Doomsday

In Glorious Appearing, Jesus doesn’t seem to mind the color of one’s skin or where they were born. Everyone is spoken to in their own tongue, even their own accent! And we’re reminded of this more times than the number “7” appears in Revelation.

It becomes a sick joke, particularly when Ming thinks Jesus is speaking directly to her and is asked to step forward only to find a million others stepping forward too (295). It’s even worse when Chang thinks “The message his Savior imparted was definitely for him alone…” when this same false assumption was made just a dozen times before (326).

I disagree with Quinby in her reading that this text is racist and McAlister in her reading that GA displayed “impressive changes in race politics (17, McAlister reading).” The characters were not particularly westernized or Christian but essentially without identity, meaning Chang was a Chinese character to match a Asian tech-whiz stereotype, not because his Asian status was of importance to his character. The embarrassing caricatures of Carmela and Shaniqua do not grapple with the question of race but use awkward Ebonics to highlight the pervasiveness of the word. The only thing that mattered was coming to Jesus.

By Jesus describing Chang’s previous religion as “aberrant,” one could assume the book was using a racist, imperialist tone, especially after Mac refers to the west Texan accent as “the language of Heaven.” (325 & 341) Though in that same scene everyone gets a joke at the same moment, as if their minds were strung together in a collective unconscious, they even hear “Jesus laugh at Chaim’s Manna crack.” (341) The community, or lack of individuality, is startling. Even Jesus isn’t allowed a spotlight, as despite his “magnanimous comments about Himself, Rayford was struck by how lowly, humble, and compassionate [Jesus] sounded.” The point is that if you are saved, your nationality and race amounts to the language in which Jesus speaks to you.

By the time I got to the end of Glorious Appearing, I could see the appeal of it. It takes away the need for thought and responsibility. It gives the Christians and the Jews the option to be a child again, and to wholly rely on your mommy or daddy.

You aren’t held responsible because you don’t know any better. It gives the unthinking sheep a Shepard to herd them to moral slaughter. God/Jesus tells his followers what to do, so they don’t have to make decisions. They don’t have to question whether killing all these people is ethical. They don’t have to wonder if any of Carpathia’s people took the mark out of fear or to keep their families safe. Good people of other faiths still deserve to burn in the fires of hell because don’t fall completely in line. How do you tell a small child that they deserve to be killed because they were too young and too innocent to understand that they’re evil? But since God says it is right, it must be so. Since God is giving the orders, his followers have no responsibility. They are simply the knives used, not the brain that directs the action. They take no responsibility because that is God’s role as their father.

It is a tempting arrangement, which will result in the stunting of personal growth. If a person cannot grow up and question her parents, take responsibility of her own actions, learn to say no, or at least, ask why, then she remain a child her entire life.

A Lecture by Slavoj Zizek. “Anti-Semitism, Anti-Semite and Jew” European Graduate School, 2009

I was thinking about posting this before I read McAlister’s piece.  But now, having read it, I see even more connections to what we’ve been discussing.  The lecture is long, so I’ve only posted the end parts where Zizek summarizes his argument.

The McAlister piece brings together many of the issues we raised last week in class.  I’m glad that we read this after the class because it really crystallized how I understand and think about Left Behind.  There are many things I wanted to discuss in this blog post, but in the interest of brevity, I’ll choose one and leave the rest for class.

She reads the novels as placing importance on the roles of the Jews, specifically as interfaith relations are important in regards to imperialism.  The U.S. has always been imperialistic, this attitude/policy has just been called by another name (e.g.; “making the world safe for democracy.”) Democracy (as opposed to governments based on religious law) is a pursuit of liberalism.  But McAlister says that this sort of  liberalism is also rooted in Christian evangelism in the way that it seeks to convert others to their sect.

In the lecture I posted, Slavoj Zizek makes the claim that liberalism and fundamentalism are a false conflict and that fundamentalism can actually grow out of liberalism.  (I’m not sure if I understood his entire lecture correctly.)  Zizek also talks about a change in anti-Semitism that occurred during pre-Nazi years.  He says that previously anti-Semites sought to eradicate Jewishness, so conversion was an acceptable alternative.  Then, the concept of a Jew changed to an inherent quality so that physical annihilation was something they desired.  During Hitler’s rule, he and Eichmann considered moving all Jews to another homeland to answer the Jewish Question.  Ultimately, the Final Solution resulted in the Holocaust.  Then, Zizek says, with the founding of Israel in 1948, the attitude changed again.  This changed perception of the Jew from nomadic to established in a homeland and fueled hatred against this new type of Jew.  He says that many Middle Eastern countries (he gives Iran for example) allow Jews to live freely in their country, but antagonize Israel.   And, importantly, Zizek says this is responsible for a new type of anti-Semitism, one directed against Israel.

