Mainstreaming and Defamiliarizing the Rapture: The Leftovers Reads Left Behind
-
Richard G. Walsh
Abstract
The popular Left Behind series has been credited with mainstreaming dispensational premillennialism, or fragments of that ideology, in U.S. popular culture. The less popular, but critically acclaimed HBO series The Leftovers, based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, attests to the ideology’s popularity while defamiliarizing its notions of Rapture and Messiah/Antichrist. While Left Behind apologizes for the ideology and strives to make the metanarrative’s identity attractive, entertaining, and thrilling, The Leftovers takes a “not quite” Rapture as its “what if” fictional starting point. The result embraces mystery, rather than apologetic certainty, and ordinary human life, rather than the supernatural. Fulfilled prophecy becomes confusion, coping, and possibly delusion. The metanarrative becomes unstuck fragments. Election (exceptional national and individual identities), miracle, and messiah are demythologized. Theodicy occurs only on a human level. At the same time, however, The Leftovers takes its “what if” seriously and sympathetically. Despite skepticism, its characters also understand the appeal of Rapture, Messiah, and the like as they too look for something sacred.
References
Aichele, George. 2014. Tales of Posthumanity: The Bible and Contemporary Popular Culture. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix.Search in Google Scholar
Armstrong, director. 2014. “Left Behind.” Polyphony Digital.Search in Google Scholar
Atwood, Margaret. 2013. MaddAddam. New York: Nan A. Talese.Search in Google Scholar
Barr, James. 1977. Fundamentalism. Philadelphia: Westminster.Search in Google Scholar
Baxley, Craig R., director. 2005. Left Behind III: World at War. Cloud Ten.Search in Google Scholar
Beal, Timothy. 2018. The Book of Revelation: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Bendle, Mervyn F. 2005. “The Apocalyptic Imagination and Popular Culture.” Journal of Religion & Popular Culture 11: 1. https://doi.org/10.3138/jrpc.11.1.001.Search in Google Scholar
Benioff, David, and D. B. Weiss, creators. 2011–2019. Game of Thrones. HBO.Search in Google Scholar
Boyer, Paul S. 1992. When Time Shall Be More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Clouse, Robert G, ed. 1977. The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views. Westmont: IVP.Search in Google Scholar
Copier, Laura. 2008. Preposterous Revelations: Visions of Apocalypse and Martyrdom in Hollywood Cinema 1980-2000. Enkhuizen: Raamwerken Printing & Design B.V.Search in Google Scholar
Corcoran, Bill. 2002. Left Behind II: Tribulation Force. Cloud Ten.Search in Google Scholar
Crossan, John Dominic. 1976. Raid on the Articulate: Comic Eschatology in Jesus and Borges. San Francisco: Harper & Row.Search in Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1982. “Of an Apocalyptic Tone Recently Adopted in Philosophy.” In Semeia, Vol. 23, Translated by John P. Leavey, Jr., 63–97).Search in Google Scholar
Donner, Richard, director. 1976. The Omen. Twentieth Century Fox.Search in Google Scholar
Forbes, Bruce David. 2004. “How Popular Are the Left behind Books … and Why?” In Rapture, Revelation, and the End Times: Exploring the Left Behind Series, edited by Bruce David Forbes, and Jeanne Halgren Kilde, 5–32. NY: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9781403980212_2Search in Google Scholar
Frykholm, Amy Johnson. 2004. Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0195159837.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Gribben, Crawford. 2006. Rapture Fiction and the Evangelical Crisis. Webster, NY: Evangelical Press.Search in Google Scholar
Howard, Byron, Chris Williams, directors. 2008. Bolt. Walt Disney.Search in Google Scholar
Hummel, Daniel G. 2023. The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle Over the End Times Shaped a Nation. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans.Search in Google Scholar
Ingebretsen, Edward. 1996. Maps of Heaven, Maps of Hell: Religious Terror as Memory from the Puritans to Stephen King. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Jewett, Robert. 1984 [1973]. The Captain America Complex. 2nd ed. Santa Fe, NM: Bear.Search in Google Scholar
Kildre, Jeanne Halgren. 2004. “How Did Left Behind’s [sic] Particular Version of the End Times Develop? A Historical Look at Millenarian Thought.” In Rapture, Revelation, and the End Times: Exploring the Left Behind Series, edited by Bruce David Forbes, and Jeanne Halgren Kilde, 33–70. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9781403980212_3Search in Google Scholar
Koester, Craig R. 2005. “Revelation and the Left Behind Novels.” Word & World 25.3 (Summer): 274–82. https://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/content/pdfs/25-3_Apocalypse/25-3_Koester.pdf.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 1995. Left Behind. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 1996. Tribulation Force. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 1997. Nicolae. Carol Stream. IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 1999a. Soul Harvest. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 1999b. Apollyon. Carol Stream. IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 1999c. Assassins. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 2000a. The Indwelling. Carol Stream. IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 2000b. The Mark. Carol. Stream, IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 2001. The Desecration. Carol Stream. IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 2002. The Remnant. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 2003. Armageddon. Carol Stream. IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 2004. Glorious Appearing. Carol Stream. IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 2005a. The Rising. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 2005b. The Regime. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 2006. The Rapture. Carol Stream. IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 2007. Kingdom Come. Carol Stream. IL: Tyndale House.Search in Google Scholar
