No Christian Left Behind
Ideology in Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’s Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days.
University of Eastern Finland Philosophical Faculty School of Humanities English Language and Culture
Anni Elina Calcara Student number: 233140
15th of May 2018
ITÄ-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO – UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND
Tiedekunta – Faculty
Philosophical Faculty Osasto – School
School of Humanities Tekijät – Author
Anni Elina Calcara Työn nimi – Title
No Christian Left Behind: Ideology in Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’s Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days
Pääaine – Main subject Työn laji – Level Päivämäärä –
Date Sivumäärä – Number of pages English Language and Culture Pro gradu -
tutkielma x
15.05.2018 72 Sivuainetutkielma
Kandidaatin tutkielma Aineopintojen tutkielma Tiivistelmä – Abstract
Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’s Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days is a work of popular, apocalyptic fiction, telling a fictional tale of the biblical rapture. In the novel, the reader is led to follow the story of a small group of people left behind to live out the end times on Earth.
The novel was published in 1995, just in time to save souls before the next millennium, which many predicted would coincide with the end of times at the stroke of midnight of 31.12.1999. While the world did not come to an end, evangelical Christianity has been on the rise ever since. It has prospered by adopting sophisticated marketing strategies and by promoting its ideology like a well-designed product, through megachurches, government lobbyists, and consumer entertainment, such as the novel Left Behind.
LaHaye and Jenkins’s novel is “message first, art second”. What began as a single novel in 1995 has grown into a series and a vast franchise aimed to spread LaHaye and Jenkins’s fundamentalist evangelical Christian ideology. This thesis is concerned in unveiling what is and how the ideology inside the novel is conveyed. The relationship between ideology and literature is at times complex and multilayered. Ideology can be alternately a producer or a product of a text, or it can be both. A possible outcome of examining ideology in a text, is to discover explicit or implicit messages.
This thesis examines Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days and the ideological apparatus surrounding it, by breaking apart this apparatus and exploring the different parts separately. By doing so, I am able to take an in-depth look at the ideology which is produced in and is a product of LaHaye and Jenkins’s work. While object of research is only the novel Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days, most of the results are discussed in relation with the entire Left Behind series. Since the novel is a work of popular fiction, it is appropriate to approach it with non-traditional tools of analysis. In this thesis, I view the text through a matrix of concepts, built from discussions on the relationships among ideology, literature, popular fiction, religion, and fundamentalism.
Through this matrix, I examine the external and internal aspects of the ideological apparatus: the production process, the novel and the series as a commodity, the ideology in the text, and the judgments made in the text based on the ideology. These aspects give a holistic view of the ideology surrounding Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days.
Ultimately, this thesis provides an assessment on how characters are created to embody strict religious archetypes, events unfold to become moral lessons, and fear and tensions are mounted to provide the ultimate warning for a reader to convert. While the scope of this thesis is limited, this kind of research can provide a key for accessing other literary texts which may appear neutral, but still carry latent ideological messages.
Avainsanat – Keywords
Left Behind, Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins, ideology, evangelical Christianity, fundamentalism, popular fiction.
ITÄ-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO – UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND
Tiedekunta – Faculty
Filosofinen tiedekunta Osasto – School
Humanistinen osasto Tekijät – Author
Anni Elina Calcara Työn nimi – Title
No Christian Left Behind: Ideology in Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’s Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days
Pääaine – Main subject Työn laji – Level Päivämäärä –
Date Sivumäärä – Number of pages
Englannin kieli ja kulttuuri Pro gradu -
tutkielma x
15.05.2018 72 Sivuainetutkielma
Kandidaatin tutkielma Aineopintojen tutkielma Tiivistelmä – Abstract
Tim LaHayen ja Jerry B. Jenkinsin romaani Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days (suom. Viimeisten päivien vaellus: Kadotettu maailma) on osa viihde- ja apokalyptistä kirjallisuutta. Romaani on fiktiivinen tarina raamatullisesta maailmanlopusta, jossa lukija pääsee seuraamaan pienen ryhmän selviytymistä niin sanotun
”ylöstempauksen” jälkeisessä, lopun aikojen maailmassa. Lukijoidensa sielujen pelastamiseksi kirjoitettu Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days julkaistiin vuonna 1995, muutama vuosi ennen uuden vuosituhannen alkua, jolloin monet ennustivat mailmanlopun saapuvan. Ihmiskunnan loppu ei koittanutkaan, mutta evankelisuus, tai evankelinen kristillisyys, on tasaisesti kasvattanut suosiotaan. Liike on kukoistanut hyödyntämällä hienostuneita markkinointistrategioita, levittäen hiottua ideologista tuotettaan megakirkkojen, poliittisen toiminnan ja viihdeteollisuuden kautta. Left Behind on osa tätä markkinointi kokonaisuutta.
LaHayen ja Jenkinsin romaani, ja heidän koko kirjasarjansa, on ensisijaisesti viesti lukijoille. Left Behind on kasvanut yhdestä romaanista 16 teoksen sarjaksi ja laajaksi tuoteryhmäksi, jonka tarkoituksena on levittää LaHayen ja Jenkinsin fundamentalistista evakelikalistista kristillistä ideologiaa. Tämä tutkimus tarkastelee millainen tuo ideologia on ja millä keinoin tätä ideologiaa tuotetaan tarkastellussa romaanissa. Ideologian ja kirjallisuuden suhde on usein mutkikas ja monitasoinen. Ideologia voi vuoroin olla tekstin tuottaja ja tuote, tai molempia yhtäaikaa. Tarkastelemalla tekstin ideologisia piirteitä voimme löytää lukijalle tarkoitet ilmeiset ja piilotetut viestit. Tämä tutkimus tutkii Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days -romaania ympäröivää ideologista koneistoa sekä romaanin tekstiä. Kyseisen koneiston tutkimus suoritetaan rikkomalla se osiksi ja tarkastelemalla jokaista osaa yksittäin. Tälla tavoin ideologista koneistoa voidaan analysoida mahdollisimman yksityiskohtaisesti. Kohdemateriaalina on käytetty ainoastaan LaHayen ja Jenkinsin kirjasarja ensimmäistä romaania, mutta tarkastelussa esiintulleita päätelmiä tarkastellaan myös suhteessa koko Left Behind -sarjaan.
