{"id":69635,"date":"2025-01-24T17:28:32","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T22:28:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=69635"},"modified":"2025-01-24T17:28:32","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T22:28:32","slug":"lbcf-narcissus-reflects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/01\/24\/lbcf-narcissus-reflects\/","title":{"rendered":"LBCF: Narcissus reflects"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

(Left Behind Classic Friday originally posted in August, 2005.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Left Behind,<\/i>\u00a0pp. 142 \u2013 144<\/b><\/p>\n

Our narcissistic friend Rayford at last takes a long look in the mirror.<\/p>\n

I mean \u201cnarcissistic\u201d in the clinical sense, as in NPD,\u00a0the description of which\u00a0reads like Cliff Notes character summary for Rayford Steele:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:<\/p>\n

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)<\/p>\n

2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love<\/p>\n

3. believes that he or she is \u201cspecial\u201d and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)<\/p>\n

4. requires excessive admiration<\/p>\n

5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations<\/p>\n

6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends<\/p>\n

7. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others<\/p>\n

8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her<\/p>\n

9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

These final pages of Chapter 8 are a continuation of Rayford\u2019s dark night of the soul. LaHaye and Jenkins do allow their hero a few kernels of self-awareness here, but even these quickly slide back into self-obsession.<\/p>\n

We begin with Rayford deciding that this was \u201cthe worst season of his life.\u201d He remembers the death of his parents, but decides that this experience is worse:<\/p>\n

Rayford had grieved in a way, but mostly he was just sentimental about them. He had good memories, he appreciated the kindness and sympathy he received at their funerals, and he got on with his life. Whatever tears he shed were not from remorse or heartache. He felt primarily nostalgic and melancholy.<\/p>\n

The rest of his life had been without complication or pain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The subject and object of that entire passage is Rayford and only Rayford. We don\u2019t know anything more about his parents as people and we don\u2019t learn much of anything about their deaths other than his feelings about how their deaths affected his feelings. It rings true as a description of detachment, but is itself just as detached.<\/p>\n

This occurs in a section in which Rayford is supposed to be hitting a kind of spiritual rock bottom, where he\u2019s supposed to be realizing his own selfishness and sinfulness and need for salvation. Somehow, though, he always seems to be confessing sins other than the actual ones he should be.<\/p>\n

There follows a short Rayford\u2019s-eye summary of his painless, uncomplicated life until the present. Here\u2019s his description of becoming a pilot:<\/p>\n

He came through the ranks in the usual way \u2014 military reserve duty, small planes, then bigger ones, then jets and fighters. Finally he had reached the pinnacle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The pinnacle? He\u2019s not flying the space shuttle, or landing an F-14 on an aircraft carrier. (See, again, No. 1 above.)<\/p>\n

Rayford met his future wife in college:<\/p>\n

They were married when Rayford was a senior in college and Irene a sophomore. She dropped out when he went into the military, and everything had been on schedule since. They had Chloe during their first year of marriage but, due to complications, waited another eight years for Ray Jr. Rayford was thrilled with both children, but he had to admit he had longed for a namesake boy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So here\u2019s a question for all the young ladies in the church youth group: What have we learned today about the role and place of women?<\/p>\n

Irene Steele is L&J\u2019s notion of an ideal woman. She is pious and submissive, with no personal ambition beyond getting her MRS degree and then attending to the needs of her husband. This is the ideal of womanhood promoted by Tim LaHaye\u2019s wife, Beverly, and her advocacy group,\u00a0Ladies Against Women<\/span>\u00a0Concerned Women for America.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure that women such as Irene Steele really exist, but if they did, they would be caught in a vicious Catch-22. Their only ambition is to marry a good man. But the kinds of men who would be interested in marrying them \u2014 the kinds of men who are attracted to servility, who need others to \u201csubmit\u201d to their will \u2014 are\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0good men.<\/p>\n