LeRoy, Mervyn, director. 1951. Quo Vadis. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.Search in Google Scholar
Lindelof, Damon, and Tom Perrotta, creators. 2014–2017. The Leftovers. HBO.Search in Google Scholar
Lindsey, Hal. 1970. The Late Great Planet Earth. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.Search in Google Scholar
Marsden, George M. 1980. Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870–1925. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
McCarthy, Cormac. 2006. The Road. New York: Vintage International.Search in Google Scholar
McGinn, Bernard. 1994. Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil. New York: HarperSanFrancisco.Search in Google Scholar
Nickelsburg, and W. E. George. 1980. “The Genre and Function of the Markan Passion Narrative.” Harvard Theological Review 73 (1–2): 153–84. https://doi.org/10.1017/s001781600000208x.Search in Google Scholar
Ostwalt, Conrad E. 1995. “Hollywood and Armageddon: Apocalyptic Themes in Recent Cinematic Presentation.” In Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth, and Ideology in Popular American Film, edited by Joel W. Martin, and Conrad E. OstwaltJr, 55–63. Boulder: Westview.10.4324/9780429497391-6Search in Google Scholar
Perrotta, Tom. 2011. The Leftovers. NY: St. Martin’s Press.Search in Google Scholar
Prothero, Stephen. 2003. American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Search in Google Scholar
Pynchon, Thomas. 1995 [1973]. Gravity’s Rainbow. NY: Penguin.Search in Google Scholar
Reasoner, Mark. 2004. “What Does the Bible Say about the End Times? A Biblical Studies Discussion of Interpretive Methods.” In Rapture, Revelation, and the End Times: Exploring the Left Behind Series, edited by Bruce David Forbes, and Jeanne Halgren Kilde, 71–98. NY: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9781403980212_4Search in Google Scholar
Sandeen, Ernest R. 1970. The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1900–1930. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar
Sarin, Vic, director. 2000. Left Behind: The Movie. Cloud Ten.Search in Google Scholar
Scafaria, Lorene, director. 2012. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. Focus.Search in Google Scholar
Scorsese, Martin, director. 1988. The Last Temptation of Christ. Universal.Search in Google Scholar
Shuck, Glenn W. 2005. Marks of the Beast: The Left Behind Novels and the Struggle for Evangelical Identity. New York: New York University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Sorbo, Kevin, director. 2023. Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist. Amcomri Entertainment.Search in Google Scholar
Sweetnam, Mark S. 2011. “Hal Lindsay [sic] and the Great Dispensational Mutation.” Journal of Religion & Popular Culture 23 (2): 217–35. https://doi.org/10.3138/jrpc.23.2.217.Search in Google Scholar
Thompson, Donald W., director. 1972. A Thief in the Night. Mark IV.Search in Google Scholar
Walliss, John. 2009. “From the Rapture to Left Behind: The Movie and Beyond: Evangelical Christian End Times Films from 1941 to the Present.” Journal of Religion & Film 13: 2.10.32873/uno.dc.jrf.13.02.04Search in Google Scholar
Walliss, John. 2010. “Celling the End Times: The Contours of Contemporary Rapture Films.” In Reel Revelations: Apocalypse and Film, edited by John Walliss, and Lee Quimby, 91–111. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press.Search in Google Scholar
Walsh, Richard. 2010. “Sanctifying Empire: The Hopeful Paradox of Apocalypsis.” In Reel Revelations: Apocalypse and Film, edited by John Walliss, and Lee Quimby, 112–39. 112–39. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix.Search in Google Scholar
Walsh, Richard. 2021. “A Modest Proposal for Christ-Figure Interpretations: Explicated with Two Test Cases.” In T&T Clark Handbook of Jesus and Film, edited by Richard Walsh, 285–97. London and New York: T&T Clark.10.5040/9780567686909.ch-023Search in Google Scholar
Wiggins, Steve A. 2018. Holy Horror: The Bible and Fear in Movies. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.Search in Google Scholar
© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Snakes on a Page: Visual Receptions of the Eden Serpent through the History of Western Art and Their Survivals in Modern Children’s Bibles
- Jacob’s Nightly Encounter at Peniel and the Status of the Son: Reading Genesis 32 with Athanasius
- Cotton Mather’s Biblical Enlightenment: Critical Interrogations of the Canon and Revisions of the Common Translation in the Biblia Americana (1693–1728)
- Mainstreaming and Defamiliarizing the Rapture: The Leftovers Reads Left Behind
- The Feathered Man: The Reception of Daniel 4 in a 17th-Century English Tapestry of Nebuchadnezzar Transformed into a Beast
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Snakes on a Page: Visual Receptions of the Eden Serpent through the History of Western Art and Their Survivals in Modern Children’s Bibles
- Jacob’s Nightly Encounter at Peniel and the Status of the Son: Reading Genesis 32 with Athanasius
- Cotton Mather’s Biblical Enlightenment: Critical Interrogations of the Canon and Revisions of the Common Translation in the Biblia Americana (1693–1728)
- Mainstreaming and Defamiliarizing the Rapture: The Leftovers Reads Left Behind
- The Feathered Man: The Reception of Daniel 4 in a 17th-Century English Tapestry of Nebuchadnezzar Transformed into a Beast