LaHayen ja Jenkinsin romaani on viihdekirjallinen teos, joten sen tarkasteluun ei ole syytä käyttää perinteisiä kirjallisuuden analyysimenetelmiä. Tässä tutkimuksessa analyysia varten on luotu käsitteellinen verkko, jonka kautta lähestyn tutkittavana olevaa tekstiä. Tämä verkko muodostuu käsitteistä ideologia, kirjallisuus, viihdekirjallisuus, uskonto ja fundamentalismi sekä näiden käsitteiden keskinäisistä suhteista. Verkon kautta päästään käsiksi romaanin ideologisen koneiston ulkoisiin ja sisäisiin tekijöihin, joita ovat romaanin tuottamisprosessi, romaanin ja sarjan leima kaupallisena tuotteena, tekstin ideologisuus sekä tekstissä esiin tulevat ideologiaan perustuvat moraaliset mielipiteet. Yhdessä nämä osat muodostavat kuvan siitä, millainen on Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days -romaania ympäröivä ideologia.
Tutkimuksessa esitän, että romaanin hahmot on luotu eräänlaisiksi uskonnollisiksi karikatyyreiksi, tapahtumat toimivat moraalisina oppitunteina, ja romaanista kumpuavan pelon ja jännitteiden tarkoitus on kannustaa lukijaa kääntymään uskoon ennen kuin on liian myöhäistä. Vaikka tutkimus on rajoitettu, se tarjoaa keinoja siihen kuinka ideologisia viestejä voidaan etsiä muista, kenties päällepäin neutraaleistakin teksteistä.
Avainsanat – Keywords
Left Behind, Viimeisten päivien vaellus, Tim LaHaye, Jerry B.Jenkins, ideologia, evankelisuus, fundamentalismi, viihdekirjallisuus.
Content
1. Introduction 1
1.1. Aims and Structure 3
1.2. Left Behind 4
1.3. Popular Fiction, Apocalyptic Fiction 8
1.4. Religion in the United States 11
2. Approaching Ideology 15
2.1. Popular Fiction 18
2.2. Religion and Fundamentalism 22
3. The Ideological Apparatus 32
3.1. Reading Outside the Academy 33
3.2. Message First, Art Second 43
3.3. Unveiling the Text 49
3.4. Rules to Walk with God 54
4. Conclusion 63
Bibliography 65
1 1. Introduction
Religious fundamentalism is an issue that evokes fear in contemporary society. In the western world, people quickly associate it with radical Islam and the havoc that has reaped across Europe, North America, and the Middle East. However, fundamentalism is much more.
Fundamentalist branches, found in most religious denominations, share characteristics, such as absolutism, inerrancy in their dogma, and behavioral requirements. In addition, they provide a solid community, clear rules to abide by, and a guaranteed entrance to a privileged afterlife.
Fundamentalist ideology, receiving its guidelines from some uncontestable divine authority, gives life structure, meaning, and simplicity. With today’s socio-economic instability, it is not a surprise that fundamentalist movements attract members. Karl Marx expressed his view of religion and society:
Religion is indeed the self-consciousness and self-awareness of man who either has not yet attained to himself or has already lost himself again. […] Man is the world of man, the state, society. This state, this society, produces religion’s inverted attitude to the world, because they are an inverted world themselves.
(qtd in McLellan 13)
As the passage claims, the purpose of religion is to keep humans, state, and society preoccupied and to offer solace. With the price of total commitment, fundamentalist groups offer extreme distraction and comfort.
Ideologies such as fundamentalism are constructed and spread by texts. While psychologists or sociologists might be interested in uncovering how such texts can influence individuals and shape societies, literary scholars should be concerned in finding ways to understand how ideas can be conveyed overtly or covertly through various literary devices.
Even seemingly neutral texts may carry latent messages.
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Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’s Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days (1995) is neither neutral nor does it attempt to hide its ideology. While the novel is not part of the literary canon, it is a precious resource for scholars, since it provides a key to access and unveil ideology from a modern piece fiction. The ideological apparatus surrounding Left Behind is layered. In this thesis I peel and examine these layers: the genre of popular fiction, the publishing and promotion machinery, how the ideology is found in the text, and the judgments made through this ideology.
Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days is a work of popular fiction and consequently especially capable of conveying ideology due to the general characteristics of the genre. Popular fiction is repetitive in content and structure, easy to consume in volume, and similarly easy to produce, thus, a new product is always available for the consumer. The novel is also a product, produced with an ideological agenda, which is best expressed by Jenkins’s own statement claiming that the Left Behind series is “message first, art second” (King 10:00- 10:32). The series is promoted by a large production machinery: it is a commodity and marketed as such. From one single novel, the Left Behind has been developed into a franchise, including various products for children, teenagers, and adults, thus reaching a vast audience.
Furthermore, instead of delivering an artistic expression, the series promotes LaHaye and Jenkins’s ideology. This ideology is conveyed through LaHaye and Jenkins’s choices of literary devices, such as language, composition of characters and content of the novel. Last, the ideology is reproduced in the novel when it takes stands on topics such as what characteristics are better than others, what are acceptable roles for women, and what are the correct moral positions on issues such as abortion. In the end, all the four elements of the frame surrounding the novel come together, to form the ideological machinery. In this thesis, the parts of this frame are identified and examined separately, providing an in-depth analysis of the ideological aspects of the novel.
3 1.1. Aims and Structure
This thesis examines the novel Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days, while at times reflecting on the entire Left Behind series. More specifically, the thesis discusses the fundamentalist evangelical Christian ideology in the novel and the series. The aim is to identify the parts of the ideological frame surrounding Left Behind and examine them separately to arrive to a thorough analysis of the ideological aspects of the novel.
Since the novel is a part of a popular series, it is significant to look at the series as well as the single novel. Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days is the focus of analysis since it is the first published book in the series and so it marks the beginning of the Left Behind ideology and franchise. Additionally, the first novel has enjoyed perhaps most fame. It has been, for instance, adapted to film on several occasions, most recently in 2014 starring Nicolas Cage. Further, the examination is limited mostly to one novel to give more space for an in-depth analysis. Nevertheless, the Left Behind series is referenced frequently.
While an in-depth analysis of other novels of the series can elucidate the development of LaHaye and Jenkins’s ideology, for the purposes of this thesis, however, examining exclusively Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days is sufficient.
Chapter 1 is the introduction to the following thesis. First, the Left Behind series and the Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days are presented. Then, the novel and its authors, Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, are briefly introduced. Next, the genres of popular fiction and apocalyptic fiction are discussed, to place the Left Behind in the literary arena.
Further, religion, evangelical Christianity, and their role in the United States is viewed shortly to give context to LaHaye and Jenkins’s work. Last, other academic research conducted on the series is reviewed.
In Chapter 2, the concepts ideology, religion, fundamentalism, literature, and popular fiction are discussed as they relate to each other. The aim is to make a comprehensive
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assessment on each term and examine their relationships. Ideology is treated as a precursor of the other terms. The section produces the matrix, through which Left Behind material is analyzed in Chapter 3.
