Over the past couple weeks we’ve alluded to Hitler and the Holocaust a few times. With this week’s reading, it was really all I could think about. Hitler is directly analogous to Carpathia who, in Glorious Appearing and the rest of the Left Behind series, is the Antichrist. Then in Strozier’s essays, the description of how the fundamentalist mindset exhibits violent potentials seems to resonate with Hitler’s actions towards the Jews in the Holocaust. Because of our fixation with the end of times and our curiosity in psychological reasoning, we are left to analyze his actions from a purely apocalyptic standpoint.
In Glorious Appearing, Carpathia is the fictional interpretation of the Antichrist that is originally characterized in the Bible. He is the leader of the “Global Community,” which is the Earthly movement against Jesus Christ. After doing some background research on each of the characters in Glorious Appearing (which is the last of the twelve book Left Behind series), it became apparent that Carpathia kills anyone who does not comply with “Carpathianism,” which he deems the only legal religion. Killing the opposition that does not agree with your particular view? It’s hard not to be reminded of Hitler when reading this. He launched and ruled over a global effort to eliminate all Jews. Sounds like a story more fitting for a corny action flick series like Left Behind. Yet that’s what makes it all the more frightening. That seemingly outlandish story became the world’s reality.
The fundamentalist mindset, as explained by Strozier, applies to both the fictional Carpathia and the all-too-real Hitler. “Authors who write about fundamentalism often treat dualistic thinking as a primary characteristic of the mindset” (Strozier 14). This dualistic thinking is evident in both Carpathia’s and Hitler’s methods because they have divided the world so precisely into “good” and “evil” by their followers and opponents. And the violent nature of which Strozier speaks in essay 3 is so easily seen in each of their actions.
But our own experience with human nature forces us to ask ourselves how someone can proudly be the cause of so much death and destruction. Strozier answers this question in two different ways. He first explains that because fundamentalists so staunchly categorize people into good and evil, the fundamentalist will lose empathy for those in the evil group and ultimately dehumanize them (15). This is exactly what Hitler did to the Jews in concentration camps. He dehumanized his victims by taking away any shred of individuality they had upon entering. They were issued serial numbers to use instead of names. By this method, it seemed less like you were murdering a fellow human being and more like you were disposing of inanimate objects in a factory. Secondly, Strozier explains that the dualistic thinking leads directly into the apocalyptic because the battle between good and evil ends with a violent destruction world. By this way, the fundamentalists’ apocalyptic belief leads them to the idea that “the day of destruction is not one of terror but one of vindication” (31). They will then tend to inflict violence as a form of righteous punishment in the name of God. Carpathia’s violence is justified by his belief that he is God, as we are lead to believe when Chang intercepts a conversation in which Carpathia says, “I shall establish my eternal kingdom as the one and only true god” (24). Hitler similarly believed that he was doing God’s bidding, as he often alluded to the Bible in his speeches.
Hitler’s reign is long over and we are still stuck waiting for Christ’s Second Coming and the battle of Armageddon. But Antichrist or not, Hitler is a great example of the kind of fundamentalist violence Strozier talks about because of apocalyptic ideals.
Hi Emily,
I think you’ve aptly analyzed the logic of how LaHaye and Jenkins think about Carpathia, as a Hitler-like being who is described as “pure evil.” So the first question to consider is, once a person is described this way, what does it justify? And the second question entails a shift of focus: the twist I want you to think about in respect to Strozier and Boyd’s discussions has to do with applying the logic of justified violence to the fundamentalist characters in Glorious Appearing (in other words, not just to the Hitler like Carpathia).
I can definitely agree with the connection you establish between the dualistic mindset defined by Strozier and the set-up of a Hitler like Carpathia. It is interesting to think about Professor Lee’s question about the justification of dualistic thinking. Being that Carpathia was portrayed as the Antichrist, we can clearly make out that this was the version of “pure evil” that LaHaye and Jenkins have put forth. However, I wonder how much more of an evil threat he poses in comparison with the “good” of fundamentalist thought. If “evil” is the Antichrist, then “good” can only be Christ himself. And yet, the Glorious Appearing of Christ is also measured up to be a day of God’s judgement, in which some may prevail into the New World, while others are destined for doom. So if we view the dualism in light of this paradox, the level of justifications for good and evil become rather vague. Carpathia is purely evil, and has the right to destroy everyone in his way; the fundamentalist Messiah is “good” but his arrival on Earth may cause just as much havoc. I wonder if solidarity in dualism leads us to make justifications that aren’t entirely fair to begin with.