{"id":35886,"date":"2017-12-29T09:35:33","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T14:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=35886"},"modified":"2017-12-29T17:56:53","modified_gmt":"2017-12-29T22:56:53","slug":"lbcf-no-166-heebie-jeebies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2017\/12\/29\/lbcf-no-166-heebie-jeebies\/","title":{"rendered":"LBCF, No. 166: ‘Heebie-jeebies’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Originally posted June 2, 2008.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read this entire series, for free, via the convenient\u00a0Left Behind Index<\/a>. This post is also part of the ebook collection\u00a0The Anti-Christ Handbook: Volume 1<\/a>, available on Amazon for just $2.99. <\/em>Subliminal advertisement<\/a>.\u00a0Volume 2 of The Anti-Christ Handbook<\/a>, completing all the posts on the first Left Behind book, is also now available.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Left Behind,<\/i>\u00a0pp. 440-442<\/b><\/p>\n

Buck felt more alone than ever on the flight home. He was in coach on a full plane, but he knew no one. He read several sections from the Bible Bruce had given him and had marked for him, prompting the woman next to him to ask questions. He answered in such a way that she could tell he was not in the mood for conversation.* He didn\u2019t want to be rude, but neither did he want to mislead anyone with his limited knowledge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why the brush-off? His dodging of this woman\u2019s questions would seem to be, from the authors\u2019 own perspective, a shirking of responsibility. I realize that Buck is not yet a fully certified convert, but he has already decided that the stuff he\u2019s reading there is the Most Important Thing. When someone asks you a direct question about the Most Important Thing, it seems cruel not to tell them what you know, even if your answers are only partial or limited (as opposed to having\u00a0un<\/i>-limited knowledge, which the authors seem to suggest is a possibility).<\/p>\n

So here is this poor woman. She witnessed the Israel miracle and then The Event, and she\u2019s started putting two and two together. Now she\u2019s desperate for answers and she turns to Buck Williams. He\u2019s got Bruce\u2019s annotated Bible right there in his hands. He\u2019s just finished what amounts to a three-day seminar, complete with Bruce\u2019s \u201ccrash-course in prophecy\u201d and one, maybe two viewings of the ICR video. He is, in other words, the perfect person to begin to answer her questions.<\/p>\n

Yet he doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The morning before he was \u201cmoved to tears\u201d by Chloe\u2019s story, in which she said that she believed his presence in the airplane seat next to hers was a sign from God. If he believes that to be true, then surely it was also God\u2019s divine plan that he is again, just a few days later, in an airplane seat next to a woman full of questions about God. But if Buck\u2019s presence in the next seat was a sign of God\u2019s love for Chloe, his presence next to this woman would seem to be a sign that God, like Buck, doesn\u2019t care what happens to her. (What if this woman gets off the airplane, walks out of the airport and gets hit by the Hypothetical Bus?<\/a>)<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also not sure what to make of the apparent warning there against evangelism by those with only \u201climited knowledge.\u201d Throughout the rest of the book, this is presented as a universal, unavoidable duty for every believer. But here they seem to be saying it\u2019s better left to the experts. Odd.<\/p>\n

The frustrating thing here is that this woman\u2019s questions would likely have been very similar to the questions Buck is asking himself. She would have provided a convenient means to present Buck\u2019s inner monologue as an actual dialogue, a conversation. But instead he blows her off and goes back to sulkily asking himself rhetorical questions in what seems like the voice-over narration of a bad movie. (I really believe that Jerry Jenkins has a Post-it note stuck to the monitor of his computer reading, \u201cTell, don\u2019t show.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Sleep was no easier for him that night, though he refused to allow himself to pace. \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is, like, totally different from the bit in the last chapter where Buck was up all night, unable to sleep as he grappled with these same questions. In that scene, Buck was pacing. Here, he\u2019s not. See?\u00a0Totally<\/i>\u00a0different.<\/p>\n

