#tim lahaye

[wutbju]

It might be that I consumed BJU's Class of 1950 Tim LaHaye's Left Behind when I was an adult, but this one didn't scare me like the Thief in the Night.

But the appeal is similar. It commodifies fear and indulges our self-righteousness that "we are not like those who are left behind."

It's the same as this picture which used to hang in my dentist's office in Tulsa:

Who would have plane crashes in a painting on the wall of an office??! Think about it. That's bizarre. That's . . . lurid.

But the painting forces us to stand outside the horror of the crashes and destruction. It's not our terror. It's for those who don't believe.

Instead of the male gaze, it's the fundamentalist gaze. It's separatist. It's self-righteous. The horror exists for us to consume and judge. Those who are being hurt are not-us.

Just like in Reefer Madness, yes? Unless you are stupid enough to smoke pot or stupid enough to not get saved.

#Bob Jones University #BOJsploitation #Reefer Madness #Exploitation Genre #Christploitation #Fundyploitation #John R. Rice #Renton Rathbun #BJUChapel #Mark Driscoll #Dan Olinger #Class of 1950 #Tim LaHaye

[thehopeelias]

Higher Quality on Youtube:

I’ll probably post some of the individual art here without the credits on it. I’ll definitely be posting them ALL on my art insta ( @ hopesartcastle ) including some sketches and concept art type things.

The Japanese lyrics were from Lauren Horii’s original Youtube video. The rest of the Japanese text was me. And I am by no means fluent so apologies if I made any glaring or horrible mistakes 😆

#left behind #left behind series #jerry b jenkins #tim lahaye #christian #dallas jenkins #angel studios #left behind anime #rayford steele #chloe steele #buck williams #chloe williams #bruce barnes #nicolae carpathia #lauren horii #Youtube

[connieaaa]

#ex fundamentalist #religious trauma #anti christianity #anti religion #ex religious #ex fundamentalists #ex fundie #council for national policy #tim lahaye #right wing death squad #religious trauma syndrome #religious fundamentalists #religious education #alt right #religious homeschooling

[kabayo-reads]

07.08.2023 (SATURDAY)

Everyone has choice

When to and not to raise their voices

#argeraint #kabayo reads #kabayo-reads #bookblr #come spring #tim lahaye #gregory s. dinallo #george harrison #july entry

[whatisonthemoon]

Magazine Says Tim LaHaye Received Help from Unification Church (1986)

Published in Christianity Today, January 17, 1986, by Beth Spring An article in this month’s issue of Mother Jones magazine suggests that ties exist between conservative Christian activists and the Unification Church. Free-lance reporter Carolyn Weaver obtained a cassette recording of a letter dictated by fundamentalist author and pastor Tim LaHaye. The letter, addressed to Bo Hi Pak, top aide to Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon, expresses thanks for “your generous help to our work.”

LaHaye heads a right-wing coalition of evangelical and fundamentalist leaders known as the American Coalition for Traditional Values (ACTV). In the letter, LaHaye tells Pak that moving to Washington and launching ACTV “has been extremely expensive, much more so than I originally thought.”

The letter does not specify exactly what was received from Pak. LaHaye denies that he or his organization ever accepted money from any group or individual on behalf of Moon’s church. He acknowledged dictating the letter, but he deplored its use by Mother Jones.

In a written response to the magazine article, LaHaye says, “I consider it extremely unethical to publish a private tape recording of the unedited first draft dictation of a letter that never appeared in that form. There is serious doubt that it was ever mailed at all since neither our office nor the supposed recipient has a copy.”

LaHaye explained in an interview that the “help” mentioned on the tape consisted of Pak introducing him to important persons in Washington. (By press time, CHRISTIANITY TODAY was unable to reach Pak to confirm what help he provided.) LaHaye said Pak attended an ACTV banquet in October and made a small “personal” cash donation to the organization. LaHaye said his relationship with Pak “has never been on a theological basis. I respect him as a conservative businessman, staunch anti-Communist and publisher of several conservative newspapers and magazines.…”

The letter was dictated early last year. On the tape, LaHaye mentions that he and his wife, Beverly, want to host the Paks for dinner, and lists reasons for optimism about the eventual triumph of conservative goals.

The Unification Church has sought solidarity with conservative Christians on issues of religious freedom, and many fundamentalist leaders have obliged. In 1984, LaHaye chaired a committee of leaders from the Coalition on Religious Liberty. His committee organized a rally protesting perceived violations of religious liberty, including the jailing of Moon on charges of tax evasion. The rally was dominated by Moon’s followers, and as a result LaHaye resigned his position with the Coalition on Religious Liberty.