To connect with our topic of interest – Christian evangelist notions about Israel: McAlister notes the omission of any discussion of American Jews and Palestine or Palestinians  from Left Behind.  About the first she writes: “Jews are instrumental when they matter but they do not matter at all unless they make themselves of interest to God by becoming Israelis.”  About the latter: “the notion of Palesinian is made invisivble, impossible…there is no Palestinian problem on the evangelical map.”  That is: the creation of the state of Israel as opposed to Palestine antagonizes the need for the state to exist for the Second Coming.  Further, McAlister connects this with general U.S. Middle East foreign policy, because the U.S. is largely evangelical Christian.

Mcalister begins by painting the Left Behind novels as a strong supporter of US intervention or disruption of Middles Eastern politics. I was not entirely sure if she was indicating that the books incited people to support US military action or simply that the books were another manifestation of a mindset that already existed. Before the reader oversimplifies the role of the novels in our time she encourages us to find what makes the Left Behind series different from its predecessors. To be honest the only series that I can think of similar to Left Behind that infiltrated popular culture is Pilgrim’s Progress. I never actually read either but I remember seeing a film adaptation of both prior to taking this class. To be honest I was really unaware of a religious calling to protect Israeli state at all costs. As I continue to read and learn in this class I feel like an outsider learning all of these things about evangelicals and what they supposedly believe. But back to the issue at hand, is the pro-Israel sentiment in America is largely fueled by Israel’s role in end-time prophecy? Where do the Palestinians go? I do not think this makes any sense and I am angered that she argues that Americans (evangelicals anyhow) are largely invested in this region based upon their role at the end of the world. This has not been my most cohesive blog entry but I am not sure of what to say really. I am annoyed with this group of evangelicals that have completely disregarded the plight of a people who have been displaced in their own country. I am also annoyed at myself for not figuring this out on my own. I do not want to racialize this, but hell it reeks of racism and religious discrimination. I am ashamed really to be associated with America in general but this is another thing that I am able to add to my current list of grievances. Right now I am unable yet again to identify with American evangelicalism despite being Christian and a similar claim to acknowledge the same God because there is a serious disconnect between reality and their reality. I am not able to fully articulate how I feel but it is quite disheartening for the Palestinians and other Israelis to be used simply as a means to an end apocalyptic end.

I heard Tuvian throat-singers a few hours ago at the Rubin Museum of Art and I’m still shaking a bit.

You should hear a decent throat-singer perform before you die.

The museum was celebrating Jung’s “Red Book,” his recently released private journal.

I flipped through a few pages until I came upon a conversation he had with his soul.

His soul said, “the great work begins.” The context was murky, so I can’t explain much there.

Kushner reads German (he translated Mother Courage and Her Children for the Delacorte) – maybe he was inspired by Jung.

We spoke today about Kushner’s democratic values as what he believes is his “great work.”

Jung probably meant something else. What is your “great work?”

And what is it about the end that often brings about great works? Desperation?

I came across this yesterday and thought it fit right in with the discussion we had at the end of class, particularly in reference to skepticism as it seeks to break from dualism.

Lynne Layton writes:

John Powers says of Lynch’s [Blue Velvet]  “Such a dichotomy is typical…it would be wrong to criticize Blue Velvet and the others for dramatizing the excluded middle, for not finding alternatives to the extremes of good and evil that give them their spark.  Literary gothicism is distinguished by similar stylization; it does with the territory.  Nevertheless, one suspects these films don’t dramatize alternatives because they can’t imagine alternatives. ”
…

Perhaps the patriarchal dominant is the psychology and politics of this split world, a world with no alternatives to black-and-white thinking because so much vulnerability is kept secret.  As anxiety heightens, splitting intensifies.

—

Briefly – In life-and-death decisions, there are usually (but not always) two options.  In Glorious Appearing, too, there is no middle ground.  A person can either accept or reject creed and therefore be damned or saved.  The Rapture is preceded by great turbulence, likely a time of anxiety, in which the “splitting” Layton talks about is apparent.