He was going into a meeting in the morning that he had been warned to stay away from. Bruce Barnes had sounded convinced that if Nicolae Carpathia were the Antichrist, Buck ran the danger of being mentally overcome, brainwashed, hypnotized or worse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is that, of course. But keep in mind that Buck is also headed to a meeting where he will be sitting alongside Jonathan Stonagal and Todd-Cothran for the first time since he\u2019d been forced to fake his own death and travel incognito because they planted a bomb in his car. This is the same Todd-Cothran, you\u2019ll remember, who\u00a0telephoned Scotland Yard<\/a>\u00a0to inform them that he\u2019d be murdering one of their policemen and there was nothing they could do about it. Yet Buck doesn\u2019t seem to be the slightest bit anxious about seeing these men face to face. He had promised \u2014 cross-my-heart, pinky-swear \u2014 never to write anything bad about them and in exchange they had agreed not to murder him in cold blood. Buck sees no reason not to take them at their word, so he\u2019s not nervous to be meeting them face to face.<\/p>\n

As he wearily showered and dressed in the morning, Buck concluded that he had come a long way from thinking that the religious angle was on the fringe. He had gone from bemused puzzlement at people thinking their loved ones had flown to heaven to believing that much of what was happening had been foretold in the Bible. He was no longer wondering or doubting, he told himself. There was no other explanation for the two witnesses in Jerusalem. Nor for the disappearances. \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So he now believes the \u201creligious angle\u201d should be central to his article on the disappearances. He believes, in fact, that there could be \u201cno other explanation.\u201d Yet he doesn\u2019t end up writing any of that in his article. He treats his readers just like he treated that poor woman on the plane. He has the answers, but he\u2019s not in a mood to share them.<\/p>\n

But hold that thought, I\u2019m getting ahead of myself.<\/p>\n

We get another half-hearted attempt at the Stonagal-as-Antichrist red herring. This, again, seems useless at this point in the book, since everyone who\u2019s been paying attention already knows without a doubt that Nicolae Carpathia is the Antichrist. What kind of\u00a0obtuse fool could possibly think otherwise?<\/p>\n

Buck still leaned toward Stonagal. \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

OK, then. So our half-witted hero heads out the door:<\/p>\n

He slung his bag over his shoulder, tempted to take the gun from his bedside table but knowing he would never get it through the metal detectors. Anyway, he sensed, that was not the kind of protection he needed. What he needed was safekeeping for his mind and for his spirit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The \u201csafekeeping\u201d he refers to there is the divine protection that Bruce told him would come with his conversion. If I were him, though, I\u2019d also be loading up like the\u00a0Winchester brothers<\/a>, taking salt, garlic, holy water and maybe even some chalk for pentagram-drawing, just in case.<\/p>\n

\"1cc24b9a-884a-4fa8-8efc-a962e0b6726e\"<\/p>\n

But now we turn to something interesting. Or, rather, we turn to something that might have been interesting:<\/p>\n

All the way to the United Nations he agonized.\u00a0Do I pray?<\/i>\u00a0he asked himself.\u00a0Do I \u201cpray the prayer\u201d as so many of those people said yesterday morning? Would I be doing it just to protect myself from the voodoo or the heebie-jeebies?<\/i>\u00a0He decided that becoming a believer could not be for the purpose of having a good luck charm. That would cheapen it. Surely God didn\u2019t work that way. \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At first glance, this seems almost like a direct response to our criticism here of the mechanistic magic implied in the authors\u2019 idea of what constitutes salvation. Throughout the book the authors repeatedly and consistently portray \u201cpraying the prayer\u201d as a transaction, almost like an incantation that binds God to the spellcaster\u2019s will like a djinni. Pray the prayer, get the salvation. This passage might be LaHaye & Jenkins\u2019 way of saying that they don\u2019t really mean that.** But then we read the rest of the paragraph:<\/p>\n

\u2026 Surely God didn\u2019t work that way. And if Bruce Barnes could be believed, there was no more protection for believers now, during this period, than there was for anyone else. Huge numbers of people were going to die in the next seven years, Christian or not. The question was,\u00a0then<\/i>\u00a0where would they be?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So the authors are saying, explicitly, that we must not say the magic words as a\u00a0temporal<\/i>\u00a0\u201cgood luck charm.\u201d God doesn\u2019t work that way. The magic words are meant to be an\u00a0eternal<\/i>\u00a0good luck charm, protecting our souls from the voodoo and the heebie-jeebies of the afterlife.<\/p>\n

The authors here are treading carefully to avoid the more interesting question here, one that is suggested more strongly in the following paragraph:<\/p>\n

