- SPARTANBURG -- Robin Bales
has seen the signs - war, terrorism, microchips in animals and corporate
logos tattooed on the foreheads of the young. As prophesied in the book
of Revelation, she explains, the end of the world is nigh.
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- "A lot of what is written down is literal and a
lot of it is happening today. I definitely believe that," she says.
"The seasons are meshing together. One day in January it was 75F and
the next day it snowed. The world has gone down so quickly."
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- Impending doom notwithstanding, Ms Bales is delighted.
She got to the South Carolina Christian Supply store early on Tuesday to
buy her copy of Glorious Appearing, the 12th book in the bestselling Left
Behind series, based on a fictionalised account of the apocalypse, on the
day it came out.
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- The first 11 Left Behind books have sold more than 40m
copies, making the authors, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, better sellers
than John Grisham.
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- Orders for the Glorious Appearing (The End of Days) were
so strong that the publishers started a second printing two weeks before
the first copies had reached the shelves. According to the publishers,
a survey last year showed that one in eight US adults has read some of
at least one book from the series.
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- So Ms Bales, who has read all 11, booked her place in
line early, thus avoiding the 800-strong queue of people snaking around
the shop and out into the rain, waiting to meet the authors on Tuesday
night. And now she is clutching a signed copy of one of the most startling
literary sensations of our time. "I'm going to read the 11th one again
before I start this," she says.
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- Coming in the wake of the success of Mel Gibson's The
Passion of the Christ, which details Jesus's last 12 hours before crucifixion,
the Left Behind series is the latest example of the huge impact religious
themes are having on popular culture in the US, as well as the vast amounts
of money that can be made from them.
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- Scan the Christian Supply store in Spartanburg and you
will see everything from The Bible's Way to Weight Loss to Bible Bingo,
along with T-shirts, keyrings, CDs and toys bearing scripture and car registration
plates asking: "Got Jesus?"
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- "Americans don't just have to rely on the Bible
anymore," says Sarah Golightly, one of the few African-Americans who
came to the launch. "God is showing himself in many ways through movies,
books and audio."
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- Ms Golightly, who has only read the first three of the
Left Behind series, found Gibson's film hard going but rewarding: "It
was two hours of rough beating. But it was good."
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- The Left Behind series is not all easy reading either,
with long passages both vivid and violent. It starts with what evangelists
call the rapture - the moment when, they believe, those who have been born
again will disappear and ascend to heaven.
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- The first book opens with a 747 heading to Heathrow from
Chicago. The flight attendant finds half the seats empty as the faithful
are whisked away into the firmament, leaving behind only their clothes,
fillings and wedding rings. Several thousand feet below husbands and wives
are waking up next to piles of pyjamas, and cars, suddenly deprived of
drivers, crash as the righteous rise.
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- The next 10 books - with titles including Assassins,
Armageddon and Desecration - detail the seven-year period of mayhem and
upheaval in which those left behind have their final chance to find Jesus.
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- The authors committed themselves to portraying at least
one "believable conversion" in each book.
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- As the series progresses, the antichrist becomes the
head of the UN and triggers the second coming after he signs a peace treaty
with Israel, while 144,000 Jews convert to Christianity.
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- Glorious Appearing should be the final episode, in which
Jesus finally returns - although the publishers plan a postscript (with
the final judgment of Satan after Jesus' 1,000-year reign on earth) and
a prequel (which will introduce the characters sent to the rapture before
the first book began).
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- It was all LaHaye's idea. The 77-year-old creationist
and religious-right stalwart had been preaching and writing self-help books
for decades when he got the idea for a fictional series about the end of
time. When he realised he couldn't write it himself he drafted Jenkins,
54, a former journalist and prolific religious novelist. LaHaye provides
the scripture; Jenkins moulds it into drama.
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- Some Catholics and conservative Protestants have charged
that the Left Behind novels are anti-Catholic because they depict a future
pope establishing a false religion linked to the antichrist.
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- "Dr LaHaye believes we should treat the Bible literally
where we can," Jenkins says. "For people who disagree with us,
we say, 'Write your own books.' We're just glad we can live in a country
where we can compete in a marketplace of ideas."
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- And with that they start their 12-city six-day tour through
the south - home to almost half of their readers - from Spartanburg through
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. The book's core reader
is a white, southern, female homemaker in her mid-40s, who is a college-educated,
born-again Christian.
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- When LaHaye first pitched the idea publishers did not
think it had much of a future outside of the Christian market. It was a
hard sell, according to Ron Beers, the senior vice-president and publisher
of Tyndale fiction, which published the series. The production team asked
why anybody would "want to buy a book when they know what the ending's
going to be?"
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- But with each edition word of mouth grew. More than 20,000
volunteers formed a Left Behind "street team", to introduce the
books to family, friends and neighbours. When the fifth book, Apollyon,
was released in 1999 it hit No 2 on the New York Times fiction hardcover
list and the novels have remained in the mainstream ever since.
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- If the series' success illustrates the high degree of
religious feeling in the US, it also offers a glimpse of how evangelism
and fundamentalism are shaping the national mood after the terrorist attacks
of 2001.
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- A Time/CNN poll 18 months ago found that 59% of Americans
believe the events in the book of Revelation are going to come true, while
nearly 25% think the Bible predicted the September 11 attacks. Little wonder
then that sales jumped 60% after 9/11 and Desecration -the 9th book, released
in October 2001 - was the bestselling novel of the year. "The tragedy
of 9/11 made everything so much more real and believable," Jenkins
says.
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- LaHaye says those who see similarities between Revelation
and reality should heed the warnings. He told the New York Times: "The
fact that we're seeing some of those things happen right now must be a
wake-up call to some people to say, 'Hey, we may be closer than we think.'"
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1183373,00.html
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