Chapter 3 examines Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days, and to some extent the entire Left Behind series. In each section of this Chapter, the material is looked from a different, yet related, perspective, constantly utilizing the matrix constructed in Chapter 2.
First, the Left Behind is discussed as a form of popular fiction. Then, the novel is examined as a product, as a commodity. Following this, the tools used in examining ideology in children’s fiction are utilized with Left Behind. The last section will examine the moral judgements made in Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days are viewed.
Due to the global political and religious turmoil, the topic of fundamentalist religious ideology is timely. Literature is not detached from the world, but rather reflects it.
Readers must pay attention to whether the text in front of them has an agenda. Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days and the Left Behind series openly declare to have an evangelical
Christian offset. Nevertheless, not all works of literature do this as some conceal their intent deliberately.
1.2. Left Behind
The Left Behind series created by Timothy F. LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins represents a fictional evangelical Christian vision of the biblical apocalypse and the events leading to it. LaHaye and Jenkins’s series contains 16 books published between 1995 and 2007. The novel Left Behind:
A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days is the first book published in the series. In time, the first novel
grew into a series, and eventually, to a vast franchise. Today, this franchise contains traditional novels, children’s books, graphic novels, non-fiction texts, audio books, movies, and much more (Left Behind Series: Product Release Schedule). The father of this empire, Tim LaHaye,
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was an evangelical Christian minister, pastor, and founder of numerous Christian organizations, who passed away at the age of 90 in 2016. His cowriter Jerry Jenkins is an author of biographies and other non-fictional texts.
Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days begins when millions of people
disappear in a blink of an eye, leaving behind only their clothes and jewelry. Immediately, the protagonist, captain Rayford “Ray” Steele realizes that they have been raptured and he has been left behind. Soon he learns that his wife Irene and his son Ray Jr., “Raymie”, are among those who have disappeared, while his daughter Chloe is not. To find answers Ray contacts the church Irene used to attend and reaches Bruce Barnes, one of the few members of Irene’s congregations still to be found. Bruce invites Ray and Chloe to watch a video made by the pastor of the church for those “left behind”. After watching the film Ray becomes a born-again Christian. Chloe has her doubts, but later she feels that God has answered her prayers and follows in the footsteps of her father.
The other protagonist, Cameron “Buck” Williams, is a successful young reporter for the Global Weekly and a passenger on Ray’s plane on his way to London to meet a source who has information on global currency conspiracy when the rapture occurs. The novel is divided into chapters written either from Ray’s or Buck’s point of view. The men do not physically meet each other until the final chapters of the novel.
Finally, the novel introduces the alleged Antichrist, Nicolae Carpathia, who has moved quickly from being a private businessman to the president of Romania. Now Nicolae promotes unity and disarmament, and to achieve his goals he rises to be the leader of the United Nations. Buck, Ray, Chloe, and Bruce conclude that Nicolae fulfills the characteristics of the Antichrist, which pushes Buck to pray for God’s protection and finally accept Christ. In the end, Bruce, Ray, Chloe and Buck come together and form a “Tribulation Force”, dedicated to spread the word of God and offer salvation to the people left behind.
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The Left Behind series presents LaHaye and Jenkins’s version of evangelical Christianity. The series and its message have been studied by several academics. Amy Johnson Frykholm examines the readership of the Left Behind series and why the biblical apocalypse is such a topic of interest in Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America (2004).
Frykholm, a former evangelist, is interested in the reader experience and interpretation tactics of the readers, and examines a relatively small sample of 35 readers. According to Frykholm, these readers come from various religious and secular backgrounds. Through interviews she analyzes their experiences with the series. Her own dislike of the Left Behind is stated: “[…] I was repelled by what I saw as shallowness of the books’ characters. […] I was offended by what appeared to me as the pat answers and single-minded political agenda of the novels”
(Frykholm, Rapture Culture 8). Though the study is said to be ethnographic, Frykholm’s background as a former evangelical Christian and her negative attitude towards LaHaye and Jenkins’s work create a questionable premise as she is teetering on the edge of bias.
Nevertheless, Frykholm’s study offers valuable information on the readership of the series.
Some researchers have dedicated multiple studies to examine the series. Jennie Chapman has written a dissertation ”Paradoxes of Power: Apocalyptic Agency in the Left Behind Series” (2009) and several articles that discuss the series, including “Tender Warriors:
Muscular Christians, Promise Keepers, and the Crisis of Masculinity in Left Behind” (2009) and “Selling Faith Without Selling Out: Reading the Left Behind Novels in the Context of Popular Culture” (2009), as well as Plotting Apocalypse: Reading, Agency, and Identity in the Left Behind Series (2013). Both Frykholm and Chapman concentrate on the Left Behind series as a form of popular, apocalyptic fiction. Like Frykholm, Chapman states her distaste for the Left Behind series: “For me, one of the challenges of studying Left Behind arises in the attempt to negotiate my own personal, frequently negative, responses to the texts” (Chapman, Plotting 9). It is apparent that academic researchers of the series do not find the topic – or the way it is
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handled – pleasant. In this thesis, to preserve objectivity, such statements are not made, but the approach is based on ideology critique.
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days as a product and a producer of an ideology. The aim is not to make personal judgements on the content of this ideology. Interestingly, academic researchers with, for a lack of a better term, “negative” premises are placed in opposition with the authors and “supportive”
critics in Crawford Gribben and Mark S. Sweetnam’s collection of articles Left Behind the Evangelical Imagination: Apocalypse and Popular Culture (2011). In this volume, several articles examine the series from multiple points of views, such as the role of masculinity, relationship to other religions, film adaptations, and prophecy making. The final article
“Response: Left Behind and the Evangelical Worldview”, written by Kevin D. Zuber on behalf of Jerry B. Jenkins, answers to the criticism presented in the other texts. It discusses some of the claims presented by other critics, and Zuber expresses “puzzlement” about the academic attention given to the series: “The reaction of […] readers to the scholarly analysis of the Left Behind series in this volume would likely be puzzlement. The authors of the series share their puzzlement” (Zuber 155-156). Zuber outlines that he intends to expose “the elements of the worldview, that informed the Left Behind series” (Zuber 156), and does so, to be able to
“interact with some of the analysis of the others in this volume – what I believe they got right, as well as what they missed (and why)” (Zuber 156). Zuber’s position is daring; he is
“correcting” the interpretation of other literary scholars. Zuber implicitly argues that he is in the position to do this, because of his affiliation with the evangelical faith and the author. While disagreements among critics are not uncommon, the way Zuber claims “superior knowledge”
questions the academic value of his text. Furthermore, he declares that he is aware of what goes on in the mind of the readers of Left Behind:
The way all of this [evangelical] literature is used by evangelical Christian
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readers is the way the readers of the Left Behind series read those novels – they identify with the faith of the characters. The cultural, religious, gender or ethnic background of the characters adds color to the personality but means relatively little to the reader who views them as either role models of faith to be emulated or conversely failures in faith to be avoided. (Zuber 169)
Zuber claims that the evangelical readers of the series pay “relatively little” attention to the characteristics of the characters, apart from their faith. Making such assertions, solely from religious premises, would be understandable if they were presented in a non-academic environment by the authors themselves. Zuber states that authors of fiction often answer to criticism by saying “[t]hat was not my intent” (Zuber 156). This prerogative Zuber should have perhaps steered clear from.
