Left Behind, pp. 4-5 Left Behind has been praised by some as an "evangelistic" book, but it's not. Although the book does attempt to scare people into conversion, that is secondary. The authors' real message for those they regard as unsaved is to thumb their nose and do a little victory dance. "You just wait until Jesus gets back and proves we were right and you were wrong. Then we'll see who's laughing at who." Not the most winsome approach... Read more
I stumbled into a time warp this weekend over in the comments section at Calpundit. In this post Kevin Drum merely echoed words spoken by every bar band and lounge act in America every night: "Hey folks, take care of your waitresses and bartenders." He was responding to the effort by some chain McRestaurants to cut their costs by trimming the already-sub-minimum-wages they pay tipped employees. Scrolling through the comments to Kevin's post, I felt like Marty McFly, stumbling out... Read more
Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Tyndale House Publishers, 1995. Pages 1-3. The first words of Left Behind are "Rayford Steele," the protagonist's name. It sounds like a porn star's name — and in a sense it is. The Left Behind series is dispensational porno, but it's more than that. One of the most disturbing things about this book is the way LaHaye and Jenkins portray men, women and the... Read more
The apocalyptic heresies rampant in American evangelicalism are more popular than ever. It's easy to dismiss these loopy ideas as a lunatic fringe, but that would be a mistake. The widespread popularity of this End Times mania has very real and very dangerous consequences, for America and for the church. ("Premillennial dispensationalism" — the technical terms for what these prophecy freaks teach — teaches that the Sermon on the Mount does not apply to Christians living today. It also undermines... Read more
The FBI had better find a pile of corpses in John Street's crawl space. Or a massive cache of heroin and shoulder-launched surface-to-air-missiles. Or a graduation certificate from an al-Qaida training camp. Or something else really, really, really bad. Because if the FBI doesn't produce some evidence of staggering corruption after raiding and bugging the Philadelphia mayor's offices in the weeks before an election, then this whole fiasco amounts to evidence of staggering corruption in the FBI itself. The only... Read more
Nelson Mandela, like George Washington, is a statesman for the ages. Both men exhibited extraordinary courage and wisdom, and each united his country with leadership. But the greatest thing either man did was to leave office at the end of his term. Both Washington and Mandela could easily have won re-election again and again, holding on to power until the end of their lives. They chose not to, and that choice was their greatest legacy. The rioting in Azerbaijan following... Read more
Nathanael West was born 100 years ago today. West gave us Miss Lonelyhearts — a heartbreaking story about a heartbroken man. West also wrote The Day of the Locust — the book that introduced the name "Homer Simpson." (Oh, and Happy Birthday to Arthur Miller too.) Read more
Atrios points out this delightfully absurd story from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Concerned about the appearance of disarray and feuding within his administration as well as growing resistance to his policies in Iraq, President Bush — living up to his recent declaration that he is in charge — told his top officials to "stop the leaks" to the media, or else. News of Bush's order leaked almost immediately. Bush told his senior aides Tuesday that he "didn't want to see any... Read more
Has there ever been a public figure more fearful of the public than Vice President Dick Cheney? The man is a coward. Sure, he's willing to speak his mind — but only if he is in front of a carefully screened audience. And even then this timid man refuses to allow any questions to be asked. Is he really so frightened of getting tough, probing questions from his fellow ideologues at the Heritage Foundation? And when he's delivering a speech... Read more
Today is the birthday of Oscar Wilde — playwright, novelist and author of a sizeable chunk of any worthwhile dictionary of quotations. It's a credit to Wilde's genius that his words continue to provide laughter and joy when his own life was marked by the tragedy of a monumental love that ended in betrayal. I was glad to see Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray honored in The Observer's offbeat list of the 100 greatest novels of all time. (Such... Read more
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