I had actually tried reading the Left Behind series a couple of years ago but never got a chance to really finish the first book. Like everyone’s mentioned, Glorious Appearing and the Fundamentalist Mindset essays go hand in hand. The Tribulation Force is trying to fight of the Antichrist, Nicholae Carpathia at the start of the novel, drenching the reader immediately in violent imagery. I think what we need to keep in mind though is that whereas the Rapture and its related events are all still hypothetical for us, the world of Glorious Appearing is a world that is undergoing the seven years of rule under the Antichrist. These characters have lost their family members to God and have been shown proof through Carpathia’s resurrection that there is more to come, which is why the language is so fundamentalist because it is happening in their concrete world. What I’m particularly interested about though is more language of the essays. We’re all using terminology that Strozier and Boyd used but I found some of their definitions lacking and, to use another of their words, ‘simple-minded’.
Continue reading
Category Archives: October 16
Fundamentalist Mindset and Cities
In spite of all I read about the idea of a New Jerusalem and the strong understanding of how apocalyptic belief affects modern politics granted by my reform Jewish background, I expected a modern fundamentalist writing like “Glorious Appearing” to be an attack on cities and large groups of people gathering in urban spaces. Continue reading
The Fundamentalist Appearing
In LaHaye and Jenkin’s Glorious Appearing, I found the fundamentalist mindset quite noticeable and disturbing – even before I read the Strozier, which I finished after reading GA. As Colby mentioned, the ideas outlining fundamentalist mindsets – paranoia, dualistic thinking, and rage – are all very clear in Glorious Appearing.
What struck me most, in addition to the connection between Strozier’s essays and the book, was the way I found certain elements of apocalyptic gender roles manifest itself in Glorious Appearing. Most of the men, despite several having lost wives or loved ones, were single-mindedly focused on Jesus and God in a way that on some levels struck me as homo-erotic. I couldn’t help but think of the thousands of virgin men that would enter New Jerusalem and reflect on the characters in Glorious Appearing, who are mainly male. The few women, and the couple of Naomi and Chang, remain almost wholly devoid of any hints of sexuality, though they do seem to fulfill stereotypical gender roles – Leah, the caring female nurse; Rayford, the rippling, gun-slinging action hero – that I also found in line with the gender roles propagated in The Book of Revelation.
Glorious Appearing and The Fundamentalist Mindset
Reading Strozier and Boyd’s essays and following up with Glorious Appearing by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, I–like pretty much everyone else who posted prior to my writing this response–thought that the ideas and concepts about fundamentalism that Strozier and Boyd outlined can be clearly and easily observed in Glorious Appearing. Continue reading
Weekly Response #7: Glorious Appearing and the Fundamentalist Mindset
Initially, it was hard for me to follow Glorious Appearing and it took me a while to realize that this was the twelfth book of the series. I ended up looking up the series to get more sense of the characters and the backstory that I had missed because we had not read the first 11 books in the Left Behind series. Compared to The Rapture, I felt like Glorious Appearing was definitely a more intricate and faithful interpretation of the Book of Revelation and the Apocalypse. Continue reading
Dualistic Violence in Glorious Appearing
Clearly, as it was intended to be, Glorious Appearing was the perfect counterpart to the Strozier’s essays on the fundamentalist mindset. It is almost as if LaHaye and Jenkins wrote the book to encapsulate every idea that Strozier links with a fundamentalist Apocalypse. It is hard to imagine that Glorious Appearing was written without thoughts of dualistic violence and an eagerness for the end of the world.
Power in Numbers: The Strength of Fundamentalism
The fundamentalist essay by Strozier and Boyd made some very interesting points on dualistic thinking. One of the arguments that caught my attention was from Robert M. Young, who stated that a dualistic mindset tends to “see others in very partial terms-as part objects…. [they] lose the ability to imagine the inner world and humanity of others.” Even without considering religion or the apocalypse, I find that I can really understand what Young is saying. It is extremely easy to judge someone else’s actions without considering what could have led them to behave in a certain way. When judging myself, I will try to create a gray area if I know I’ve done something that I believe is wrong. However if I saw someone else do the same thing, I would probably just label them as a bad person. It is also noted in the reading that dualistic thinking goes hand in hand with paranoia and the apocalyptic. When one decides to go against “evil”, they become part of a fundamentalist group, embracing what they believe is true. Continue reading
Fundamentalist Ideas in Society
As I was reading the fundamentalist essays, I smiled to myself because it reminded me of everyday life. Charles Strozier and Katharine Boyd’s essays resonated with me the most when it came to ideas relating to dualism and time, as we see many fundamentalist ideas in today’s mainstream and regular culture. I am surprised that apocalyptic ideas fit so readily into social ideas, leading me to think that America today has a culture that is influenced heavily by fundamentalist ideas. Although the fundamentalist mindset is seen in the apocalyptic setting, the characteristics of dualism, and the distinct perception of time, the formation of apocalyptic groups can often be seen in a non-apocalyptic settings. Continue reading
