Rayford hangs up, and since he\u2019s no longer on the phone, we return to Buck & Nicky.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s well after 1 a.m. in Chaim Rosenzweig\u2019s \u201cbeautiful suite of rooms\u201d at the Plaza. \u201cYou do not mind my calling you Buck, do you?\u201d Carpathia says. \u201cThey call you that because you buck the traditions and the trends and the conventions.\u201d<\/p>\n
This repeats, nearly verbatim, the explanation of Buck\u2019s nickname from way back on page 6. He\u2019s the Dirty Harry of journalism, the renegade maverick who plays by his own rules, etc. In the intervening 280+ pages we\u2019ve seen little evidence to support this characterization. Ignoring his deadline for the cover story on a global cataclysm might technically count as \u201cbucking\u201d journalistic convention, I suppose, in the same way that his craven willingness to drop his story in order to save his own hide bucks the conventions of \u201ccrusading journalist\u201d stories, but I doubt that\u2019s what the authors had in mind.<\/p>\n
Buck and Carpathia begin their late-night conversation in this hotel room and it reads like, well, like a late-night conversation in a hotel room:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is amazing, is it not, that all those different international meetings right here in New York over the next few weeks are all about the worldwide cooperation in which I am interested?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is,\u201d Buck said. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve been assigned to cover them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen we will be getting to know each other better.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward to that, sir. I was most moved at the U.N. today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Dr. Rosenzweig has told me so much about you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs he has told me much about you.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a knock at the door. Carpathia looked pained. \u201cI had hoped we would not be disturbed.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Phew.<\/i> Was it getting hot in there, or was it just me?<\/p>\n
The interruption occurred because the president of the United States is on the phone, calling for Carpathia. The president apparently spent his day the same way everyone else did \u2014 watching CSPAN coverage of Nicolae\u2019s U.N. speech and then watching the Nightline<\/i> interview. And at 1:30 in the morning, he decided to call the Romanian president. Carpathia puts him on speaker:<\/p>\n\u201cMr. Carpathia, this is Fitz. Gerald Fitzhugh.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. President, I am honored to hear from you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, hey, it\u2019s good to have you here!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI appreciated your note of congratulations on my presidency, sir, and your immediate recognition of my administration.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBoy, that was a heckuva thing, how you took over there. I wasn\u2019t sure what had happened at first, but I don\u2019t suppose you were either.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is exactly right. I am still getting used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, take it from a guy who\u2019s been in the saddle for six years. You don\u2019t ever get used to it. You just develop calluses in the right places, if you know what I mean.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
When introducing the president as a character in a work of fiction you have to decide whether or not to base the character on a real-life person. LaHaye & Jenkins opted not to \u2014 probably due to the fact that in order for him to still be in office their president would have to have missed the rapture. Even so, it\u2019s interesting that they did not base \u201cPresident Fitzhugh\u201d on the man who was in office in 1995, Bill Clinton. Even though Clinton is a church-going, Bible-quoting Southern Baptist married to a church-going, Bible-quoting United Methodist, I\u2019m pretty sure L&J wouldn\u2019t consider either of them to be genuine, rapture-eligible Real True Chrisitians.<\/p>\n
\u201cFitz\u201d isn\u2019t based on Clinton, or on any of his immediate predecessors. But with his desperation to project an air of cowboy manliness and his folksy pretension (\u201cthat was a heckuva thing\u201d) he does almost seem to foreshadow the man who succeeded Clinton.<\/p>\n
We get a few more paragraphs of Fitz\u2019s backslappin\u2019 bonhomie \u2014 \u201cI want you to spend a night or two here with me and Wilma. \u2026 Right here at the White House\u201d \u2014 and the president signs off.<\/p>\n
Buck was only a little less overcome than Carpathia and Rosenzweig. He had long since lost his awe of U.S. presidents, especially this one, who insisted on being called Fitz. He had done a Newsmaker of the Year piece on Fitzhugh \u2014 Buck\u2019s first, Fitz\u2019s second. On the other hand, it wasn\u2019t every day that the president called the room in which you sat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It may seem strange that this is the first, and only, mention of the American president in this book. The Fitzhugh administration\u2019s response to The Event and its aftermath are never discussed. Nor is there any mention of the American president\u2019s reaction to the divine obliteration of the entire Russian arsenal and air force, which also occurred during Fitz\u2019s time \u201cin the saddle.\u201d<\/p>\n
The problem here, for L&J, is that the PMD End Times master plan has very little to say about America\u2019s role in the final days. This is the source of endless hand-wringing on the part of Bible \u201cprophecy\u201d enthusiasts. Variations of \u201cWhat does the Bible say about America\u2019s role in the End Times?\u201d are among the most frequently asked questions at LeftBehind.com.<\/p>\n
Their answer, such as it is, seems to be that America\u2019s only role is maintain loyal support for Israel (the political state, not the people). Just like God, they say, we must stand by Israel, ensuring that it prospers right up until the end of the world (at which point, of course, it will be utterly destroyed because, you know, they\u2019re Jews<\/i> and not RTCs).<\/p>\n
