For me, finishing Glorious Appearing segued into Strozier’s discussion of paranoia and violence in “The Apocalyptic Other.” According to Strozier, one of the characteristics of a paranoid is the belief that he “lives in a world of shame and humiliation, of suspiciousness, aggression, and dualisms” (63) as well as deep-seated feelings of persecution and victimization. While Strozier, through his example of his patient Harriet clarifies that these feelings are usually a product of their minds, in Glorious Appearing, the protagonists do in fact live in a world that closely matches that description. They are a tiny rebel army trying to defeat an enemy that is millions strong. If they are captured by the enemy, they are tortured and then executed. Many of the main characters from the previous books have already been killed. In this world, the persecution is real, and therefore the divine vengeance is justified.

If the Book of Revelation is a lurid revenge fantasy, then Glorious Appearing renders it in bright Technicolor details. The entire second half of the novel is devoted to the destruction that the coming of Jesus Christ wrecks on the armies of the Anti-Christ. Every time Jesus speaks, millions of people are ripped apart, forming a river of blood that eventually transforms into a swamp of blood, gore, and mud. The gratuitous descriptions of violence are another outcome of the dualistic vision of the world that Glorious Appearing espouses; if you’re not with us, you’re against us, and if you’re against us, there is no hope for you but eternal damnation. This vision of the future leaves no room for those who are doubtful or confused, or simply not ready to devote themselves to God’s cause. During the coming of Christ, not only are Carpathia’s soldiers are killed, but also Enoch’s neighbors in Chicago, who were as far removed from the final battle as he was. I am once again struck by the bravery of the little boy in Jesus Camp, who stood in front of all those people and admitted that he sometimes had trouble believing in God. In the starkly black and white worldview of Glorious Appearing, that little boy would not have been spared.

While this seems inhumane from my point of view, as Strozier states, this thirst for revenge thrives through dissociation from the actual act of revenge. Since the violence and the retribution are displaced onto a divine avenger, the fundamentalist Christian emerges from the chaos unscathed. The final genocidal cleansing of the earth is not carried out by humans in Glorious Appearing; it is the act of God, and thus irreproachable.