'I can't begin to describe how incoherent and bizarre...' (the annotated Left Behind)

This is good:

Left Behind has been praised by some as an "evangelistic" book, but it's not. Although the book does attempt to scare people into conversion, that is secondary. The authors' real message for those they regard as unsaved is to thumb their nose and do a little victory dance. "You just wait until Jesus gets back and proves we were right and you were wrong. Then we'll see who's laughing at who."

This too:

That, in a nutshell, is their goal: a Greater Israel that stretches from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates (so it's actually larger than Old Testament Israel) and a reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem. Their reasoning is not so much theological as magical. By bringing about these things, they hope to make Jesus come back. This is sorcery, not eschatology.

I've mentioned this before, but this so-called-theology precisely parallels the plot of many an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Zealous fanatics loyal to some secretive prophecy try to bring about the signs that will summon their master and bring about the apocalypse and the death of nearly everyone on earth. (Buffy and the gang, contra the Apostolic Congress, regard this as a Bad Thing that should be stopped.)

He also highlights this, from an email one of the Left Behind authors sent to Nick Kristof:

Kristof had criticized the triumphant, cackling tone of L&J's 11th LB novel, The Glorious Appearing, in which the redeemed -- and Jesus himself -- seem to delight in the destruction of the lost and the unforgiven. LaHaye responds:

'The eschatological problem Kristof mentioned of believers mourning the lost in the next life is a subject that bothered me for years until I found Revelation 21:4, which informs us that in his mercy God will wipe away all tears from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. Somehow the memory of all who reject Christ will be mercifully eradicated from our memories.'

Stonagal seems like an interesting figure. The man owns "the biggest banks" -- plural -- as well as the biggest "financial institutions." I don't comprehend the advantage Stonagal sees in owning several competing banks without consolidating them into a single institution, but then I'm not an international financier and power broker.

There's so much more to this analysis than the basics of how simply awful the Left Behind books are as literary works, but for whatever reason, right now I'm finding comments like these to be the most amusing.

there's a fun bit a few months ago where he uses a passage from the books to demonstrate why a lotta really conservative folks fear the u.n./one-world-gubmint idea...

That's Ezekiel 23:20 in the NIV. (My buddy Dwight wants to get end zone tickets to a Monday Night game some day and wave a sign that reads, "Ezek. 23:20.")

its not nearly as exciting as the hal linsdey comic book

So this movie was a lot more bananas than I thought it was going to be.

http://youtu.be/QTi2ReiwUrY?t=3m18s

http://youtu.be/iUg4ioK5TBg?t=3m21s

And, Spoiler Alert, this is how it all ends, the POTUS confronting the Anti-Christ. Yessir.

http://youtu.be/G8Rttc0L8Xw?t=2m41s

Roffle

http://gawker.com/5953472/nicolas-cage-to-crease-forehead-squint-eyes-in-upcoming-rapture-remake-left-behind

Kirk Cameron all "Wait what about MEEEEEE"

https://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t31.0-8/s960x960/10382538_647101498689844_6632228367401331118_o.jpg

please have a burning doll at some point

what emotions are their expressions trying to evoke there

Escape.

this will never trump the straight-to-video version we were forced to watch at my wrestling camp in 6th grade

Seriously thought that poster was some photoshop gag.

they're all looking at Chief Wiggum

We have trailer!

http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/30/5764534/nicolas-cage-faces-gods-wrath-in-the-trailer-for-left-behind

Oh MAN. So on facebook Ethan P. noted that the director of the film is none other than Vic Armstrong, stuntman of the gods, who has done EVERYTHING. Including essentially actually BE Indiana Jones when it came to all the set pieces and action moments.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002184/?ref_=tt_ov_dr

And check out the second unit work!

But here's the thing -- his next film, next year, stars Linda Hamilton and SHATNER

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3543258/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_1

Ethan and I are in agonies that we somehow have cosmically missed out on Left Behind starring Cage AND Shatner.

there are things this film did well and things it did less well

also the rapture is theorised -- by ppl we have no reason to think have authority -- but in no sense unproven, rival theories (aliens, the vanished ppl just went tiny and are still inside their piles of clothes screaming unheard in little voices) were not looked into

jordin sparks is good, nic cage is for once merely passable

lol new Left Behind film drops today in theatres.

suggest below what films we should bribe the projectionist to show instead

...did they soft reboot?

no idea. it's called RISE OF THE ANTICHRIST

Gonna sue these bastards for ripping off my life story.

I’m curious how much Q/Trump/anti-woke shit they’ll dump in to update the grievance mongering from the Dubya Era which itself was already updated from the Clinton era