{"id":25638,"date":"2014-12-02T17:11:41","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T22:11:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=25638"},"modified":"2014-12-02T17:11:41","modified_gmt":"2014-12-02T22:11:41","slug":"nra-rayford-the-spy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/12\/02\/nra-rayford-the-spy\/","title":{"rendered":"NRA: Rayford the Spy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist;<\/em> pp. 285-287<\/strong><\/p>\n

After several pages discussing Rayford Steele\u2019s \u201ccrisis of conscience\u201d over his happy remarriage, we learn that something else is bothering our hero:<\/p>\n

Every fiber of his being fought against his role as pilot for Nicolae Carpathia. Everything he had read, studied, and learned under Bruce Barnes\u2019s tutelage had convinced him and the other members of the Tribulation Force, as well as the congregation at New Hope, that Carpathia himself was the Antichrist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Beyond Bruce\u2019s study of \u201cBible prophecy\u201d and his research in the footnotes of his Scofield Reference Bible, there may also be other reasons to suspect \u201cthat Carpathia himself was the Antichrist.\u201d Like maybe the way he took over the entire planet\u00a0as the unchecked dictator of a one-world government. Nicolae\u2019s\u00a0recent nuclear slaughter of tens of millions of civilians might\u00a0also, perhaps, be grounds for suspicion.<\/p>\n

There were advantages to believers to have Rayford in the position he found himself. \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The authors keep telling us this, but we have yet to see\u00a0what any of these supposed advantages might be. Our twin protagonists both accepted high-paying jobs on Satan\u2019s payroll, going to work directly for the Antichrist himself. But while they and the authors repeatedly insist that they\u2019re doing so as secret agents of the Tribulation Force, neither of them has done anything to suggest that they are anything other than loyal, faithful servants of their evil employer. They haven\u2019t collected any intelligence, attempted any sabotage, or done much of anything else that would undermine or hinder Nicolae\u2019s devilish agenda.<\/p>\n

\"Kwai\"<\/a>Well, Buck Williams keeps abusing his Antichrist-funded Global Weekly<\/em> expense account \u2014 but that\u2019s about the extent of their rebellion.<\/p>\n

Having our heros working in the Antichrist\u2019s inner-circle serves a useful narrative<\/em> function, allowing Jerry Jenkins to recount Nicolae\u2019s actions through the eyes of his two main protagonists. But while that gives readers a closer look at the machinations of this evil ruler, it also has the unfortunate side effect of making our two heros complicit<\/em> in the Antichrist\u2019s evil deeds. The authors\u2019 repeated insistence that this complicity is \u201cGod\u2019s will\u201d* doesn\u2019t really change that.<\/p>\n

Sure, after an excruciating-to-read session of groaning, incoherent prayer, Bruce and Rayford both came to believe that it was \u201cGod\u2019s will\u201d for Rayford to become the Antichrist\u2019s personal pilot, but how exactly is it that Rayford is supposed to be serving God by serving Nicolae? What \u201cadvantages to believers\u201d is\u00a0Rayford supposedly securing? I just don\u2019t see any.<\/p>\n

What it seems like, to me, is that Rayford and Buck and the authors are all mixed up about which classic World War II movie they\u2019re re-enacting. They all seem to imagine themselves as\u00a0characters in The Great Escape<\/em> \u2014 diligently and ingeniously working to sabotage the Nazi war machine at every opportunity. But their actions are more like something from The Bridge on the River Kwai.<\/em> Like Alec Guinness in that movie, they\u2019ve fully\u00a0embraced their role as collaborators, faithfully serving their imperial master while delusionally imagining they have some nobler purpose.<\/p>\n

Jenkins hints here that the \u201cadvantages\u201d of Rayford\u2019s service to the Antichrist might have something to do with the impending \u201cMark of the Beast\u201d:<\/p>\n

Rayford would have to choose his timing carefully. Someday, according to Bruce\u2019s teaching, to merely have the right to buy and sell, citizens of the Global Community would have to take the \u201cmark of the beast.\u201d No one knew exactly what form this would take, but the Bible indicated it would be a mark on the forehead or on the hand. There would be no faking. Those who took the mark could never repent of it. They would be lost forever. Those who did not take the mark would have to live in hiding, their lives worth nothing to the Global Community.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But if that\u2019s the purpose of Rayford\u2019s secret mission into the Antichrist\u2019s inner-circle, it\u2019s still unclear just what it is he\u2019s doing about it.\u00a0Apart from occasionally eavesdropping via the airplane\u2019s intercom system, he hasn\u2019t tried to learn anything more about the details of Nicolae\u2019s plans for the future \u2014 how the mark will be applied and administered, or how he and his fellow Christians might be able to avoid it.<\/p>\n

It seems like Rayford\u2019s\u00a0time would\u00a0have been better spent helping to create stockpiles of necessities and to set\u00a0up the black markets and underground networks that un-marked \u201ctribulation saints\u201d will eventually require to survive.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a brief moment here where it at first seems that Rayford Steele\u2019s \u201ccrisis of conscience\u201d might include his recent role in\u00a0the \u201cmost\u00a0heinous, horrible atrocities\u201d carried out by his boss. That\u2019s a phrase he actually uses: \u201cmost heinous, horrible atrocities.\u201d Rayford\u00a0even, briefly,\u00a0semi-acknowledges his own collaboration in those atrocities, but he does so only in passing \u2014 considering only his own ability to cope with his proximity to such horrors. It\u2019s an astonishing passage:<\/p>\n