However, he says he believes Unificationists are part of the solution to rampant secularism in America. “Anyone could be part of the solution,” LaHaye said, “if he is really trying to move the country to a conservative point of view.”

#tim lahaye #beverly lahaye #bo hi pak #moonies #unification church #republican party #conservative politics #us politics #religious right #christianity #evangelicalism #unification church in the united states #unification church in usa #unification church in the united states of america #American Coalition for Traditional Values

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Question and Answer

With John Shelby Spong Marcia Wadsworth, via the Internet, writes: "Why do others such as Tim LaHaye and certain church groups, who I presume are well educated on biblical matters, insist that every word in the Bible is inerrant. Have they never been introduced to Biblical criticism? Could they be afraid to question?" Dear Marcia, Religion is a strange and sometimes even an irrational thing. People have an amazing ability to compartmentalize learning so that various things never have to interact in their minds. So it is that apparently educated people can actually suspend their thought processes and reject evolution for "creation science," seek to deny that homosexuality is a given rather than a chosen way of life or even believe that miracles occur whenever they pray for them. It is not that their minds are closed so much as it is that they cannot allow anything into their minds that threatens the core of their security-giving religious faith. As I get older, I am impressed by two constant truths: It is not easy to be human. Anxiety and mortality have to be embraced by self-conscious creatures and that is what makes our humanity so unique among the creatures of this earth. Religion is primarily a search for security and not a search for truth. Religion is what we so often use to bank the fires of our anxiety. That is why religion tends toward becoming excessive, neurotic, controlling and even evil. That is why a religious government is always a cruel government. People need to understand that questioning and doubting are healthy, human activities to be encouraged not to be feared. Certainly is a vice not a virtue. Insecurity is something to be grasped and treasured. A true and healthy religious system will encourage each of these activities. A sick and fearful religious system will seek to remove them. --John Shelby Spong

[alive on all channels]

#John Shelby Spong #alive on all channels #religion #security #anxiety #human #belief

[the-world-annealing]

Criticizing Correct Conclusions

Often, speculative fiction begins with a premise, and then sets out to work out its consequences. The premise of Contact is "What if schematics for a mysterious alien machine were received by SETI?" The premise of 1632 is "What if a southern town was teleported into the middle of 30-years-war Germany?". The premise of Dune is "What if a single inhospitable planet produced a resource essential for interplanetary travel?"

(and all these works do other things as well, obviously, but the events of their plots are very much based on that driving question in particular)

Unrelatedly, there exists a strain of literary criticism that asks the question "Given the things that the author chooses to have happen in the story, what can we conclude about their sympathies and worldview?". And that's a fair question! It's interesting to note, for instance, that superhero movies tend to have a world-threatening problem show up that only the superheroes can deal with, thus neatly sidestepping the question of whether society is improved by having a couple unaccountable superhuman vigilantes running around.

But the second mode of criticism should be very cautiously applied to works of the first sort, and unfortunately that doesn't happen in practice.

A concrete example: in Y: The Last Man, the fundamental premise is that everyone with a Y-chromosome dies overnight, causing global chaos. Later, when nations start getting to get their act together again, Israel becomes an expansionist regional power on account of their army having much more women in it than those commanded by their neighbors. That's a reasonable thing to have happen, based on what has occurred at that point in the narrative, and probably not something the author was actively considering from the first moments of writing this story!

But there's an unfortunately common mindset where critical analyses treat this basically the same as a story by Tom Clancy or Tim LaHaye where Israel gets a lucky break and conquers all their neighbours, and considers it suggestive of a pro-Israel worldview, when in fact these are fundamentally different situations.

Speculative premises themselves are not above criticism; Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold can (and should) be viewed as more than an impartial study into the question: "What if, in the far future, cannibalistic black people enslaved and raped white people?". And similarly, it's fair to point out cases where the writer starts out with an innocuous premise, but then puts a thumb on the scales to bring about a preferred outcome. But events that are correct extrapolations of questions that are legitimate in themselves are not valid targets of criticism, not in the same way that such events would be if the writer just sort of chose arbitrarily to put them in!

#metadiscourse #worldbuilding #creative writing #media criticism #speculative fiction

[arconinternet]

Earth's Two-Minute Warning (Video, 1997)

A Christian apocalyptic theory VHS, featuring appearances from apocalypse theorists such as Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye. You can watch it here, or digitally borrow the 1996 book it was based on here.

