Why Republicans Are in the Grip of an Apocalyptic Rapture Cult Centered on Revenge and Vindication

By Frank Schaeffer, Da Capo Press
Posted on October 13, 2009, Printed on October 13, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/143232/

The following is an excerpt from Frank Schaeffer's new book, Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism) (Da Capo Press, 2009) to be released at the end of this month.

Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of sixteen novels (so far!) represents everything that is most deranged about religion. If I had to choose companions to take my chances with in a lifeboat, and the choice boiled down to picking Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, or Christopher Hitchens, I'd pick Hitchens in a heartbeat. At least he wouldn't try to sink our boat so that Jesus would come back sooner. He might even bring along a case of wine.

The Left Behind novels have sold tens of millions of copies while spawning an "End Times" cult, or rather egging it on. Such products as Left Behind wall paper, screen savers, children's books, and video games have become part of the ubiquitous American background noise. Less innocuous symptoms include people stocking up on assault rifles and ammunition, adopting "Christ-centered" home school curricula, fearing higher education, embracing rumor as fact, and learning to love hatred for the "other," as exemplified by a revived anti-immigrant racism, the murder of doctors who do abortions, and even a killing in the Holocaust Museum.