One byproduct of this answer is the unlikely alliance of America\u2019s Christian right with the most hawkish Israeli factions. CBS News\u2019 Bob Simon provides a good rundown of this dynamic in his report, \u201cZion\u2019s Christian Soldiers<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\nSimon, unfortunately, repeats unchallenged L&J\u2019s indefensible claim that their complex and selectively allegorical interpretive scheme is based on reading the Bible \u201cliterally.\u201d He characterizes the plot of Left Behind<\/i> as \u201cripped from the pages of the Bible.\u201d It\u2019s nothing of the sort. The authors, instead, have ripped up the pages of the Bible and then reassembled some of the pieces to form an arbitrary, convoluted and internally inconsistent timeline.<\/p>\n
Apart from that regrettable lapse, Simon\u2019s report is an excellent summary of how the World\u2019s Worst Books are influencing American foreign policy, and of why America\u2019s Rapture maniacs may not really be the best \u201cbest friends\u201d for Israel to rely on. On the latter point, Simon quotes Gershom Gorenberg:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Jews die or convert. As a Jew, I can\u2019t feel very comfortable with the affections of somebody who looks forward to that scenario,\u201d says Gershom Gorenberg, who knows that scenario well.<\/p>\n
Gorenberg is the author of The End of Days,<\/i> a book about those Christian evangelicals who choose to read the Bible literally. \u201cThey don\u2019t love real Jewish people. They love us as characters in their story, in their play, and that\u2019s not who we are, and we never auditioned for that part, and the play is not one that ends up good for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you listen to the drama they\u2019re describing, essentially it\u2019s a five-act play in which the Jews disappear in the fourth act.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It bothers American Rapture Christians that the United States isn’t mentioned by name in their Bible prophecy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":69785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
LBCF: Late-night phone calls<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It bothers American Rapture Christians that the United States isn't mentioned by name in their Bible prophecy.\" \/>\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\/2026\/06\/05\/lbcf-late-night-phone-calls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LBCF: Late-night phone calls\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It bothers American Rapture Christians that the United States isn't mentioned by name in their Bible prophecy.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/05\/lbcf-late-night-phone-calls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-05T20:46:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2025\/02\/LBPhone2.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"479\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"489\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\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=\"5 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\/2026\/06\/05\/lbcf-late-night-phone-calls\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/05\/lbcf-late-night-phone-calls\/\",\"name\":\"LBCF: Late-night phone calls\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-05T20:46:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-06-05T20:46:38+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"It bothers American Rapture Christians that the United States isn't mentioned by name in their Bible prophecy.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/05\/lbcf-late-night-phone-calls\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/05\/lbcf-late-night-phone-calls\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/05\/lbcf-late-night-phone-calls\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"LBCF: Late-night phone calls\"}]},{\"@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\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"LBCF: Late-night phone calls","description":"It bothers American Rapture Christians that the United States isn't mentioned by name in their Bible prophecy.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/05\/lbcf-late-night-phone-calls\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"LBCF: Late-night phone calls","og_description":"It bothers American Rapture Christians that the United States isn't mentioned by name in their Bible prophecy.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/05\/lbcf-late-night-phone-calls\/","og_site_name":"slacktivist","article_published_time":"2026-06-05T20:46:38+00:00","og_image":[{"width":479,"height":489,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2025\/02\/LBPhone2.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Fred Clark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fred Clark","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/05\/lbcf-late-night-phone-calls\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/05\/lbcf-late-night-phone-calls\/","name":"LBCF: Late-night phone calls","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website"},"datePublished":"2026-06-05T20:46:38+00:00","dateModified":"2026-06-05T20:46:38+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47"},"description":"It bothers American Rapture Christians that the United States isn't mentioned by name in their Bible prophecy.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/05\/lbcf-late-night-phone-calls\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/05\/lbcf-late-night-phone-calls\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/06\/05\/lbcf-late-night-phone-calls\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"LBCF: Late-night phone calls"}]},{"@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\/74558","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=74558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>If only he\u2019d been more suave or more subtle in his