#internet archive #video #videos #vhs #vhs tapes #vhs aesthetic #tw christianity #cw christianity #apocalypse #revelations #book #books #obscure books #book cover #book covers #cover art #1996 #1997 #1990s #90s

[oldshowbiz]

Michelangelo's David was condemned by Tim LaHaye, the powerful lunatic evangelist and longtime ally of the Heritage Foundation, the Council for National Policy, Paul Weyrich, and Jerry Falwell.

#cranks #fire and brimstone #america

[adverbian]

Twenty years ago (!!), blogger Fred Clark started a detailed sporking of the Left Behind series by Tim Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.

Along the way, he well and thoroughly roasted the theology of Premillennial Dispensationalism. (And pointed out how it was woven into everything the George W. Bush administration did — and wow, does reading those posts give me some real bad flashbacks).

It’s a whole, detailed, and completely bananas worldview based on Frankensteining together passages from all different books of the Bible. Long story short:

Christians get raptured

Seven years of gruesome revenge-fantasy suffering for everyone left behind

Second Coming

Jesus physically reigns on earth for a thousand years

Final Judgment (including the final boss battle with Satan!)

New Jerusalem (Garden of Eden rebuilt, more or less)

I bring this up, because I feel like this eschatology is absolutely ripe for Good Omens S3 mockery.

I mean, look at this chart. Just look at it. This is what it’s all like.

(Also, not for nothing, but Gaiman was very active in the blogosphere of the same era. I’d be surprised if he hadn’t been reading Fred Clark.)

#good omens #Christian eschatology #premillennial dispensationalism #left behind #Fred Clark

[wutbju]

We need to confront our anti-Semitic past.

#Bob Jones University #Righting America #Dispensationalism #Tim LaHaye #Class of 1950 #Klandamentalism

[connieaaa]

#ex religious #exchristian #ex christian #exorcism #ex christianity #ex evangelical #ex baptist #ex fundamentalists #ex fundie #ex fundamentalist #tim lahaye #christians #christian politics #alt right #religious right #conservative christians #Conservative Christianity #san diego christian college #christian college #anti religion #religious trauma #religious #religious homeschooling

[kabayo-reads]

07.07.2023 (FRIDAY)

It's Friday! I make Fridays the day where I have to read one or more chapters and write in my journal. Today was really great even if I was pretty down about a few personal things. But I'm glad that I got to visit my favorite tea house again after a long time!

#argeraint #kabayo reads #kabayo-reads #bookblr #journaling #journal #cafe #bubble tea #bubble town #book #come spring #tim lahaye #gregory s. dinallo #july entry

[creature-wizard]

Mike Warnke claims that his path to redemption lay in... joining the Navy.

He claims that he isn't even fully detoxed from all the drugs he was doing before going to boot camp, where he met a couple of Christian guys and read the Bible owned by one of them, decided to accept Christ, and that this cured his Being An Asshole problem.

He claims that the Satanists realized that they made a mistake in kicking him out, and try to pull him back into the cult, but he's Christian now so that's not happening.

He claims that he met a nice Christian girl and got engaged, and apparently studied medicine under the Navy. Eventually he gets married, and continues to be bothered by Satanists and demons. Mike and his new wife Sue pray the demonic attacks away.

He says that he met Pastor Tim LaHaye, who allegedly claims to have been attacked by witches. (Which... hardly a tragedy if true, lol.) LaHaye, he also claims, gives him the straight dope about the Illuminati:

“That’s because it’s a top-secret organization, Mike. But I've done quite a bit of research. The Illuminati was started May 1, 1776, and the word itself means ‘Holders of the Light.’ In this case, it’s a Satanic light. Members think they alone have the wisdom to run the world. It’s really only the continuation ” I shook my head. “I never did find out much of a Satanic organization that has been in existence since — about 1100 a.d. Oh, under various names, of course.”

Cornerstone Magazine interviewed LaHaye, who confirmed that Warnke misrepresented the conversation they had. While Warnke claims that he first heard the word among Satanists, LaHaye believes that he'd never heard of it before meeting him. As for what the Illuminati actually is... the Encyclopedia Britannica article isn't a bad intro. Suffice it to say that the Bavarian Illuminati had some crappy ideas, but "Satanic" in the sense that Warnke describes it was not, and literally all of this shit about it performing blood sacrifices to Satan is carried over from witch hysteria and antisemitism - if it isn't just that upright.

