I’ve recently been updating my links section, and, apart from egotistically adding a bunch of my own articles, observant viewers may have noticed another link on the right, directing you to Fred Clark’s excellent weblog. This is an expansive weblog I only heard about quite recently myself and I’ve only really taken a look at the Left Behind section of the site. This may not sound terribly familiar to those on this side of the pond, and I’d only heard of this series of books in passing before. The books describe the end of the world as, according to the warped interpretation of the author, the Bible allegedly predicts it. This interpretation has little to do with what the book actually says and cherry-picks the bits the authors like (the more explosions and suffering, the better, basically), all the while trying to demonstrate how right they are and how wrong everybody else is. Obviously this doesn’t really work as it’s fiction, but the authors appear to hang on to Augustine’s interpretation of words – there is a direct connection between a word and the thing it represents. These books were apparently wildly popular among a particular group of Christians in the US, mostly those hoping the end is near.
And this is where Clark comes in. On his weblog he painstakingly analyses the first book of the series and carefully demonstrates that the novels are not only theologically unsound (not at all, as the authors claim, literally interpreting the Bible) but also terrible, terrible fiction. The authors take sadistic pleasure in punishing all the sorts of people they look down upon in real life, all the while acting as if they’re morally superior, even though their own characters, supposedly good Christians, do nothing to help (or even notice) their fellow man in need. Apart from providing an interesting look into the worldview of some of today’s eschatologists, the articles by Clark are very well written and humorous, making the subject matter entertaining rather than depressing. The first post of his analysis starts here (start at the bottom and work your way up, then click the ‘previous’ link).
In the past few months I’ve read into eschatology a little, myself, but where Left Behind gives a modern view, my reading was exclusively medieval. Now, medieval religion is typically looked down upon, by non-religious people, who view the period as barbaric and often think science was being kept down by religion, as well as by Christians themselves, who, in the case of the protestants, regularly view the medieval church as one of excesses, superstitions and dishonest faith (and evil popery) while the catholics often go along with this view if only to explain why the Reformation occurred (after all, if the true church was flawless, good Christians wouldn’t want to leave – Eamon Duffy disagrees with this and quite convincingly shows that the catholic church of the middle ages was quite good at regulating itself, but judging from his actions it seems the present pope follows the traditional interpretation).
The interesting thing is that the medieval church, when it comes to eschatology, was much more inclusive and humane than the Left Behind group. Well-off, middle aged Americans can easily write about the world going to hell (quite literally) without realising the severity of the events they are writing about. This was quite different from the 14th century Antwerpian clerk Jan van Boendale, for example, who was convinced, by 1350, that the world was going to end relatively soon. A few decades earlier, he had refused to give any estimate as to the coming of the end times, and predicted that it would be 700 years at the least. But by 1350, the Hundred Years War had started and a terrible disease had come out of nowhere and destroyed a third of Europe’s population. His writing is inspired by fear, and he can’t seem to properly understand what’s going on. He does qualify it as a divine punishment, and he tells of terrible rumours he’s heard: a ship, crossing from France to England, meeting Death on his way to punish the English for their sins (he had just finished doing the same to England), travellers in Bohemia stumbling upon a village with no survivors, a sole priest in Poland noticing an angry Christ striding through the woods, causing the clergyman to hurry to his church to hold mass, etc. These stories are not theologically sound, either. Christ punishing the unbelievers is essentially the same as what is happening in the Left Behind novels. But there are clear distinctions:
- The punishment wasn’t imaginary, it was actually happening. People didn’t invent it, they were just trying to fit this terrible event into their world view. Divine punishment was the explanation they deemed most logical. In the Left Behind books, the authors are not looking for explanations but are rather seeking to predict the future.
- The punishment is regrettable. As opposed to the events in the Left Behind books, it is the devastation that receives first priority. Mary, riding in the company of Christ, explains to the Polish priest that they want the suffering to stop and convinces the man to hold mass, in order to try and appease Christ.
- It is Christ who is doing the punishing, not the Antichrist. This may seem irrelevant, but in the Left Behind books the Antichrist is virtually omnipotent, while Jesus and God are hardly mentioned at all as having any part in this; they only play a part in providing the believers with ‘get out of jail free’-cards. This seems a direct contradiction of one of the most basic tenets of Christianity, monotheism. The Antichrist is mentioned by Boendale, but the exact part he is going to play is never made fully clear.
- The Black Death seems to have raised an early global awareness. Jan van Boendale, the Brabançon, writes about the effects of the ‘epidemic’ in Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, England, France, etc. It wasn’t just something that happened to people he knew – he was more than aware that this was a worldwide phenomenon and that the whole of society was being affected. This aspect is strangely absent from the Left Behind novels, even though it should be one of the first things anyone would notice in a world devastated on such a scale.
All of the above make the medieval expectations of the end of the world understandable and human, while those of the Left Behind books are almost cultist in their exclusivity. The authors also do not seem to accept their own personal fallibility, while Boendale hammers on self-improvement all the time.
