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BeamBrain [he/him] @hexbear.net

Who else got exposed to these books as a kid?

I did, though mostly secondhand (I had a couple of classmates who were into them). My main exposure to them was via an evangelical's huge multi-year writeup dissecting exactly why they were awful.

These things sold tens of millions and informed a huge number of Christians' religious views. Some highlights include:

  • The very first words of the very first book are "Rayford Steele's mind was on a woman he had never touched. With his fully loaded 747 on autopilot..."
  • Russia and Ethiopia fire their entire nuclear arsenals at Israel. This is because the authors see it as fulfillment of the Bible verse discussing "Gog and Magog." Divine intervention destroys every single missile and aircraft with no Israeli casualties. Somehow, this does not cause any of the characters to question their own religious beliefs.
  • The Rapture happens. Billions of people vanish overnight. Somehow, this exact fulfillment of the Rapture prophecy is treated as something between "Huh. I wonder if the Christians were right" and "That's just a kooky Christian theory, it was actually caused by the electromagnetism from nuclear weapons."
  • Less than a week after The Rapture, the world gets back to normal despite something like a third of the Earth's population having just disappeared. There is no sign of long-term trauma or logistical strain.
  • The Antichrist is a Romanian who takes over the world by ascending to the position of UN Secretary General. His evil plan includes dismantling the world's militaries and using the money saved on weapons to pay for the development of the Global South.
  • Female characters have two possible personalities: perfect tradwife and sinful harlot.
  • One of the later books includes a graphic, gory description of Jesus simultaneously exploding tens of thousands of people.
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  • I've got the Nic Cage movie adaptation and the behind the scenes are hilarious. Basically a whole bunch of fundamentalist groups put all their money together to hire Nic Cage and that's all the money they had so the rest of the production is trash. Nic Cage says in a special feature he's always liked doing supernatural films and cites Ghostrider as something similar to it in his mind.

  • My main exposure to them was via an evangelical's huge multi-year writeup dissecting exactly why they were awful.

    The same guy (Slacktivist/Fred Clark) wrote the False Witnesses essay that's frequently linked here. iirc he describes himself as a "progressive evangelical" who mostly defines his faith as community-building and mutual aid. He's shockingly based and his whole blog is well worth reading esp b/c of his vast insight into the White Evangelical movement and why it sucks. The LB series is particularly special, he absolutely eviscerates that trash from a theological, practical, political and writing point of view in a way I've never seen anyone else come close to

    • Yeah, Clark has his lib moments but grading on a curve, he's miles above any other evangelical I've ever seen and outdoes 90% of garden-variety libs as well.

  • I didn't get exposure to the books themselves, but my mom often kept around tabloids with articles telling similar stories that I would end up reading. Since I was a child I worried about the end of the world, a feeling that carries on to this day, but now for different reasons.

  • The Antichrist is a Romanian who takes over the world by ascending to the position of UN Secretary General. His evil plan includes dismantling the world's militaries and using the money saved on weapons to pay for the development of the Global South.

    JDPON Soros fuck yessss

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