Anyway, remember what I said about the Satanic cult stuff being a twisted power fantasy? Well, we can see Warnke shifting over to a new power fantasy:

I had had the feeling for a long time that Sue and I had not learned how to pray effectively, that we lacked “prayer power,” and that there were ways of prayer that could really defeat Satan in a big way—enough to put him down for the full count instead of having him get up off the canvas and come back at us with some new Satanic twist. I thought there must be a higher-powered prayer life than what we knew of yet.

...

Charles Lemmox was the pastor, and he was glad to hear that Sue and I might be interested in teaching a Sunday school class. But I was hesitant to accept.”

“Let Sue and me pray about it,” I told Helen. “I think you should know a little more about us before you have me teaching Sunday school. Why don’t you drop by and see us sometime this week?”

On the way home, Sue seemed quiet. Then, just before we got in the door, she opened up. “Mike, why were you so enthusiastic about teaching Sunday school at first, then got all shook up about it?” She put her Bible on the table and sat down.

“Well, I just thought we ought to pray about it, first. I also think Helen should know about my witchcraft experiences and all that junk before—”

“How can you say that? You've accepted the Lord! Your sins are washed away. Jesus died for you. After all you’ve been through, you'd be a better teacher than a lot of goody-goodies that go around proclaiming how perfect they are!” Sue’s eyes flashed, and I knew I had lost that argument already.

Warnke writes Helen saying that they need people who've been through his experiences to talk to kids these days, because kids can see through phonies, which... real ironic there, Warnke.

He also claims that Helen taught him how to empower his prayers by invoking the Blood of Christ and Jesus's suffering. The prayer she allegedly suggests is this:

Lord I ask for the power of Jesus to save me from this—name what the oppression is—and to help me with the problem I’m going through. I claim the protection of Jesus’ Blood and the power of His resurrection to rebuke Satan, right now, in the name of Jesus!

These seem like strange things to invoke to me, because Jesus's blood isn't supposed to be protective; it's supposed to be cleansing. (Isn't it the Holy Ghost that's supposed to be protective?) And what does the Resurrection have to do with rebuking? (Isn't that what Jesus's royal authority is supposed to be for?) Like, you cannot convince me that this is some sort of major power upgrade.

#the satan seller #mike warnke #satanic panic

[azspot]

LaHaye was part of a much larger movement which is still affecting the present, both socially and politically. Though LaHaye passed away in 2016, his apocalyptic theology (a combination of his most cherished biblical teachings, conspiracy theories, and political ideologies) continue to work like propaganda.

This propaganda is passed off under the qualifier “biblical” which gives it unquestionable power. And like all propaganda, it not only forms people, but directs them towards certain political actions. LaHaye helped paved the road on which this propaganda travels.

In 1968, then pastor LaHaye wrote a stern letter to Wheaton College, protesting leadership’s decision to host a memorial service for the “theological liberal heretic” Martin Luther King Jr. He went on to mock King’s ‘non-violent’ demonstrations and blame them for the deaths of 17 people. (Similar rhetoric would surface again from similar spaces to narrate the summer of 2020.)

He left the pulpit in 1981 to pursue political and commercial avenues of influence and activism. LaHaye became the first president for the Council for National Policy. But LaHaye always retained his fierce commitment to a particular apocalyptic theological system: pre-tribulation dispensationalism. Within this system, LaHaye—who also lectured at John Birch Society meetings—remained an avowed conspiracy theorist. This was fully compatible with being a dispensationalist in particular, and evangelical in general. In Rapture Under Attack (1998) he wrote:

I myself have been a forty-five year student of the satanically-inspired, centuries-old conspiracy theory to use government, education, and media to destroy every vestige of Christianity within our society and establish a new world order. Having read at least fifty books on the Illuminati, I am convinced that it exists and can be blamed for many of man’s inhumane actions against his fellow man during the past two hundred years…an enormous amount of evidence proves that secularization of our once Judeo-Christian society has not been an accident but is the result of the devilishly clever scheming carried on by this secret order.

Conspiracy theory was a feature, not a bug, of LaHaye’s apocalyptic theology. In fact, I’d like to argue conspiracy theory is a sort of apocalyptic discourse within evangelical spaces, one which continues to shape the social and political world with great effect. Left Behind series is merely an ideological concentration and commercial distillation of all LaHaye believed theologically and worked for politically. It continues to be diffused and refracted.

(via slacktivist)

#books #fundamentalism

[steamedtangerine]

Just a reminder...

that Pat Robertson is still dead and buried (and probably burning) along with Tim Lahaye, Jerry Falwell, and Paul Weyrich...

#Simpsons #hope #rest in-oh wait