This thesis approaches the Left Behind from a neutral point of view. As Oser and Gmünder put it in their study of religious judgement: “Research of religion”, which research into Christian popular fiction is, “allows us to see that the scientific study of religion must refrain from attempting to explain religion” (Oser and Gmünder 4). Thus, the thesis aims to stay within the confines of literary criticism and cultural studies.
1.3. Popular Fiction, Apocalyptic Fiction
Left Behind: A Novel of Earth’s Last Days is popular fiction, and it can be classified as apocalyptic fiction. This is clear from the moment the reader picks it up and glances the synopsis of the plot printed in the cover. Such transparency is a common feature of popular fiction, as Gelder points out: “[…] you know and need to know immediately that this is romance, or work of crime fiction (and/or spy fiction), or science fiction, or fantasy, or horror, or a western, or an historical popular novel or an adventure novel” (Gelder 42). Gelder examines other characteristics of popular fiction in Popular Fiction: The Logics and Practices
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of a Literary Field (2004), as also do the essays collected in Popular Fictions: Essays in Literature and History (1986). Gelder explores the subject thoroughly, from the history of popular fiction as a genre, to its fans, and the production process. Unlike the essays in the anthology edited by Humm et al., Gelder clearly separates popular fiction from literature, but not without an explanation. Gelder states, “[t]he key paradigm for identifying popular fiction is not creativity, but industry” (Gelder 15; emphasis original). According to Gelder, the production machinery surrounding popular fiction is as important feature of the genre as the features in the text itself.
Gelder lists other characteristics that separate literature and popular fiction, such as relationship to the potential readership. In contrast to Gelder, Humm et al. see the separation of literature and popular fiction as more problematic. Both Gelder and Humm et al. agree on what is literature; both texts seemingly refer to so-called canonized or classic works and their authors. Here, Literature with the capital “L” refers to “kind of writing (and let us stay with prose fiction broadly speaking) produced by, for example, Jane Austen, George Elliot, Henry James, James Joyce, William Faulkner, […] and so on” (Gelder 11). Humm et al. concentrate more on the history of how the term “literature” has got its current meaning. In addition, they problematize the characteristics of the category, and thus, problematize the distinction of popular fiction and Literature. Most of all, Humm et al. wish to point out that popular fiction should not be set aside, away from the examination and analysis of academia. Although Humm et al. promote the value of so-called popular fiction, they state that the essays of their anthology
“[…] resist patronizing generalizations about the reading habits of those (unlike ourselves) who live and read outside the academy” (Humm et al. 3). The statement implies that popular fiction is situated outside the academia, and so is the intended audience. Gelder does not seem to dwell on this issue, although he points out that he does not want to come across as “taking a kind of
´anti-Literature` position” (Gelder 11). More recently, the line between popular fiction and
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Literature has become even more blurred, when current (postmodern) writers mix features of several genres and styles together. Berberich argues that although popular fiction is tied to time and place more tightly than “classic” Literature, which resists the passage of time, and popular fiction, like Literature, can “tell new generations about what our society cherished” (Berberich 4). Additionally, today the writers of Literature and popular fiction are both using the same contemporary marketing machinery. Consequently, according to Berberich, “literary and art critics have come to recognize how much high culture and popular culture have in common […]” (Berberich 5).
As well as being popular fiction, Left Behind: A Novel of Earth’s Last Days is apocalyptic fiction. Writing fiction about the (biblical) apocalypse is not exclusive to Christian authors, such as Jenkins and LaHaye. For instance, H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds (1898), Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend (1954), or Margaret Atwood’s trilogy Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2007), and MaddAddam (2013), all portray their own version of the end of the world (as we know it). The difference between these portrayals is the cause of the apocalypse: In Matheson it is a pandemic virus, in Wells aliens attack the Earth, and in Atwood’s trilogy the world is derailed by genetic engineering. These works by three different authors point out how themes vary within apocalyptic fiction. Left Behind: A Novel of Earth’s Last Days utilizes the apocalypse presented in the Bible and turns it into fiction: it presents LaHaye and Jenkins’s brand of evangelical Christianity.
Since the Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days does not have merit as
“traditional” canonical literature, then approaching it must differ from the “traditional” analysis of fiction. Humm et al. sum up the appropriate approach to popular fiction:
[…] if a piece of popular fiction is both difficult to read and not subject to the conventional criteria of “literary merit”, then how to read its “meanings” has to be extracted more deliberately from the ideological, social and political matrix
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that encloses and, in large measure, produces it. (Humm et al. 5; emphasis added)
Humm et al. state that to find the message behind, and the message sent by, popular fiction, the reader must adopt a sociological approach to the text. In the case of Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days, the “ideological, social and political matrix” encompasses the concepts
of religion, fundamentalism, and ideology, which are discussed in Chapter 2.
In the case of the Left Behind, the two genres, popular fiction and apocalyptic fiction, are interwoven. In “Reading the Left Behind Novels in the Context of Popular Culture”
(2009) Chapman comments on the novel and its location as a genre: “[s]tylistically, the novels emulate the thriller genre, but also incorporate aspects of romance, conspiracy and war fiction in their quest for broad generic appeal” (Chapman, “Selling” 151). According to Chapman, Left Behind is not confined to one genre. Combining aspects of multiple genres is not uncommon in works of popular fiction, or in Literature, for that matter. As Chapman points out, it is a way of attracting a wider audience (“Selling 151). This supports the idea that will be discussed further in Chapter 3: the purpose of Left Behind is to reach a vast audience with its ideological message.
1.4. Religion in the United States
Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days is not floating in a vacuum. Sevänen lays out a
premise that texts are socially determined by or tied to other aspects of culture and society.
Thus, texts should be examined in relation to other cultural and sociological realities.
Additionally, texts can be interpreted through them or in relation to them (Sevänen 12).
