Left Behind 25th Anniversary Edition Experience the Book that Launched the Phenomenon (Volume 1 of the Left Behind Series) Apocalyptic Christian Fiction About the End Times

My mom can't wait for Jesus to come back. She sang the songs. She watched Left Behind. We were all in.

And that's less dominant now. Cause it didn't do, I don't know if you're aware of this, but the changing of the millennium didn't really do much. Well, there was a movie with Nick Cage. You kind of peek at that point.

Beverly LeHay, wife of the author of Left Behind, Tim LeHay, signed it.

Like the left behind books are kind of the old, the older way.

Beverly LeHay, wife of the author of Left Behind, Tim LeHay, signed it.

Like the left behind books are kind of the old, the older way.

Beverly LeHay, wife of the author of Left Behind, Tim LeHay, signed it.

and they are the creators of the Left Behind series

now if you don't know the Left Behind series you may have been living under a rock or maybe you weren't born yet and that's not your fault but it is this publishing empire at this point retail giants like Walmart stocked the books they sold 80 million copies that you know warehouses full of merch sequels prequels graphic novels audiobooks calendars greeting cards a shoot-em-up computer game based on the books all of this stuff was centrally talking about the rapture the end times that's what the Left Behind series was about and those who are left behind are those who were not raptured and these films center on the chaos that breaks out right after the rapture really really popular stuff we'll play a quick clip so you can get a sense of what that's like

he took them to protect them from what from the darkest time in the history of this world persecution and seven years of darkness he took them to heaven the Left Behind books they basically depict Jesus not as a source of love and forgiveness but as this like source of vengeance and bloodshed one person we spoke to in the preparation of this episode described him as a sort of Rambo Jesus is to be compared to Mr. Rogers Jesus you could say and what's particularly dangerous is sometimes believers in this interpretation of the Bible try to make the end times happen sooner rather than later yeah I can mention two cases one better known than the other you had a father-son evangelical team called Garner Ted Armstrong his father was named Herbert W Armstrong they had a radio broadcasting empire the program was called The World Tomorrow and they had college campuses in California and in Big Sandy Texas unaccredited college unaccredited college absolutely and one person who had listened to the Armstrongs on the radio and there's an Australian named Michael Dennis Rohan on August 21st 1969 actually travels to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem because he believes that's a key focal point of where Armageddon is going to take place and he actually starts a fire in that mosque that's revered on those holy sites in Islam and there was a time where there was a diplomatic crisis caused by this believer in dispensationalism then of course we have what happened to Waco where you had a sect very much obsessed with end times and with dispensationalism led by a man named David Koresh 1993 he led his followers on this 51-day standoff with federal and state officials over the illegal weapons that this group the branch Davidians held eventually you have an exchange of gunfire between the agents and the branch Davidians and then on April 19th the feds decide to charge in and there's a fire and 76 people die including 25 children in the modern day we've got two hugely influential people who promote end times theology now one of them is the biggest political donor in the entire state of Texas more money donated than anyone else and his name is Tim Dunn and we'll talk about him in a second but first I want to talk about someone who is also pretty influential maybe not as wealthy as Tim Dunn I should mention got his money through oil but this is a man named John Hagee he is the pastor of a 22,000 member church in Texas called Cornerstone Church and I think he has like a global audience as large as 100 million people so back in the day as a 28-year-old young man he took part in the Wallace Youth which is an organization devoted to supporting the presidential candidacy of white supremacist Alabama governor George Wallace in 1968 yeah let's just hear from Wallace real quick

And is by the son of the guy who did Left Behind and all of that.

I did another movie earlier this year called left behind rise of the Antichrist left-band is based on the 80 million left behind books. It's written by Jerry Jenkins right now.

If you want to hear more about Rick's story, check out his book. It's called The Phenomenon. Pressure, the yips, and the pitch that changed my life.

The literature we read was like Left Behind.

But also an Aaron shares this too. I also but in that period before like the contemporary Christian phase, all of those left behind books.

you may notice both of us raved about this book that we've both read called the phenom about rich and about the pitcher Rich and Keel who reinvented himself after a terrible case of the Yips