this sudden childlessness is to note that abortion clinics would be out of work. Read more

Come to think of it, an insurance investigator might have made a far more interesting protagonist in our post-Rapture setting -- think Edward G. Robinson in "Double Indemnity." Such a character would have to set about getting to the bottom of things, investigating what happened, what caused this, who or what is to blame. (The phrase "act of God" would be much discussed.) Read more

The effect here is like watching the beginning of a bad horror movie, where the honeymooners whose car has broken down are happy and relieved to spot a light up ahead in what they don't seem to notice is an incredibly creepy looking mansion. The filmmakers seem to intend such scenes to be suspenseful, but the audience instead is usually thinking that the young couple are idiots for seeking assistance from such an obviously malevolent source. Instead of thinking "Oh no! They're heading into danger unawares!" the audience is thinking "That does it, these morons deserve whatever happens to them in there." Read more

Billings doesn't care about the resurrection of the dead. He's hoping for something he thinks would be even better -- not dying at all. Thus where the majority of Christians for 2,000 years read Paul as saying "We shall not all SLEEP, but we will all be CHANGED," Billings and L&J read Paul as saying "We shall not ALL sleep, but WE will all be changed." Read more

The distinction between dead and dead-like is immaterial. It does not matter to Rayford and it does not matter to Irene and Raymie. But it is desperately important to LaHaye and Jenkins. It is central to the appeal of their Rapture theory. "Sinners die, but Christians fly" is the core of what they believe. Read more