Through this premise, it is possible to form interpretations about what is the implied impact of a text or what kinds of texts are created in a specific environment. This section outlines the sociocultural environment in which the novel, and the entire Left Behind series, was created. It
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is pivotal to look at the unique social role that religion plays in the United States. Further, it is important to briefly examine evangelical Christianity.
American Christians have always been driven by the notion, that their country has a unique position: “God had given [the United States] a special purpose in the world”
(Campbell and Kean 105). Consequently, this appears to give the Americans a “permission” to spread their religious ideals; to do their divine duty, to fulfill their manifest destiny1: After all, the United States is a city on a hill and has a duty to shine light to the dark corners of the world.
Neil Campbell and Alasdair Kean examine the role of religion in American culture and society in American Cultural Studies: An Introduction to American Culture (1997).
Campbell and Kean state that “[t]he role played by religious thought and practice is of immense importance to a full understanding of American life” (Campbell and Kean 100). Indeed, position of organized religion is peculiar, as there is a well-pronounced separation between the church and the state. Nevertheless, religious thought seems to have immense influence in the affairs of the state. Religion, especially Christianity, has permeated all areas of American life.
As Campbell and Kean state: “[…] religious imagery and religious themes have considerable influence on the way Americans have reflected and acted, not only in the literature they have produced, but also in political language and rhetoric” (Campbell and Kean 101).
Christianity and membership in Christian congregation has had its rises and falls in popularity. Seemingly similar religious groups, such as Catholics and Protestants, have been in tension with each other, which often stems from something else besides religion, such as
“class, race, ethnicity and region” (Campbell and Kean 106). However, today there is more movement between different congregations. Instead of tensions between denominations, “[…]
what has emerged is a growing affinity between orthodox and progressive groups in either
1 The term was first coined by reporter John O’Sullivan in 1839. Manifest destiny was used as a justification for the expansion of the United States to the west (Campbell and Kean 104).
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camp” (Campbell and Kean 107-108). Larger Christian congregations have been internally divided into liberals and conservatives since the 1980s. The two groups have very different ideas on how the society should function and this in turn causes conflicts. According to Campbell and Kean:
These conceptions of moral authority (which) are at the heart of most of the political and ideological disagreements in American public discourse – including the debates over abortion, legitimate sexuality, the nature of the family, the moral content of education, Church/State law, the meaning of First Amendment free speech liberties, and on and on. (Campbell and Kean 108)
For the fundamentalists, God is the final, undebatable authority. To influence the outcome of these debates, according to Campbell and Kean, Christian conservatives have realized the need for political power:
Christian action now could help in the transition to the establishment of the Kingdom on this earth. For many Christian activists in the 1980s and 1990s saving your own soul remained important, but personal salvation must be accompanied by work to establish a truly Christian society. The traditional division between church and state set up by the Founding Fathers had only allowed the spread of humanism and secularism, and therefore disdain for Christian moral values. (Campbell and Kean 115)
Campbell and Kean state that Christian political activism aims to promote Christian values, or at least stop the spread of humanism, or in other words, modernism. The threat of modernism is discussed further in Chapter 2. All in all, the religious scene is not straightforward: different groups have different goals, and different ways they want to achieve them.
Campbell and Kean discuss evangelical Christianity in the United States and claim that “[O]ne of the most striking phenomena in recent American social history has been
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the continuing vitality of Evangelical Christianity, sometimes but not always associated with fundamentalist traits” (Campbell and Kean 109). Campbell and Kean emphasize that not all evangelicals are fundamentalists. That is an assertion this thesis agrees with. Campbell and Kean describe how the evangelicals have created large communities, religious pockets, where they offer their members “shops, schools, and a whole array of social and cultural institutions alongside their staple religious services” (Campbell and Kean 110). Consequently, the size of some congregations has grown massively, from perhaps one hundred members to tens of thousands. At the same time, churches have turned themselves into centers of entertainment.
For instance, “Willow Creek [church] is unashamedly based on the premise that religious truth can be packaged and sold in much the same way as any other product” (Campbell and Kean 110). The concept of religious ideology as a marketable product is discussed further in Chapter 3. Finally, Campbell and Kean review the position of the so-called pre-millenial believers, according to who: “[C]onditions on earth would inexorably worsen until Jesus returned to establish his Kingdom at the battle of Armageddon. […] true believers should concentrate on saving their own souls […]” (Campbell and Kean 112). They continue that consequently
“political action on this earth was pointless” (Campbell and Kean 112). LaHaye and Jenkins, and their fiction, agrees with the pre-millenial position. Thus, they are trying to save souls, not influence politics.
As I have briefly shown, religion has a special position in the United States and so do the Evangelicals. To spread their gospel and to follow the trend of religious commercialism, LaHaye and Jenkins have attempted to encapsulate the evangelical ideology into a product.
15 2. Approaching Ideology
This Chapter serves as the matrix, through which the ideological aspects of Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days are examined. The key term in this analytical matrix is ideology.
Due to its significance, other relevant terms and concepts are discussed in relation to it in the following sections.
Examining literature through a sociological frame is an approach provided by sociology of literature, specifically, the dialectical method and ideological criticism as defined by the so-called Frankfurt School. Bennett discusses the analysis of popular fiction: “The only major school of Marxist criticism that can claim to have seriously and sustainedly studied the domain of non-canonized texts – although more in the field of music than of fiction – is the Frankfurt School” (Bennett 240-241). According to Bennett, the so-called Frankfurt School and their methods are especially apt for analyzing popular fiction. To continue on these methods, Sevänen discusses the branches of the sociology of literature and states that the sociology of literature is divided into two main methodological approaches: literature can be assessed through the positivist (or empirical) method and the dialectical method (Sevänen 14).
While research made through the positivist method does not (usually) give importance to theory and emphasizes empirical, inductive and quantitative analysis, researchers operating according to the dialectical method prefer strong theoretical commitment, through which qualitative analysis should be conducted (Sevänen 13-14). The dialectical method, or the
“dialectical tradition” as Sevänen calls it, has its basis in the classical German philosophy of G.W.F Hegel, the aesthetics of Friedrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and the social theories of Karl Marx and Max Weber. Marxism has had a vital role in formation of the tradition (Sevänen 19). According to the dialectical method, literature is (to a degree) determined by the society: literature transmits the worldview of that society (Sevänen 19). In the dialectical tradition, researchers attempt to expose the worldview or ideology of a text and
16 at the same time practice ideological criticism.
