Assembly tones down overture on ‘Left Behind’ By John H. Adams The Presbyterian Layman Volume 34, Number 5 Posted July 6, 2001 LOUISVILLE, Ky. – After both read the Left Behind series, one Presbyterian asked another, “Are you going to leave me your stuff?” That was one of the light moments during a General Assembly committee’s consideration of the best-selling end-time novels by Tim LaHaye, whose fictional accounts of the “rapture” and other eschatalogical phenomena have been showing up on – of all places – the bookshelves of Presbyterians. Trouble is, according to some watchdogs of theological purity (on this issue, anyhow), Left Behind is not rightly Reformed. Hence, Overture 01-25, “On communicating to pastors that the ‘Left Behind’ series is based on an interpretation of the Bible that is not in accord with our Reformed theology,” from the Presbytery of Sierra Blanca. Committee softens language That overture landed on the agenda of the Committee on Theological Issues and Educational Institutions, which extracted some of its alarums and softened the language so as not to incite those who agree with LaHaye’s dispensational theology. Without any floor debate, the full General Assembly backed the committee’s recommendation merely to encourage congregations to use a denominational study – Between Millennia – to help people understand the difference between Left Behind and Reformed perspectives on end times. Chris Shelton of Grace Presbytery, a seminarian and an employee of Barnes and Noble, told the committee that there was good reason to be alarmed by Left Behind. Shelton, who manages the religion section, says he is required to maintain at least 85 copies of each of the eight Left Behind novels. In the meantime, he says, he keeps on hand 150 copies of the Bible. “I hear people commenting, ‘That’s the best book I’ve ever read,’” Shelton said. “Tim LaHaye seems to manipulate readers into believing there is a secular humanist attempt to take over the United States, and the mainline church is the enemy. This series of books becomes a gateway to this kind of theology. You might say it’s just a fad, but other fads have not passed away – fads of intolerance, fads of injustice.” Church members confused, angry Mike Vetters of the Presbytery of Santa Fe told the committee that church members were “becoming confused, angry and even argumentative” when they entered discussions about Left Behind. Even so, he said, the popularity of the series offered the Presbyterian Church (USA) an excellent opportunity to provide teaching material about the end times. Tom Hanks (“I’m the original Tom Hanks”), an elderly Presbyterian missionary, advised the committee against using strident language to describe Left Behind. “I think in this time when we’re emphasizing bridge-building, we ought not say something nasty about the dispensationalists.” Hanks said that even the late Karl Barth, probably the most influential modern-day Reformed theologian, was influenced by a dispensationalist. “Dispensationalism has made a positive contribution,” he said, noting that Presbyterians tend to criticize that theology rather than try to understand it. “If you can find a Presbyterian seminary professor who knows something about dispensationalism, I’d like to meet him.”

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