Rapture Rumble: Catholic Author Debates "Left Behind" Author

Envoy Magazine ^ | 07-22-03 | Carl Olson

[Patrick Madrid]

Envoy Magazine's volume 7.1 features the article, "Rapture Rumble," a lengthy, written exchange between Envoy editor Carl Olson and Left Behind creator and co-author Dr. Tim LaHaye. Because of the length of that exchange in Envoy Magazine, some of it had to be cut. Here are the sections of the debate that were "left behind" on the editing floor, prefaced by Olson’s initial letter to LaHaye and concluding with a final exchange in which LaHaye tells Olson, "I do grieve for your soul" because of the latter’s entrance into the Catholic Church. (Olson is a convert to the Catholic Church from Fundamentalist Protestantism.)

[Conservative til I die]

What an embarassing jackass the LaHaye guy is, with his incredulous response to Olson doubting the 40 million killed myth. He actually uses Dave Hunt as his back-up! That would be like Dave Hunt using Jack Chick as his back-up!

[Conservative til I die]

Face it, LaHaye embarassed himself, from the point that he claimed Olson was brainwashed on. He started swinging wildly, going from Catholic revisionism to Mariolatry (I have no idea why he brought that up) to poverty in the Third World. He acted like a cornered animal.

[Conservative til I die]

Wideawake, wasn't also the English translation found in the Missal next to the Latin? Or is that just for today's Latin Masses?

[xzins]

Yep. He did.

I thought Olsen starting out by calling him a plagiarizer wasn't exactly trying to build rapport and gain a convert, would you?

[LiteKeeper]

SPOTREP

[wideawake]

I have seen Missals dating back to the turn of the century printed by the Benziger Brothers press (the largest Catholic publisher in America for generations) that contained English side-by-side with the Latin.

I'll bet that this was nothing new in 1910 either.

[Alex Murphy]

Bump for later reading

[wideawake]

Neither method is invalidated.

Of course.

But LaHaye uses no method.

He has adopted unvarnished Darbyism - he is not a "literalist".

If he were he would be deep in the languages.

I can't imagine anyone who would say that Spurgeon or Sproul aren't literalists. Yet they haven't advocated the Darby/Scofield/Ryrie position.

Dispensationalism and literalism aren't synonymous.

[xzins]

Spurgeon was a premillennialist, but not, as you've said, a dispensationalist (in today's understanding of that term.)

LaHaye doesn't like the Catholic Church.

That's his business....to each his own.

But saying that the Catholic Church is "Mystery Babylon" is a wild stretch that I think is unsupportable. So, I agree. If he isn't willing to discuss how he arrived at his conclusions, then he should be a bit more humble in his interpreting.

[american colleen]

Sorry. I have a bible (in English) dating from 1802. Brought down from Newfoundland by my Irish Catholic relatives. The book is quite well worn.

You might be unfamiliar with the fact that the Mass has always had multiple Bible readings in English (not in Latin, that was the rest of the Mass)... if you attend Mass every day, you hear the entire Bible in one year. If you attend Mass once a week, you hear the entire Bible in three years.

Always had a Bible while growing up in my not particularly Catholic home. Had to buy a Bible in HS for religion classes.

Used to believe non-Catholics when they stated what you did, and then I started to pay attention and realize that at age 44, I've either heard or read the entire Bible many times. But I don't memorize passages of it, so maybe just reading it for edification and not memorization isn't enough.

[Is2C]

OK, I'm usually pretty good at this stuff but I can't seem to find the article - any suggestions? Thx -

[wideawake]

It's the yellow starburst on the upper left hand of the linked page.

[wideawake]

No!!! You must memorize!!! Preferably from only one translation!!!

[Is2C]

OK, all together now, a big, Homer D'UH! It's sad but that actually did it for me. Thx

[Patrick Madrid]

Sorry bout that. Here's another URL that should work:

http://www.envoymagazine.com/backissues/7.1/RaptureRumble.asp

[drstevej]

Dispensationalists, like Ryrie, argue for "normal" rather than "literal" interpretation. That is, when the author's intent is to use figurative language the interpreter isn't to force it to be literal. When the author intends a literal statement the interpreter is not to read in a figurative meaning.

This is the normal method of fairly handling written material whether it be the Constitution, a fellow freeper's post or the Bible.

Often there is considerable room for debate whether the biblical author intended to use figurative language and the precise point of the figure.

[wideawake]

Often there is considerable room for debate whether the biblical author intended to use figurative language and the precise point of the figure.

Well put.

[fishtank]

Left Behind's Report Card:

Number of sales: A+

Quality of writing (compared to great literature): C+

Doctrine of salvation as presented in books: A+

Impact on people who resist the idea of the Rapture: A

Use of Scripture in the story line: A

The storyline vehicle which made the previous un-named Pope a born again believer, while portraying the successor pope as being the leader of the false religion: A+

---

"For by grace you are saved thru faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, that you may boast."

[Patrick Madrid]

Fishtank's Report Card as a Book Reviewer:


Effort and ingenuity: A

Number of mistaken concluions: A+ (for quantity)

Quality of Reviewing: C+

Doctrine of salvation as presented in books reviewed: D-

Impact on people who resist misguided reviews of Rapture books: D-

Use of correct biblical theology in the review: D-

Sheer credulity and uncritical acceptance of the unbiblical premise the second pope mentioned in the books is the leader of a false religion: A+ (for quantity)

[Tax-chick]

So which version of the Bible includes the sarcasm tags? (/sarcasm)