Here, ideology is examined independently, to facilitate a smoother analysis of the other terms and concepts. Since this thesis is concerned with the relationship between ideology, religion, fundamentalism, literature, and popular fiction, a comprehensive history of the term ideology is not needed. Nevertheless, McLellan gives a short and appropriate introduction to this history. The term was first coined in the 18th century in France, and it referred to the science of ideas and “isms”. McLellan writes:
[…] ideology is less than 200 years old. It is the product of the social, political and intellectual upheavals that accompanied the Industrial Revolution: the spread of democratic ideals, the politics of mass movements, the idea that, since we have made the world, we can also remake it. (McLellan 2)
Napoleon later used the term in a derogatory sense, which gave it a political undertone. Later, the term has been defined and redefined numerous times.
The question what ideology is does not have a simple answer. When examining an ideology such as fundamental evangelical Christianity the aim is not to examine what the phenomenon is, but what it is presented to be like. The attempt is not to describe evangelical Christianity as it exists in the world, but how it is presented to be in LaHaye and Jenkins’s novel. In Ideology: An Introduction (1991) Eagleton states that in layman’s terms, or the
“person-in-the-street” as he calls it, ideology refers to “judging a particular issue through some rigid framework of preconceived ideas which distorts […] understanding” (Eagleton 3). In Ideology (1986) McLellan offers his own simple definition: “[i]deology is someone else’s thought, seldom our own” (McLellan 1). People hardly think of their own thoughts as
“ideological” in nature. These simple definitions should be kept in mind while discussing intricate theoretical interpretations of the term.
However, both Eagleton and McLellan recognize that ideology is a complex
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concept. According to Eagleton, the Marxists have been obsessed with “ideology as illusion, distortion and mystification” (Eagleton 3). He continues that in contrast “an alternative tradition of thought has been less epistemological than sociological, concerned more with the function the ideas within social life than with their reality or unreality” (Eagleton 3). McLellan agrees with Eagleton and demonstrates that while some Marxists, such as Engels, agree with the notion of ideology as false consciousness (23), others have criticized this interpretation:
Like Gramsci, Althusser is against any conception of ideology as false consciousness. […] he does not see ideology as a product of people’s minds but as having itself a quasi-material existence which defines what people think and is embodied in our society in what he calls ´ideological state apparatuses`
such as churches, trade unions and schools. […] Thus ideology is not merely an illusory representation of reality: it is the means through which people live their relation to reality. (McLellan 32; emphasis added)
Together McLellan and Eagleton show that the term ideology does not have a simple, all- satisfying definition. However, for this thesis, a “compromise” or a combination of definitions is utilized: ideology is seen as both a distorted experience of the world and the means through which people live in relation to reality. This is best elaborated through an example. A person who is indoctrinated into fundamentalist religion has a distorted view of the world: they see life through the narrow view offered by their oppressive community. At the same time, this view is the means through which they relate to reality. For instance, the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that accepting blood-transfusions, even in critical conditions, is a sin. A secular person would deem this idea as distorted, but for a true believer the danger of this seemingly harmless and potentially life-saving procedure is real. In some cases, it is real enough to die for.2
2 See ”Jehovah’s Witness ´Within Rights’ to Refuse Blood Transfusion.”
18 2.1. Popular Fiction
The relationship between literature and ideology is complex. Frykholm states: “Fiction helps make visible some of the deeper models and ideology at work in a worldview” (Frykholm,
“Rapture Fiction” 30). In other words, fiction offers a window to examine aspects of ideology from a different perspective. This thesis has briefly presented the history of ideology in the previous section, and the term literature has been addressed in Chapter 1. Here, the terms are examined together. This relationship and its significance are best illustrated by Michael Moriarty in “Ideology and Literature”:
[…] the literary text is thus like one of those DVD box sets in which Disc One contains the actual movie, with its staggering illusionistic effects, while Disc Two exhibits the process by which the illusion is brought about […]. Whereas the bourgeois critic only watches Disc One, the Marxist is the one who keeps switching back and forth between Disc One and Disc Two. In other words, while the association of literature and ideology distances literature from theory and knowledge, the relationship between them is conceived so as to preserve some cognitive value for the literary text: the text is the substitute for, if not the equivalent, of knowledge. (Moriarty 47)
Thus, examining ideology offers a “behind the scenes” view to a piece of literature. To continue, Moriarty discusses the relationship of ideology and literature extensively. He accounts for the development of this relationship based on Marx, Althusser, Macherey, Eagleton, Jameson, Foucault, and contemporary critique. Moriarty examines multiple definitions of ideology to create multiple definitions of the relationship between ideology and literature. Moriarty argues that:
the term ‘ideology’ will remain useful to literary studies precisely because of its vagueness, or flexibility: its capacity to unite, through the medium of discourse,
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on the one hand abstract ideas, although viewed less as abstract notions than as concrete particular positions, constructed more around images than around concepts, and on the other actual social behavior, through the medium of language, on the one hand, fantasy on the other. (Moriarty 54)
Moriarty claims that since the term ideology can be defined and redefined, either with detail or vaguely, to accommodate the criticism and critic utilizing the term, it is useful in varying fields of literary criticism. For these reasons, concept is also utilized in this thesis.
All literature has a “goal”, a message, whether it is to portray life in a place and era, to shed light on an injustice or tragedy, or to tell a good, heartwarming story of a captivating protagonist. Bennett comments that popular fiction “is one among many of the material forms which ideology takes (or through which it is mediated) under capitalism, and is an instance of its social production through the medium of writing” (Bennett 249). Popular fiction is a potent product, producer, and conveyer of ideology, mostly due to the characteristics that separate it from Literature, such as the fact that popular fiction is often treated as commodity, whereas Literature rarely is. Consequently, there appears to be differences between the consumers of Literature and popular fiction. According to Gelder, “the reader of Literature is contemplative, while the consumer of popular fiction is ´distracted`” (Gelder 37). Gelder argues that popular fiction is meant to entertain its reader, to give them “a break” from reality, whereas Literature is supposed to incite the reader to ponder upon reality more closely. Additionally, popular fiction is meant to be immediately captivating, read quickly, and consumed in quantity. Hence, there is no time to question the events. Or, as Gelder writes: “[s]tudents of Literature are in fact asked to become readers – whereas those who read popular fiction are rendered ideologically, as (merely) consumers” (Gelder 35; emphasis original). Due to the unquestioned nature of popular fiction, it is relatively easy to convey an ideological agenda through it. As we can see, the relationship between ideology and popular fiction is multilayered.
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The relationship between ideology and literature can manifest itself in two forms; literature as a producer and a product of ideology, and the ideological category of Literature. The former concept, literature as a producer and product of ideology, is quite simple.
