If you don't know what the Left Behind series is then congratulations, you're a very lucky person. According to Wikipedia they're "a series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, dealing with Christian dispensationalist End Times: pretribulation, premillennial, Christian eschatology viewpoint of the end of the world. " Don't understand that? I don't blame you, most people who read the novels don't understand those terms either and assume that they're standard Christian belief, that they portray what the Bible portrays. Unfortunately this isn't the case, the Left Behind series is based on shockingly bad theology.
The overarching criticism of these books is probably best summed up by one Fred Clark when he says that dispensationalism is "evil, anti-Christian crap" (that, and an entire series of thoughts on the books can be found on his website). One of reasons dispensationalism is so bad is that it requires an 'literal till it breaks down' form of biblical interpretation. Any passage in the bible, regardless of whether it's the story of someone's life, a poem, a dream, a parable or a vision of heaven needs to be treated as literal as possible even if that makes the passage almost nonsense. Except in some cases where you can make out that the bible means whatever it is you want. So when Jeremiah 6:22-23 says:
"Look, an army is coming
from the land of the north;
a great nation is being stirred up
from the ends of the earth.
They are armed with bow and spear;
they are cruel and show no mercy.
They sound like the roaring sea
as they ride on their horses;
they come like men in battle formation
to attack you, O Daughter of Zion."
The Army is read a real literal army, and the North is a real literal nation (Russia is commonly picked, communist scum) but the "armed with bow and spear" bit? That's an image for nuclear weaponry. Let the reader make up his own interpretation.
Anyway, as there is no real grounds for how to interpret the Bible properly lots of division occurs among dispensationalists, not least in regards to how exactly the end times work out. These divisions can get quite heated sometimes with many words written and much energy spent on trying to recruit people to the cause of the one true correct side. Which is how at sometime last week my friend got given a copy of "Survivors", a novelised view of the real way the world is going to end. According to the authors of this novel, what's wrong with the Left Behind series is that they're "pretribulational premillennial dispensationalists", not "posttribunational premillennial dispensationalists". The Left Behind writers are crazy heretics who have lost all hope of eternal salvation and are going to spend eternity in hell because they believe in "pre-" not "post-".
Writers of novels, theologians and the general public: Being willing to condemn a school of theology and everyone associated with it on the basis of it having one prefix of difference from your school of theology is a sure sign that you are very very wrong.
(8) We Suck Young Blood (live) - Radiohead
Yes, but the Left Behind books are saying that they are more-or-less word for word truth. They bring it on themselves.
True, true... Although, I am concerned at the amount of young people to whom many of the events described in Whinee the Pooh are even plausible!
But yeah, different league there.
How was the music?
what i'm more concerned about is why Mr Pooh is spelt as though he's a serial complainer :P
Pedantry is an infectious disease!
Capitalise the 'w' of 'What', and you're in the team.
Whinee the Pooh is the queen of pedanticocity. punk.
Re: Vista, there's a slight problem with getting it running on a Mac in that it uses a different start-up procedure to both XP and OS X. (I give it two weeks.)
Re: your post, reminds me of the two Baptists who meet on a bridge. You still have that story on your site somewhere?
I think they officially have 58 books in the series and are at this moment penning another 43 prequels to add to the collection...
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the real Phil Brown
I like a lot of what Fred Clark has to say, and am glad someone's so observant. I do think that you could make similar criticisms of Whinee the Pooh though. Take anything page-by-page, word-by-word - and it's not hard to rip it apart.