i am sparticus: Chapter 1: Left Behind

Chapter 1: Left Behind

There are two ways to write a book that finds it's purpose in copying something to show how wrong it is. The first way is to write a parody, taking the existing work and imitating it but exaggerating and drawing attention to certain bits for comic effect. If you don't have to exaggerate things much to make it amusing then it shows how absurd the original ideas are. This is why while parodies of the original Left Behind series exist, they're almost unnecessary because the original ideas are so absurd that they require no real exaggeration or attention drawing to them to make them amusing.

The second way to write this sort of correcting-through-imitation type of book is to re-write the book you want to correct but changing it so that the facts in the book aren't crazy and made up. So, for example, if you wanted to correct a book that states that Genghis Khan was so successful because he was actually a robot you would write a similar account about Genghis Khan's life but with him as a human Mongol Warlord instead.

In either of these approaches it's important not to misrepresent what the original says. After all if you can't get the original ideas of the book right how can you say it's wrong? And if you need to lie about what the other book teaches then maybe its ideas aren't ridiculous enough to justify the correction you're trying to do.

It's the second approach that the Survivor book tries to take and it's within two pages of the actual book¹ that they first misrepresent what the Left Behind series teach. The first two pages consist of some initial scene setting. There's a family called the Straits who are the equivalent to Left Behind's Steeles. They consist of a husband called Rayford who flies planes, a wife Irene who does wifely type things and two kids, Chloe and Raymie. In the Left Behind books the Raymie equivalent gets raptured and so never actually appears as a character but you hear lots about how awesomely holy and godly he was. Because the spiritual assessment of the Left Behind writers can never be accurate the Survivors' Raymie character is a bratty stupid boy. Anyway the misrepresentation occurs half way down the page when talking about jerk-Raymie's beliefs. Apparently Raymie believes that he'll be saved and taken to heaven "all because he had said a little prayer asking Jesus in to his heart".

There is a tendency in Evangelical Christianity towards reducing becoming a Christian to saying a formulaic prayer (or similar magic words). Most know that this is wrong, that becoming a Christian involves a change of heart not just saying some words and in fairness the Left Behind series' authors believe that too. But it'd be fair easier for McKay to present them as believing that people are saved by magic words so he does. Which just illustrates how weak his own argument is. If he has to twist the plot of an already absurd book and give the authors beliefs they don't really have to make his case and arguments seem sensible in comparison then his case and arguments obviously aren't sensible normally.

¹ It actually first misrepresents back in the introduction when it says that the Left Behind authors are in it for money and fame and glory. But this is the first time it happens in a chapter of their book.

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