Literature, such as Left Behind: A Novel of Earth’s Last Days, is a product of a specific ideology, in this case, fundamentalist evangelical Christianity. At the same time, literature reproduces the same ideology that has produced it: Left Behind: A Novel of Earth’s Last Days produces a fundamentalist evangelical Christian zeitgeist. The latter concept, the ideological category of Literature, refers to the categorization of texts being either inside or outside the literary canon. The “fundamentalist” ideology reserves the title of “Literature” to such texts that are deemed worthy due to, for instance, their structural composition. Further, the power to make such determinations is left to few in the academia and literary critics valuing tradition.
In “Marxism and Popular Fiction” Bennett describes the relation between the “insiders and outsiders” of literary canon:
The study of popular fiction (so-called) might play within a critical strategy aimed at deconstructing the category of Literature and at dismantling those critical procedures which currently produce for literary texts their political and ideological effects. By “Literature” here, I have in mind […] Literature as ´an ideologically constructed canon or corpus of texts operating in specific and determinate ways in and around the apparatus of education` […]; in short, the canonized tradition. (Bennett 237-238)
Being an insider, or an outsider for that matter, holds itself an ideological message. A piece of literature can be judged as not proper enough for the canon. For instance, it can be argued that The Fifty Shades of Grey (2011) by E. L. James is not part of the literary canon. Yet the book has been a huge success in sales and a target of academic interest.3 Being outside of the canon
3 See, Illouz, Trier-Bieniek, and Levine.
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and yet receiving the attention of academia has given The Fifty Shades of Grey a unique image:
a novel can be “bad” and a significant text at the same time. If the canon did not exist, the image of the novel would be less controversial. This would in turn make the novel less interesting, it would lose its supposed “uniqueness”. Further, a text, especially when time passes, can “transform” from popular fiction to Literature; Dickens’s novels were originally considered as popular fiction and now his works are part of the canon.
The existence of an exclusive literary canon provides its insiders and outsiders with images that do not necessarily reflect on their popularity. Like The Fifty Shades of Grey, Left Behind: A Novel of Earth’s Last Days is outside the literary canon, but it is a popular and
significant text, and a target of academic research, as shown in Chapter 1. In an interview with Larry King, Jenkins comments on the relationship of his work and ideology: he states that his work, and works of all novelists for that matter, is “message first and art second” (King 10:00- 10:32). In Jenkins’s opinion, his work is no different from any other writers. Bennett argues that Jenkins is not entirely correct: “Literature is not ideology and is relatively autonomous in relation to it, whereas popular fiction is ideology and is reduced to it” (Bennett 249; emphasis added). Bennett states that whereas popular fiction can be considered as ideological in nature, Literature “either rises above ideology because of its social typicality or the depth of its historical penetration […], or consists of specific set of formal operations upon it […]”
(Bennett 249). It should be noted that throughout his article, Bennett argues that there should not be such distinction between “Literature” and “non-Literature”, which traditionally exists.
Bennett suggests that the focus of critics should not be directed towards developing a hierarchy of valuable and invaluable texts, but rather, on the ways in which the value itself is determined:
“In place of a theory of value, then, Marxism’s concern should be with the analysis of ´the ideological conditions of the social contestation of value`” (Bennett 246; emphasis original).
Bennett continues: “So far as the making of evaluations is concerned, this is a matter for
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strategic calculation – a question of politics and not aesthetics” (Bennett 246; emphasis original). Thus, whether a text has “traditional” value is irrelevant to the analysis itself.
2.2. Religion and Fundamentalism
The relationship among the terms ideology, religion and fundamentalism is labyrinthine. While each term seeks to separate itself from the other two, they share characteristics and overlap.
Due to their similarity, the task of detaching them from each other is not simple. In this section, these three terms are looked at holistically, in relation to each other.
It is not easy to draw a line when we discuss ideology and when religion. While focusing on one, we may end up examining the other. McLellan attempts to separate the two concepts:
Whereas traditional religion concentrated on the interaction between the everyday life of individuals and the sacredness of an other-worldly dimension, the secularized universe of ideology concerned itself with public projects of this-worldly transformation to be legitimized by apparently self-justifying appeals to science and reason. (McLellan 3)
McLellan implies that religion itself is not an ideology, nor vice versa. Later, McLellan discusses Marx and his treatment of the two concepts. According to McLellan, Marx intended to “unmask” religion, since it had “failed to realize that ´man makes religion, religion does not make man`. […] But it was not just that religion was idealist: it had its roots in a deficient reality which, at the same time, it helped to conceal. […]” (McLellan 11). McLellan writes that this is the foundation of Marx’s treatment of ideology. Marx found that religion is a producer and a product of “deficient reality”, much like ideology. Thus, according to Marx, and in contrast with McLellan, the relationship between ideology and religion is pronounced.
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A legitimate question arises: what makes ideas ideological? According to Marx, this is “their connection with this class struggle and its social and economic basis that gave certain ideas their ideological force” (McLellan 13). In other words, ideology is born from struggle for power. Eagleton expands on Marx’s notion and states that “ideology has to do with legitimating the power of a dominant social group or class” (Eagleton 5; emphasis original).
Although McLellan attempts to separate religion and ideology by referring to the former as
“sacred” and “traditional” and to the latter as “secular”, Marx’s and Eagleton’s statements about struggle for power and legitimacy problematize this separation: is it not the purpose of all religions to provide a set of rules to live by, hence, to assert dominance and control over its members? Is it not the purpose of any religion to seek legitimacy? Eagleton continues and discusses how an ideology, and religion, can seek power and legitimacy they yearn for:
A dominant power may legitimate itself by promoting beliefs and values congenial to it; naturalizing and universalizing such beliefs so as to render them self-evident and apparently inevitable; denigrating ideas which might challenge it; excluding rival forms of thought, perhaps by some unspoken but systematic logic; and by obscuring social reality in ways convenient to itself. (Eagleton 5- 6; emphasis original)
According to Eagleton, an ideology is made dominant by beseeching hegemonic status in society and at the same time eliminating or illegitimating the competing entities or ideas. A relatively recent example of a “religion’s” strife for legitimacy is the campaign embarked by the Church of Scientology, which came to a close when the Church reached a tax-exempt status in the United States in 1993. Consequently, the Church, with the help of the IRS and the State Department, branded itself as a “mainstream religion” (Frantz). Again, the line between religion and ideology is blurred. In the case of Scientology, this line from ideology to religion was (apparently) drawn with a decision made by a secular government agency.
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The legitimization of ideology and the fundamentalist means of control share certain characteristics. Fundamentalist groups use the six traits listed by Eagleton, i.e., promotion, naturalization, universality, denigration, exclusion, and obscurity, to control their members. Here, it is useful to turn attention to the term fundamentalism and its significant aspects.
