Rapture Rumble: Catholic Author Debates "Left Behind" Author

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

[lockeliberty]

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.

That's great! I'm looking forward to the day when the RC Church decides to make Wycliffe, Tyndale, and Coverdale official Saints in the Church.

[Carl Olson]

I’m late to this thread, but here on some comments on some of the remarks above…

"Olsen is no esoteric." LOL. It would be difficult for me to be an adjective, now wouldn’t it? It’s rather disconcerting to be called something that doesn’t even exist. Besides, I never claimed to be "esoteric" or anything similar. By the way, it’s "Olson." Thanks.

An "initiated one"...a mystic. Are you sure you aren’t thinking of "eremite"?

I honestly don't think either is "praying" for the other. That was gobbledygook "christianese" at the end of their so-called debate. I honestly don’t think you can read hearts and minds, so I kindly suggest you refrain from pretending to have abilities you clearly don’t possess. This sort of self-righteous pontificating is both petty and pathetic.

I thought Olsen starting out by calling him a plagiarizer wasn't exactly trying to build rapport and gain a convert, would you? First, I never called LaHaye a plagiarizer. I asked him why his book is so similar to a novel written twenty-five years prior to his. It’s a very legitimate question considering LaHaye’s claims that the Left Behind books are the first novels of their type—a completely incorrect assertion. Secondly, my primary goal in my exchange with Dr. LaHaye was not to convert him, but to demonstrate the error of his beliefs about the end times and the Catholic Church. As for "rapport," LaHaye is the one who has consistently attacked the Catholic Church in his writings for over thirty years and who refuses to answer legitimate questions about his sources (or lack thereof) and skewed ideas. Have you asked him about his need to build "rapport"?

Shame on both of them. LOL. Since when is it shameful to publicly defend one’s beliefs? At least I address the issues and use facts and logic, something LaHaye often avoids.

However, just for the record, there is a biblical and a historic basis for both the amillennial position and the premillennial position. And which premillennial position would that be: the historical or the dispensationalist? As my book, Will Catholics Be "Left Behind"?, shows very clearly, dispensational premillennialism is less than two hundred years old, while historical premillennialism does indeed date back to the early Church. Dispensationalists like to act as though they are in continuity with historical premillennialism, but they are not, as an examination of history and theology demonstrates.

What seems to determine one's conclusion is the interpretive method one uses. Again, addressed in great length and detail in my book. You may want to read it before you continue to criticize what you think I may or not believe or know.

Olson & LaHaye's public tiff with each other really shed a lot of heat and very, very little light. I don’t think you know a "tiff" from a "jpeg." Anyhow, far more light was shed by our exchange than by your condescending, half-baked comments.