It took quite some time to get used to the tone of Glorious Appearing. As a liberal New Yorker without strong religious affiliations, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop (so to speak). This can’t be serious, I kept thinking, even though I knew the premise of the series. When one of the characters questioned God’s power early on in the novel, I thought that this must be the moment, the moment where the unfailing faith does in fact, fail. Could God make a missile miss Ray, but neglect to ensure that the missile still didn’t kill him indirectly? But alas, halfway through the novel Ray is alive and well despite serious injury (miraculously healed in fact). Then it was God’s timing. As 4PM Israel time came and went, I thought perhaps this was the plot twist – maybe God never shows up! But then the clouds, the lightening, and the cross came and I had to try to wrap my head around this modern day Book of Revelation. The fact that “so far everything, every element of the prophecy [had] been fulfilled literally” certainly didn’t help ease my acceptance (61). While this is only slightly ridiculous for the less fantastic elements of Revelation (hundreds of thousands of black-clad troops on horseback), I felt like many of these scenes belonged in Lord of the Rings. But I don’t have a problem with the Lord of the Rings – in fact, I quite enjoy it. A cynicism about religion led me to approach this differently than I would any other fantasy novel (to the nonbeliever, this must be viewed as mere fantasy). The constant citation of scripture certainly didn’t help. However, I tried to read with the same suspension of disbelief I would give any other fictional apocalyptic story.

The book is literally based on the Book of Revelation, so there are no parallels to draw – all of the major events can be found in the text we read (and are frequently conveniently cited for us by the authors). However, even the tone matched that of the Book of Revelation. The book is largely a cast of men, with the women on God’s side only briefly mentioned or described. The only woman on the side of the Antichrist specifically mentioned, Viv Ivins, is described as “moaning on the floor in ecstasy” in the presence of the Devil. The use of sexual language is no coincidence; John’s view on sexuality is clear and it is replicated here by associated the only sexual scene with an agent of the Antichrist. The idea that the events in depicted in Revelation will all happen literally not only contradicted Revelation itself, but it seemed as if this was not in fact a statement, but could change when needed. For example, the two edged sword protruding from Christ’s mouth is declared a “clearly symbolic” image only 120 pages after the events are said to be unfolding literally as described (185). This seemed to fit perfectly will Strozier’s statement that “observers of fundamentalism skirt absolute definitions” (11).  Another definition seemed to fit with dualist fundamentalist thinking, as well as draw directly from the Book of Revelation: Leah defines people who are evil as those who turn their back on God. This black-and-white view certainly makes it easy to accept the violence about to be carried about against those who didn’t have the foresight to believe in Him. A more subtle morality, and the idea of forgiveness that the rest of New Testament God espouses made me shudder at how easy Enoch could accept the fact that his neighbors, and millions of people around the world, were about to be slaughtered.

The other common thread that seemed to run through this part of the book was a optimistic and hopefully outlook toward the future. I found this somewhat ironic and confusing. While history is described as “a shadow,” there are constant references to events after the appearing is to occur (191). This seemed to contradict the idea that there would be an “end” to history.