The term fundamentalism originates from the United States and it has undergone a semantic shift. In the beginning of the 20th century several protestant Christian denominations in the country grew concerned over the preservation of their religion and wrote 90 essays and compiled them in a series of booklets titled The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth. The twelve booklets, later gathered into four books, were distributed all over the country (Campbell and Kean 112). Thus, fundamentalism originally referred to Protestant, evangelical conservatism, and to the people who wanted to uphold the traditional values laid out in the Fundamentals (Bruce 10). Later, the term fundamentalist has been expanded to refer to all religious groups, who (seem to) fulfill certain characteristics. The characteristics of fundamentalism have been studied and named by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby in their extensive study The Fundamentalism Project (1988-1995). Their findings, a large collection of essays and studies by several contributors, have been published as five books between 1991 and 1995. In 2002, Gabriel A. Almond, R. Scott Appleby and Emmanuel Sivan published Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms around the World, which is often considered as a part of The Fundamentalism Project, since the results of the project are analyzed in it.
In their work, Almond et al. describe nine different characteristics of “enclave cultures”; “[…] five ideological and four organizational” (Almond et al. 93). The ideological features are “reactivity to the marginalization of religion […] selectivity […] moral manichaeanism […] absolutism and inerrancy […] millennialism and messianism” (Almond
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et al. 93-97). Almond et al. briefly expand on these traits and state that a fundamentalist group must show most of these characteristics. Yet, “[r]eactivity to the marginalization of religion, however, cannot be absent from a fundamentalist movement as its original impulse as a recurring reference” (Almond et al. 94). Thus, all fundamentalist groups are reactive to the marginalization of religion. Consequently, they are willing to make radical efforts to stop the supposed erosion of their traditional beliefs. Fundamentalist groups are selective in three different ways: they are selective of what parts of religious or cultural tradition is to be upheld, which aspects of the modernity are to be embraced, and which aspects of modernity are opposed. According to moral manichaeanism, the world of a fundamentalist is divided strictly into good and evil, light and darkness, black and white (Almond et al. 95-96). Only the fundamentalist group offers salvation. Absolutism and inerrancy refer to the divine origin and truthfulness of holy texts such as the Bible. Further, these texts cannot be interpreted by using modern, philological, or historical methods. Finally, the groups have a promise of a “happy ending”, which can be provided by one of two means, depending on whether the group relies on millennialism or messianism: According to millennialism, the creation of paradise on Earth will end all the suffering, and according to messianism, a messiah, a savior, will return to save the true believers. The organizational characteristics are “elect, chosen membership […] sharp boundaries […] authoritarian organization […] behavioral requirements” (Almond et al. 97- 98). The organizational requirements are more straightforward than the ideological ones. To summarize, the following points can be made. First, fundamentalist groups mark their members as “true believers”. Second, they are controlled by both physical and mental boundaries of the group. Third, the group usually has a charismatic leadership, although it may claim to hold equality between all members. Finally, the individual is expected to sacrifice personal time and effort for the good of the group.
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The interest of this thesis lies in these characteristics, and how they are portrayed in LaHaye and Jenkins’s novel. It is important to note that fundamentalism does not always have to be religious in nature. Almond et al. speak about so-called “syncretic fundamentalism”.
In movements practicing such ideology “ethnocultural or ethnonational features take precedence over religion or are inseparable […] These movements are inspired less by strictly religious considerations than by the actual fundamentalisms […]” (Almond et al. 110). Thus, an ideology can be fundamentalist in nature, but in most cases a fundamentalist ideology has a religious basis.
Steve Bruce discusses religion, fundamentalism, and their relationship with historical change and development of society in Fundamentalism (2000). Bruce describes several challenges posed by society to Christianity and names modernization in general as the largest threat to traditional religion 4 . Bruce discusses modernization in relation to fragmentation and the growth of society, rationality, equality, diversity and gender.5 According to Bruce, who uses Christianity and the West as his initial example, Western societies have developed (too) quickly. This development has caused the foundation of the Christian church to be detached from the foundation of modern societies: “[…] increased specialization has the direct effect of ´secularizing` many social functions that in the Middle Ages were either the exclusive preserve pf the Christian Church or were dominated by the clergy” (Bruce 17-18). A simple society, once united under the Christian church, has become too complex to reside under one roof. Freedom of (or from) religion has become a status symbol: “[…] religious liberty came to be seen as simply part of what it meant to be a modern democracy” (Bruce 22).
Further, a modern society rarely has unquestioned authority or unchangeable hierarchical structure. The concept of family has transformed, mainly due to the liberation of
4 The title of the second chapter of Fundamentalism is aptly titled “Modernity: The Great Satan” (Bruce 16).
5 See the titles of sections in Chapter 2 (Bruce 17-31).
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women and new roles which they are able to fulfill. Furthermore, people have abandoned traditional professions as farmers and craftsmen and moved on to more specific jobs offered by the urban city. Mostly Bruce’s discussion of modernization and industrialization and their threat to Christianity is conducted with a neutral tone. Bruce seems to undermine the political power of the fundamentalist movements in the United States in his chapter titled
“Fundamentalism in the USA” (Bruce 66). It is agreeable that the American fundamentalists and conservative political movements, such as The Moral Majority, have not achieved their political agenda (Bruce 81). Yet, Bruce continues: “It is always possible to argue that the religious right acted as a brake: that, without it, America would have become more liberal. But unfortunately, claims of this nature are untestabel and have to remain in the realm of speculation” (Bruce 81). It is to be taken into consideration that Bruce’s book was written and published before the presidency of George W. Bush (2001-2009), during which conservatives were able to interfere with the equal marriage laws as well as the development of stem cell research (see Park and Stout).6 For instance, in 2001 president Bush put a stop to the federal funds directed to stem cell research. His reasons were: “My position on these issues is shaped by deeply held beliefs […] I also believe human life is a sacred gift from our creator” (Stout).
According to Stout, the presidents personal religious beliefs “shaped” his decision. Of course, what Bruce calls “brakes” cannot be directly attributed to the influence of fundamentalist groups, although the halt on stem cell research are seemingly based on religious arguments.
Hassan Rachik examines the relationship of religion and ideology in “How Religion Turns into Ideology” (2009) through a discussion of Islam. Rachik agrees with Bruce’s statements that religion is threatened, and consequently shaped, by modernity. As Bruce illustrates the conditions in which religion turns into fundamentalism, Rachik describes that religion turns into ideology in certain social and cultural conditions, such as midst the
6 See, Park, and Stout.
