NPR - LEFT BEHIND

HEADLINE: BOOK SERIES, "LEFT BEHIND," ABOUT
BIBLICAL PROPHECY OF THE END TIMES SET IN THE NEAR FUTURE

SHOW: ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (8:00 PM ET)
September 5, 2000, Tuesday
LENGTH: 1232 words
ANCHORS: NOAH ADAMS; LINDA WERTHEIMER

BODY:
NOAH ADAMS, host:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Noah Adams.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, host:

And I'm Linda Wertheimer.

This coming November, one of the biggest events in publishing will be the release of the eighth novel in the "Left Behind" series. Called "The Mark," it's already a best seller. Tyndale Press plans a run of 2 1/2 million copies, and expects to print more. It's based on the Book of Revelations, a biblical thriller in serial form which describes life on Earth in the near-future as the Apocalypse approaches. But the "Left Behind" phenomenon goes well beyond best-selling books. There's a radio dramatization, also available on CD. There's a version of the series for teens, audiobooks, music CDs inspired by the series, Internet chat rooms and a lavish Web site on the series in its many manifestations. The idea came from Tim LaHaye, a retired minister who interprets the Bible for the series. The novels were actually written by Jerry Jenkins.

Mr. JERRY JENKINS (Author, "Left Behind" Series): Dr. LaHaye provides me a chronology of the biblical events and his commentary on any Scripture passages that we're going to cover in a particular book. And then I get the fun part of making up a story and, in essence, putting fictitious characters in the way of these biblical events and writing the novels.

WERTHEIMER: In the first book, the Rapture occurs and we're introduced to the leading characters in the novels: an airline pilot, Rayford Steele, and a reporter, Buck Williams, who are flying over the Atlantic when a stewardess comes to the forward cabin to tell Steele that some of the passengers on their 747 have disappeared.

(Soundbite from "Left Behind")
(Soundbite of music)

RAYFORD STEELE: Missing? What do you mean missing
HATTIE DURHAM: A whole bunch of people are just gone.
STEELE: Hattie, this is a big plane. They wandered off to the lav and they...
DURHAM: I've looked everywhere. I'm telling you, dozens of people are missing.
STEELE: Hattie, it's still dark. We'll find them.
DURHAM: I am not crazy. Come see for yourself. All over the plane, people have just disappeared.
STEELE: It's a joke. They're hiding. They're...
DURHAM: Rayford, shoes, socks, clothes, everything, left behind; the people are gone. Please come with me and...

WERTHEIMER: That's from the radio version of the series. The principal characters come to realize that people are missing because Christ has gathered the faithful bodily into heaven: the Rapture. The rest are left behind to endure the Tribulation that follows and to witness the coming of the Antichrist and, in the case of the characters in this series of novels, to resist the Antichrist and rethink their own lives, hoping for another chance at heaven.

(Soundbite from "Left Behind")
(Soundbite of music, footsteps)

BUCK WILLIAMS: Now, God, I pray for protection. I felt it when I walked into that room. I know the Antichrist is in there, somewhere. So I pray you protect me from his evil plan. Amen.

WERTHEIMER: Dr. LaHaye believes Revelations should be taken literally, and Jenkins writes with this in mind. For example, Jenkins retells the story from the 11th chapter of Revelations of two prophets, or witnesses. They suddenly appear in Jerusalem to warn Israel that judgment is coming. The biblical prophecy says the witnesses will be killed and will lie in the streets for three and a half days. 'All peoples, tribes, languages and nations will come to stare at their bodies,' the Bible says. Jerry Jenkins put that into the novel.

Mr. JENKINS: Years ago, people would say things like, well, when the prophecy says that these two supernatural witnesses who are assassinated in Jerusalem lie in the streets before the eyes of the whole world, they assumed that that was allegorical or symbolic because, you know, how could the whole world see this? Well, now we know. With CNN and other, you know, international networks, if something like this happened, the whole world would be able to see it by TV. So I do try to take advantage of that.

WERTHEIMER: This version of the End Time is familiar to millions of people, according to Tim Weber. He's dean of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, Illinois. He says that only partly accounts for the series' success.

Mr. TIM WEBER (Dean, Northern Baptist Theological Seminary): The key to believability is its ability to put the Bible together with the morning newspaper, to show how modern events and modern life and the experience of modern people fit into what the Bible says the future will be like.

WERTHEIMER: Weber says the biblical scholarship is generally pretty good. The novels take some license, but for the most part offer a blending of Old and New Testament prophecies. He says the books are part of a long tradition of Christian dispensationalism, the belief that God has a multistage plan for salvation which includes the possibility of redemption even when the Last Judgment has begun. Also part of that tradition is the marketing of those ideas.

Mr. WEBER: Dispensational teachers were masters of media. They put out magazines. They wrote popular books. They're masters of modern media in all electronic forms these days. So this is just one more step in the process of being creative in getting the Word out.

WERTHEIMER: Part of the attraction of the "Left Behind" novels is that by starting after the believers have been scooped up to heaven, the books are about the sinners still on Earth. There may be more plot possibilities in the moral dilemmas and dangers they face in seven years of plagues and earthquakes and other biblical catastrophes. Amy Frykholm is at Duke University. She's writing her dissertation on the "Left Behind" series. She points out that the leading characters are not poor but pious Christians beaten down by the wealthy and powerful. They are quite comfortable with wealth and power, and computers, and consumer culture.

Ms. AMY FRYKHOLM (Duke University): They are people who are at the top of their profession, as they often say in the books, so that the pilot is not just any pilot, but a pilot who receives phone calls from the president. I do think that within the books themselves, there's a kind of glitzy, movie star kind of feeling to the books that offer--it gives them that extra reader incentive, that level of fantasy in order to--so that the reader can project himself or herself into the exciting life of the book.

WERTHEIMER: Frykholm says readers are mainly middle-class suburban people, mostly evangelicals. But the series has fans everywhere, from faculty lounges to prison cells. Frykholm says people she's talked to do have a couple of complaints.

Ms. FRYKHOLM: The female characters are much more thinly drawn, and so that even female readers don't tend to identify with the female characters. They'll either identify with Rayford, the pilot, or Buck, the reporter.

WERTHEIMER: The other complaint is that readers gallop through the books very quickly and think they ought to be either longer or come out more frequently. Amy Frykholm says readers she's interviewed tell her that the series has reawakened their interest in theological argument. They debate the issues raised in the books. They buy in bulk and give the books to friends, like the groom who gave copies to all his ushers. Author Jerry Jenkins says it goes even beyond that.

Mr. JENKINS: We've heard from about, well, well over 2,000 people now, either by e-mail or in person or snail mail or whatever, who tell us that they've actually become believers through reading these books. So while we thought that was going to be one of the impacts of it, we had no idea the widespread nature of it.

WERTHEIMER: Translating Scripture into page turners has worked very well in several ways. The publisher, Tyndale Press, estimates that 23 million books have been sold. Four more are coming after "The Mark." A total of 12 are planned. And the first movie based on the series, starring Kirk Cameron as Buck, will be in theaters early next year.

(Soundbite of music)

ADAMS: This is NPR, National Public Radio.