There was only one reason to make the transaction, he decided \u2014 if he truly believed he could be forgiven and become one of God\u2019s people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What really matters to L&J is whether or not Buck \u201ctruly believes\u201d \u2014 whether or not he is, like Rayford, passionately sincere and sincerely passionate. My Calvinist brother calls this \u201cGreat Pumpkin\u201d spirituality \u2014 the idea that our sincerity, rather than God\u2019s grace, is the decisive factor. I\u2019m very much not a Calvinist, but I agree that such Great Pumpkin spirituality makes no sense. Jesus\u2019 parables are filled with characters begging for forgiveness for the most selfish and venal reasons imaginable, yet that never matters in those stories.***<\/p>\n

But even though Buck uses the word \u201cforgiven\u201d here, it hardly seems like he really thinks forgiveness is something he needs. We don\u2019t even get the half-baked sort of thing we got with Rayford, where he seemed to be repenting of his own awesomeness. Buck seems to think that God\u2019s grace works like a personal line of credit \u2014 that it\u2019s only offered to those who can demonstrate they don\u2019t really need it. In Buck\u2019s scenario, God is willing to save those who ask unless they really\u00a0need<\/i>\u00a0saving, because \u201cthat would cheapen it.\u201d Or something.<\/p>\n

One can imagine a more interesting version of this story in which Buck, desperate to save his own sorry hide, was perfectly willing to beg for help in the cheapest, crassest way imaginable, and primarily for the most selfish of motives. What would come next? Would the receipt of such unmerited grace force him to change and grow? Or would he be able to maintain a selfish ingratitude (\u201cThanks for the eternal salvation \u2026\u00a0sucker!\u201d<\/i>)? That would of course be a very different story requiring very different authors than the ones who gave us this book.<\/p>\n

God had become more than a force of nature or even a miracle worker to Buck, as God had been in the skies of Israel that night. It only made sense that if God made people, he would want to communicate with them, to connect with them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unless, of course, those people are seated next to Buck on an airplane, in which case they\u2019re S.O.L.<\/p>\n

Buck entered the U.N. through hordes of reporters already setting up for the press conference. Limousines disgorged VIPs and crowds waited behind police barriers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Police barriers. A red-carpet entry for a press conference by the new secretary-general. That might have worked as a satiric device meant to describe Nicolae\u2019s movie-star-like popularity, but I don\u2019t think that is what was intended. The authors seem to imagine that this is what life is like all the time for politicians and diplomats.<\/p>\n

Buck saw Stanton Bailey in a crowd near the door. \u201cWhat are you doing here?\u201d Buck said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cGetting autographs,\u201d Bailey says. \u201cOmigod, did you see Richard Holbrooke? He\u2019s so dreamy!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

OK, not quite that, what the authors actually have Bailey say is this:<\/p>\n

\u201cJust taking advantage of my position so I can be at the press conference. Proud you\u2019re going to be in the preliminary meeting. Be sure to remember everything. Thanks for transmitting your first draft of the theory piece. I know you\u2019ve got a lot to do yet, but it\u2019s a terrific start. Gonna be a winner.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is impossible. Buck hasn\u2019t written even a rough outline of this article yet, let alone a first draft. We readers know this. We\u2019ve been with him through every step of every day since the article was assigned and he hasn\u2019t written a thing. He hasn\u2019t had time.<\/p>\n

Based on Bailey\u2019s reaction, the Rapture theory doesn\u2019t seem to be a dominant theme in Buck\u2019s first draft. This is also impossible. Apart from his coworkers, the only person Buck has interviewed so far for this article is Rayford Steele. He hasn\u2019t talked to any scientists about the possibility of an \u201celectromagnetonuclear\u201d incident, or to any UFO theorists or anyone else about any other possible explanations for the disappearances. So how can he have written a first draft that gives those other theories greater weight than the only theory he has researched? And if he really believes in that theory, if he really believes \u201cthere was no other explanation,\u201d then why doesn\u2019t he make that case in his article?<\/p>\n

Like Bruce and Rayford, Buck seems far more interested in being initiated into the secret prophecy knowledge of the Tribulation Force than he is in sharing that truth with anyone else, whether it\u2019s the woman next to him on the plane, or Hattie, or the readers of\u00a0Global Weekly,<\/i>\u00a0or even his boss and his coworkers. After all, if he shared this secret knowledge with\u00a0everybody,<\/i>\u00a0then there\u2019d be no one left for him to say \u201cI told you so\u201d to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks,\u201d Buck said, and Bailey gave him a thumbs-up. Buck realized that if that had happened a month before, he would have had to stifle a laugh at the corny old guy and would have told his colleagues what an idiot he worked for.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We might have mentioned this before, but Buck Williams really is a douchebag.<\/p>\n