Thought/comments?

“While both the authors and the publisher have claimed that thousands of readers have experienced a Christian conversion due to the novels, scholars such as Frykholm have been unable to document even a single case in which a reader experienced a Christian conversion. When Frykholm requested evidence of conversion from the publisher, Tyndale submitted only seven cases; four were reportedly hearsay and three were reportedly readers that had reaffirmed their lapsed faith in Christianity.”

– Frykholm, A. “Rapture Culture” 2004: p. 161

63,000,000 read it, but like me, did their concentration wane during the 4-page sermons?

Glorious Appearing reads like it was written by a military reject who overdosed on Sunday television sermons and Wikipedia—full of descriptions of blood and battle with a touch of evangelical fervor and a hint of middle-school computer nerd-ism. It lacked depth, emotion and loses all entertainment value when you realize that, since the armies of Carpathia can’t harm the defenders and all previous wounds are healed, there is no challenge.  All conflict will be resolved by a true deus ex machina move with very little need for thoughtful resolution.

That being said, I will admit that the book made some good points. The only one that interests me would be Leah Rose’s comment about the coming of Jesus being far louder the second time around. (132) If my Catholic school memories do not deceive, then Jesus crept into the world, unnoticed but for a few shepherds and magi, beneath a bright star amidst hay bales in a barn. The second coming of the Son of God sounds much more pronounced and extravagant. Everyone’s invited to the inaugural birthday bash as long as you put yourself on the guest list before the big day, Daddy’s going to put a birth announcement in the sky. His coming will be impossible to ignore.

But why is this time so different from the last? Is it a forewarning of the sheer number of dead that this rompe on the earthly plane will produce? Perhaps it is because the death certificate will read differently? Instead of “One person was crucified as an example,” it will say, “Everyone’s dead together.”

I do not usually read books of the genre in which Glorious Appearing would be categorized.  However, the book does remind me of another similar style of writing with which I am familiar.  Books written for and by Orthodox Jews have certain similar elements.  At home, I was discouraged from reading these books, their having been dismissed as “not well-written.”  Still, I’ve read my share and am not surprised by the parallels between Glorious Appearing and those books.

My friend works in the Jewish publishing business.  In her opinion, authors are strongly encouraged (at the risk of not being published) to write characters who are “realer than real.”  Children are extra-sweet and super-obedient and parents extra-wise and true guardians of the faith.  More importantly, the issues that are discussed in these didactic, often dogmatic, and moralistic books are always set in stark black-and-white terms.  Further, the antagonist is usually an external force over which the protagonist has no control: life-threatening illness, tragic car accidents, Nazi criminal activity, their parents’ decision to raise them in another faith or tradition.  Since the protagonist is removed from the actions that produce the struggle in the plot, his reaction to this conflict seems removed from his real inner life.  Only the prevailing Orthodox view is upheld and the reader is left with the the taste of artificial sweetener.  Usually the resolution proclaims that the protagonist is upholding the faith for generations and saving the world with his actions.

In Glorious Appearing, Ray and his company endure years of trial over which they seem to have no control.  Still, they are of the faithful, the choice to believe is absolute and unwavering.  In the end, they are rewarded.  The rest of the world waits for them to carry out their mission, watching by television.  Control of the media is often the first method a dictator uses to control a group.

The Left Behind series may speak to a diverse audience but its mission is straightforward – advance the cause, convert the unconverted.  Young and old and members of different sects (not sure about all denomination’s reaction to the story) can identify with the main characters, however unbelievable their unwavering devotion and exaggerated goodness, because the end is a supposed panacea for all the problems this world faces.  For example, the sick and maimed are healed, each is the subject of divine attention – not only does this make belief in Apocalypse palatable and digestible, it reinforces the personal benefits of belief.

That the end of the book is predictable and a story well-known in Christian theology and popular American culture is not counter its immense popularity.  Have not successful film adaptations of famous novels shown this to be valid?  Rather, each medium serves its own function, tells its own variation of the theme, and appeals to its own audience.  We might all know how the story is going to end but that does not diminish the pleasure of the reading.

Wouldn’t we not all be believers if we saw miracles predicted thousands of years ago come true?  Faith alone cannot prove these so-called miracles are not only coincidence?  But at what point can supernatural events no longer be called coincidence? The characters in this story are not concerned that the timing of the seven years since the signing of the pact is not exact.  God has his own concept of timing suffices as explanation for them.