Rayford felt as if he had undergone sensory overload. Any one of the traumas he had witnessed since the day the war broke out might have institutionalized a normal man during normal times. Now, it seemed, Rayford had to take everything in stride. The most heinous, horrible atrocities were part of daily life. World War III had erupted, Rayford had discovered one of his dearest friends dead, and he had heard Nicolae Carpathia give the word to destroy major cities and then announce his grief and disappointment on international television.<\/p>\n

Rayford shook his head. He had done his job, flown his new plane, landed it thrice with Carpathia on board, had gone to dinner with an old friend, gone to bed, had several phone conversations, rose, read his paper, and was now ready to blithely fly home to his family. What kind of a crazy world had this become?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rayford thinks of himself as a mere bystander \u2014 as though being a bystander to atrocities and mass-murder\u00a0were exculpatory and not a harsh indictment. He dismisses his own role in all of this by simply saying \u201cHe had done his job\u201d \u2014 he was just following orders. And despite describing his own complacency in devastating detail, he seems to think this is just evidence of his ability to \u201ctake everything in stride.\u201d<\/p>\n

That second paragraph above, with its litany of mundane, banal behavior, reads like something I might have written as a criticism of these books and their heroes.\u00a0But I don\u2019t think the authors or Rayford mean any of that as criticism \u2014 not even when they tell us that he \u201cwas now ready to blithely fly home to his family.\u201d They don\u2019t seem to realize that \u201cblithely\u201d conveys judgment<\/em> \u2014 that it refers to an improper<\/em> lack of concern.<\/p>\n

These\u00a0two paragraphs can serve as\u00a0a metaphor for, or a summary of, the kind of religion that Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins are advocating in these books. It\u2019s a faith that drives you\u00a0to work for the emperor, faithfully and capably obeying everything the empire commands\u00a0while enjoying the prestige and paychecks that come with such work. Yet at the same time it encourages you to imagine yourself\u00a0as a rebellious and counter-cultural. So even though it leads you into complicity with \u201chorrible atrocities,\u201d you\u2019ll be able to blithely take it all in stride.<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

* The question of \u201cGod\u2019s will\u201d in all of this only complicates matters further. This whole \u201cEnd Times\u201d drama is all meticulously pre-scripted and dictated by \u201cprophecy.\u201d It\u2019s all<\/em> \u201cGod\u2019s will.\u201d The Antichrist\u2019s evil agenda is thus a sub-set of God\u2019s divine agenda for the End Times. That means interfering with the Antichrist\u2019s Antichristery would seem to be interfering with God\u2019s Plan.<\/p>\n

Once we recognize this \u2014 that the Antichrist\u2019s actions and agenda are part of God\u2019s Plan \u2014 then Rayford\u2019s active role in facilitating the Antichrist\u2019s work starts to make a weird kind of sense. The prophecy says the Antichrist will unleash war on the world, so as an obedient Christian, Rayford Steele helps make that happen by piloting the command center from which the Antichrist wages that war. The prophecy says the Antichrist will seduce the world with propaganda and lies, so as an obedient Christian, Buck Williams helps to make that happen by publishing that propaganda and propagating those lies.<\/p>\n

What if it turns out that all<\/em> of the Antichrist\u2019s minions are just like Buck and Rayford? It could be like The Man Who Was Thursday,<\/em> when the undercover policeman who has infiltrated the secret council of anarchists suddenly realizes that all of the other supposed anarchists are also<\/em> undercover policemen. Maybe even Nicolae himself is, secretly, a LaHaye-ite believer who has simply managed to infiltrate the One World Government of the Beast at a slightly higher level than Buck and Rayford were able\u00a0to do. Maybe Lucifer\u2019s fall was just a cover story. Maybe, like Buck and Rayford, all<\/em> of the villains in this story are really\u00a0heroes in disguise.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These two paragraphs can serve as a metaphor for, or a summary of, the kind of religion that Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins are advocating in these books. It’s a faith that drives you to work for the emperor, faithfully and capably obeying everything the empire commands while enjoying the prestige and paychecks that come with such work. Yet at the same time it encourages you to imagine yourself as a rebellious and counter-cultural. So even though it leads you into complicity with “horrible atrocities,” you’ll be able to blithely take it all in stride.<\/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-25638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-left-behind","tag-left-behind"],"yoast_head":"\nNRA: Rayford the Spy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"These two paragraphs can serve as a metaphor for, or a summary of, the kind of religion that Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins are advocating in these books. It's a faith that drives you to work for the emperor, faithfully and capably obeying everything the empire commands while enjoying the prestige and paychecks that come with such work. Yet at the same time it encourages you to imagine yourself as a rebellious and counter-cultural. 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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: Rayford the Spy","description":"These two paragraphs can serve as a metaphor for, or a summary of, the kind of religion that Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins are advocating in these books. It's a faith that drives you to work for the emperor, faithfully and capably obeying everything the empire commands while enjoying the prestige and paychecks that come with such work. 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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. 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