As Rayford begins remembering the next phase of his life \u2014 the \u201cmost trying time\u201d in his marriage \u2014 he first lays out his excuses:<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Raymie came along during a bleak period for Rayford. He was 30 and feeling older, and he didn\u2019t enjoy having a pregnant wife. Many people thought, because of his premature but not unattractive gray hair, that he was older, and so he endured the jokes about being an old father. It was a particularly difficult pregnancy for Irene, and Raymie was a couple of weeks late. Chloe was a spirited 8-year-old, so Rayford disengaged as much as possible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I can\u2019t quite follow the logic of that last sentence. Rayford had a lively young daughter, \u201cso\u201d \u2014\u00a0therefore<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 he disengaged as much as possible.\u00a0Wha-hunh?<\/i><\/p>\n

The point of view here is third-person sympathetic \u2014 it\u2019s Jenkins talking, but offering Rayford\u2019s perspective. So it\u2019s tough to know what to make of that observation about Rayford\u2019s \u201cnot unattractive\u201d gray hair. Is it intended to be read as a glimpse of the character\u2019s clownish vanity? While it\u2019s clear that Rayford\u00a0is<\/i>\u00a0clownishly vain, it also seems that the authors are as blissfully unaware of his vanity as the character himself. My guess, then, is that this is Jenkins lurching in and out of his chosen POV in order to reassure readers that the protagonist\u2019s gray hair does not diminish his manly good looks. (And keeping in mind that Rayford seems to function as Tim LaHaye\u2019s Mary-Sue substitute, we can guess which of our coauthors insisted on including this reassurance.)<\/p>\n

He was frequently late getting home and at times even fibbed about his schedule so he could leave a day early or come back a day late. Irene accused him of all manner of affairs, and because she was wrong, he denied them with great vigor and, he felt, justified anger.<\/p>\n

The truth was, he was hoping for and angling for just what she was charging. What frustrated him so was that, despite his looks and bearing, it just wasn\u2019t in him to pull it off. He didn\u2019t have the moves, the patter, the style. \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh yeah, LaHaye and Jenkins\u00a0know<\/i>\u00a0what the ladies want. They want \u201cthe moves, the patter, the style \u2026\u201d They make it sound like all Steele needed to do was listen to Billy Dee (\u201cColt 45. Works every time\u201d).<\/p>\n

Despite the pseudo-confessional tone of this passage, Rayford never comes to grips with what seems the likelier explanation for his inability to \u201cpull it off\u201d: He doesn\u2019t like women. I don\u2019t mean that he likes men \u2014 I\u2019m sure he\u2019s 100% heterosexual (not that there\u2019s anything wrong with that). He just simply doesn\u2019t\u00a0like<\/i>\u00a0women. Some misogynists get their kicks by using, and discarding, women, but Rayford seems to be the variety that can\u2019t even bring himself to\u00a0touch<\/i>\u00a0one. Consider the sentences that immediately follow the passage above:<\/p>\n

Sure, he had access to any woman with a price, but that was beneath him. While he toyed with and hoped for an old-fashioned affair, he somehow couldn\u2019t bring himself to stoop to something as tawdry as paying for sex.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s not really the idea of paying for sex that Rayford finds \u201ctawdry\u201d and \u201cbeneath him.\u201d It\u2019s the women he would have been paying. And it\u2019s not because of the money, or because of the sex, but just because they\u2019re women.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t decide at this point which would be worse: To allow your daughter to read this book, or to allow your son to.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can’t decide at this point which would be worse: To allow your daughter to read this book, or to allow your son to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":67353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nLBCF: Narcissus reflects<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I can't decide at this point which would be worse: To allow your daughter to read this book, or to allow your son to.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/01\/24\/lbcf-narcissus-reflects\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LBCF: Narcissus reflects\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I can't decide at this point which would be worse: To allow your daughter to read this book, or to allow your son to.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/01\/24\/lbcf-narcissus-reflects\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-01-24T22:28:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2024\/06\/WWB.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"258\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"385\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/01\/24\/lbcf-narcissus-reflects\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/01\/24\/lbcf-narcissus-reflects\/\",\"name\":\"LBCF: Narcissus reflects\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-01-24T22:28:32+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-01-24T22:28:32+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"I can't decide at this point which would be worse: To allow your daughter to read this book, or to allow your son to.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/01\/24\/lbcf-narcissus-reflects\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/01\/24\/lbcf-narcissus-reflects\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/01\/24\/lbcf-narcissus-reflects\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"LBCF: Narcissus reflects\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; 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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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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\/69635","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=69635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}