Intolerance: The Bestseller
The Left Behind series

Nicolae Carpathia, the man who turned the United Nations into a one-world government with himself as dictator, has just decided on genocide. In his palace in New Babylon, capital of the world, Carpathia -- alias the Antichrist -- barks instructions to his top aide. "I will sanction, condone, support, and reward the death of any Jew anywhere in the world," he says. "Imprison them. Torture them. Humiliate them. Shame them. Blaspheme their god. Plunder everything they own. Nothing is more important." The aide rushes to obey, not knowing that he's fulfilling one more divine prophecy about the final days of history before the Second Coming.

But as readers of this scene in The Remnant, the Rev. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' latest novel, soon learn, many Jews will survive the new Holocaust by becoming born-again Christians. As a rabbi-turned-pastor explains later in the book, Jews need to make up for the "national sin" of rejecting Jesus. Their choice in the last days therefore comes down to an old one: convert or die.

Such classic religious intolerance might matter less if The Remnant hadn't levitated to the top of The New York Times bestseller list immediately after publication in July (with an initial print run reported at 2.75 million copies), or if the previous nine installments of LaHaye and Jenkins' Left Behind series of thrillers hadn't already sold 33 million copies since they first appeared in 1995. Literary quality doesn't explain Left Behind's popularity; the writing makes Robert Ludlum look like William Shakespeare. Rather, the books sell because they base fiction on fundamentalist theology, and they've succeeded in spreading that theology far beyond its original audience.

Nor is contempt for Judaism the books' only disturbing message. They promote conspiracy theories; they demonize proponents of arms control, ecumenicalism, abortion rights and everyone else disliked by the Christian right; and they justify assassination as a political tool. Their anti-Jewishness is exceeded by their anti- Catholicism. Most basically, they reject the very idea of open, democratic debate. In the world of Left Behind, there exists a single truth, based on a purportedly literal reading of Scripture; anyone who disagrees with that truth is deceived or evil. [read more]

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