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<\/a>For a brief instant in that first book it seemed like this might lead to something interesting. During the initial panic of the Rapture, we meet Hattie again from Buck Williams\u2019 point of view and she\u2019s nothing like the home-wrecking hussy Rayford described. Buck actually seems impressed with her as she struggles to maintain order and her composure in the face of a disturbing, bewildering crisis.<\/p>\nIt seemed like the authors might be signaling that Rayford\u2019s perception of Hattie was unreliable \u2014 distorted, unfair. It seemed that maybe they were suggesting that there was more to this woman than what the narcissistic pilot was able to see.<\/p>\n
Alas, though, it soon became clear that such subtleties are not part of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins\u2019 approach to storytelling. In their view, it was Buck who was mistaken about Hattie when he first met her. He couldn\u2019t understand her, the authors suggest, because he did not yet know Rayford, and Hattie is defined by<\/em> Rayford. She is \u201cRayford\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\nThe multi-page reintroduction and review of Hattie\u2019s story here could have been a chance to shift away from this awful, reductionist portrayal of Hattie Durham. LaHaye and Jenkins might have softened that a bit in the retelling, or suggested perhaps that both Rayford and Hattie have grown since we first met them at the beginning of the story. But instead the authors double down, reinforcing the worst aspects of their Hattie-hatred by repeating it all in concentrated form. Once again we see that she is defined by Rayford Steele. She is the \u201cother woman,\u201d and nothing more.<\/p>\n
The scene starts with what I think is meant to be a piece of advice for godly married men. Rayford wakes up in his New Babylon palace quarters and prepares to meet Hattie for dinner:<\/p>\n
He certainly didn\u2019t intend to stay out long with Hattie Durham. He dressed casually, just barely presentable enough for a place like Global Bistro, where Hattie and Nicolae were often seen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
As a good Christian married man, it is imperative that Rayford not create the wrong impression for Hattie or for anyone else who may be watching. By appearing \u201cjust barely presentable,\u201d he clearly signals his disdain for her so no one gets the wrong idea and Rayford doesn\u2019t jeopardize his good Christian witness. It\u2019s fine that the entire world knows him to be a loyal servant of the Antichrist, but he can\u2019t have anyone suspecting he might be an adulterer.<\/p>\n
Due to his eavesdropping on the plane, Rayford knows Hattie is no longer officially the \u201cpersonal assistant\u201d of the Antichrist\/potentate, and he assumes this demotion is what she wants to talk with him about:<\/p>\n
He would have to let her play the story out with all her characteristic emotion and angst.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Re-encountering the condescension and contemptuousness toward Hattie in this section, my initial thought was that someone should have reminded LaHaye and Jenkins that women<\/em> would be reading their book too.<\/p>\nWomen, after all, make up a big chunk of the audience for Christian-brand fiction. Just from a marketing perspective, it seems like a bad idea to alienate so many potential readers with dismissive caricatures. Most of this section has the awkward tone of those \u201cyou know how women are\u201d jokes told at men\u2019s prayer breakfasts \u2014 the kind of thing some men say about women when they\u2019re sure that no women are listening. So why didn\u2019t the authors realize that women are<\/em> listening to this passage?<\/p>\nBut then it hit me. The authors haven\u2019t forgotten about their women readers. This passage is intended<\/em> for those readers. It\u2019s directed toward them. This whole survey and summary of Hattie\u2019s history is meant to be a lesson for the ladies.<\/p>\nHe would have to let her play the story out with all her characteristic emotion and angst. He didn\u2019t mind. He owed her that much. He still felt guilty about where she was, both geographically and in her life. It didn\u2019t seem that long ago that she had been the object of his lust.<\/p>\n
Rayford had never acted on it, of course, but it was Hattie whom he was thinking of the night of the Rapture. How could he have been so deaf, so blind, so out of touch with reality? A successful professional man, married more than 20 years with a college-age daughter and a 12-year-old son, daydreaming about his senior flight attendant and justifying it because his wife had been on a religious kick! He shook his head. Irene, the lovely little woman he had for so long taken for granted \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Write this down ladies. These are your options: Hattie or Irene. You can be an \u201cobject of lust\u201d or you can be a \u201clovely little woman.\u201d You can be a wanton floozy working for a living and leading good men astray, or you can be a mother and a homemaker who has her priorities straight.<\/p>\n
Hattie was 15 years his junior, and she was a knockout. Though they had enjoyed dinner together a few times and drinks several times, and despite the silent language of the body and the eyes, Rayford had never so much as touched her. It had not been beyond Hattie to grab his arm as she brushed past him or even to put her hands on his shoulders when speaking to him in the cockpit, but Rayford had somehow kept from letting things go further.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Remember, ladies: No touching!<\/em> Irene was allowed to touch Rayford, but that was only because she was prepared to bear his children.<\/p>\nThe responsibility to ensure that no touching occurs is entirely yours, ladies. That\u2019s why the authors can say that Rayford never touched Hattie even when she touched him. And why Rayford\u2019s \u201cnecking session\u201d at an office Christmas party doesn\u2019t count against his spotless record and his claim that he \u201cof course\u201d had \u201cnever acted\u201d in response to the wiles of these seductresses. (If Rayford had groped Hattie, you get the sense the authors would have described it by saying, \u201cIt had not been beyond Hattie to press her breast into his outstretched hand as she brushed past him.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Rayford reminisces a bit more about the awkward dinner at which he had attempted to convert Hattie to the Rapture Gospel after awkwardly attempting to apologize \u2014 and to demand\/receive an apology from her \u2014 for their prolonged non-affair of \u201cthe silent language of the body and the eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
And here is the final lesson for you ladies: If any untoward touching, glances or body language occurs, you must forgive<\/em> without qualification and you must apologize<\/em> for your role in provoking it. And you should probably also apologize to the man you\u2019re forgiving for allowing him to place himself in the uncomfortable position of having to ask for your forgiveness.<\/p>\nRayford and the authors again lament Hattie\u2019s failure to embrace the One True Gospel as it was presented to her in Rayford\u2019s \u201cearnest and focused\u201d proselytizing. And they again attribute her rejection of this gospel to her willful hardness of heart and not to the horrifying context of having to sit through a passive-aggressive sermon from a creepy old married guy.<\/p>\n
Less than two years later, Hattie was the personal assistant and lover of Nicolae Carpathia, the Antichrist. Rayford, Buck, and Chloe were believers in Christ.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So let that be a lesson to you all.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
But then it hit me. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins haven’t forgotten about their women readers. This passage is intended for those readers. It’s directed toward them. This whole survey and summary of Hattie Durham’s history is meant to be a lesson for the ladies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[238],"class_list":["post-15804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-left-behind","tag-left-behind"],"yoast_head":"\n
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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"NRA: A lesson for the ladies","description":"But then it hit me. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins haven't forgotten about their women readers. This passage is intended for those readers. It's directed toward them. 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<\/a>For a brief instant in that first book it seemed like this might lead to something interesting. During the initial panic of the Rapture, we meet Hattie again from Buck Williams\u2019 point of view and she\u2019s nothing like the home-wrecking hussy Rayford described. Buck actually seems impressed with her as she struggles to maintain order and her composure in the face of a disturbing, bewildering crisis.<\/p>\n