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

* This scene\u2019s inversion of the usual nightmare-seatmate dynamic also seems like the premise for a comedy sketch:<\/p>\n

PASSENGER 1: Say what\u2019s that you\u2019re reading? Is that the Bible?<\/p>\n

PASSENGER 2: What? Oh. Oh, yes. It\u2019s the Bible. \u2026 I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019ve got a lot of reading to finish here and I just wanted to \u2026<\/p>\n

PASSENGER 1: Oh sure, sure. No problem. Sorry.<\/p>\n

P2: \u2026<\/p>\n

P1: Sorry, I know you\u2019re trying to read, but I couldn\u2019t help but notice your lapel pin. That little fish, that\u2019s like a\u00a0Christian<\/i>\u00a0thing, right? Like a \u201cborn-again\u201d thing?<\/p>\n

P2: Yes. The fish is a Christian symbol. Yes. Now, I\u2019m sorry, but do you mind? (gestures back at the book)<\/p>\n

P1: Oh right, sure. Sorry.<\/p>\n

P2: \u2026<\/p>\n

P1: So how\u2019s that work, anyway? Getting \u201cborn again\u201d?<\/p>\n

P2: Look, really, I don\u2019t mean to be rude, but I\u2019d really just like to sit here quietly and read until we get to \u2026<\/p>\n

P1: Hey,\u00a0that\u2019s<\/i>\u00a0cool! I didn\u2019t notice that before.<\/p>\n

P2: Excuse me?<\/p>\n

P1: Your T-shirt! It looks just like a Budweiser T-shirt, but I just realized it actually says, \u201cBe Wiser\u201d \u2014 oh, and instead of \u201cKing of Beers\u201d it says \u201cKing of Kings!\u201d Cool. I guess that means\u00a0Jesus,<\/i>\u00a0right? And that I\u2019d be wiser if I \u2026 Hey, wow! Are those\u00a0gospel tracts<\/i>\u00a0in your bag? Can I have one of those?<\/p>\n

P2: Oh for God\u2019s sake! Why do I always end up next to you people?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

** LaHaye and Jenkins seem dimly aware that critics of their books exist, and they seem to have a vague sense that it would be good to respond to those critics. But they never quite do. The closest they come is passages like this one, or the earlier scene where Chloe objected that this apocalypse seemed hard to reconcile with \u201ca God of love and order.\u201d No one responded to Chloe\u2019s objection, she just seemed eventually to drop it for no apparent reason.<\/p>\n

*** The difficulty in those parables for my Calvinist friends arises from what happens next. The selfish servant, motivated only by a desire to save his own behind from prison, throws himself on the mercy of the king, but the king forgives him anyway. A nice Calvinist parable if it stopped there.\u00a0But the story doesn\u2019t stop there<\/a>. \u201cForgive us our debts\u00a0as we forgive our debtors,<\/i>\u201d we Christians pray, and we read \u201cwith the measure you use, it will be measured to you.\u201d And sometimes I wonder if the whole Calvinist\/Arminian reframing of the question isn\u2019t just a means of avoiding what that seems to entail.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally posted June 2, 2008. Read this entire series, for free, via the convenient\u00a0Left Behind Index. This post is also part of the ebook collection\u00a0The Anti-Christ Handbook: Volume 1, available on Amazon for just $2.99. Subliminal advertisement.\u00a0Volume 2 of The Anti-Christ Handbook, completing all the posts on the first Left Behind book, is also now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[238],"class_list":["post-35886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-left-behind"],"yoast_head":"\nLBCF, No. 166: 'Heebie-jeebies'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Originally posted June 2, 2008. Read this entire series, for free, via the convenient\u00a0Left Behind Index. 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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":"LBCF, No. 166: 'Heebie-jeebies'","description":"Originally posted June 2, 2008. Read this entire series, for free, via the convenient\u00a0Left Behind Index. 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This post is also part of the ebook","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2017\/12\/29\/lbcf-no-166-heebie-jeebies\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2017\/12\/29\/lbcf-no-166-heebie-jeebies\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2017\/12\/29\/lbcf-no-166-heebie-jeebies\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"LBCF, No. 166: ‘Heebie-jeebies’"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/","name":"slacktivist","description":""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47","name":"Fred Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Fred Clark"},"description":"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). 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\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}