Wednesday, July 05, 2006
End times
I admit it. I read the entire Left Behind series. Most were on airline flights or in hotels at meetings. Ever since my first science fiction story, end of the world stories had fascinated me. One of my favorites was Lucifer's Hammer, where a comet strikes the earth and wreaks havoc. Another classic was Earth Abides, where the end came via plague.
And last night we all sat in our living room and watched Independence Day and cheered when the big headed kid from New York gave a computer virus to the big headed silver eyed really mean aliens. That's apocalyptic.
Oh, I almost forgot the classic H. G. Wells book War of the Worlds. The 1950's sci fi movie adaptation is terrific, by the way, way ahead of its time.
After I became a Christian the whole book of revelation thing suddenly became a reality. I began to recognize 666 as something other than three times 222. DenverDocWife told me about Left Behind which I found in a hotel bookshop in Chicago at a meeting. Great theology? Nah. Complex literature? Nope. Good mindless read on an airplane at midnight? You betcha.
Somehow I got hooked up with another series, the Christ Clone Trilogy. In this one, scientists examining the Shroud of Turin find...viable cells! They clone them up into a young man, and the story goes from there. The writing is more complex than Left Behind, and the author is a better science fiction writer. The sequence where a large asteroid grazes the earth, removing Denver, Montana, and a large mountain in South America before heading back out into space, was riveting. Also appealing, of course, is the fact that there are only three books in the series; the link is to the first one.
This past vacation, I picked up an interesting twist on the idea in Father Elijah. Father Elijah is a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust who moves to Israel and rises high in politics. He marries, but his pregnant wife is killed by a terrorist bomb. He goes into shock and finally emerges in a monastery where he becomes a Catholic priest. His mission? Preach the gospel to the Antichrist! This is by far the most complex of the Armageddon books I've read. As a non-Catholic, it gave me some additional respect for Catholic traditions. The characters were complex and often unpredictable, sort of like real life. It's a thick book, too. There are apparently some more in a loose series by Michael D. O'Brien.
This past week on the Rofters (Readers of First Things) discussion group, there was a link to more apocalyptic writing by a Canadian. It is reasoned, not hysterical, and ultimately gives one pause.
I do know that even Jesus said that only the Father knows the day and time. If Jesus didn't know then I feel perfectly OK about not knowing for sure what's going on. I'll try to keep my oil jars full and be prepared all the time.
And last night we all sat in our living room and watched Independence Day and cheered when the big headed kid from New York gave a computer virus to the big headed silver eyed really mean aliens. That's apocalyptic.
Oh, I almost forgot the classic H. G. Wells book War of the Worlds. The 1950's sci fi movie adaptation is terrific, by the way, way ahead of its time.
After I became a Christian the whole book of revelation thing suddenly became a reality. I began to recognize 666 as something other than three times 222. DenverDocWife told me about Left Behind which I found in a hotel bookshop in Chicago at a meeting. Great theology? Nah. Complex literature? Nope. Good mindless read on an airplane at midnight? You betcha.
Somehow I got hooked up with another series, the Christ Clone Trilogy. In this one, scientists examining the Shroud of Turin find...viable cells! They clone them up into a young man, and the story goes from there. The writing is more complex than Left Behind, and the author is a better science fiction writer. The sequence where a large asteroid grazes the earth, removing Denver, Montana, and a large mountain in South America before heading back out into space, was riveting. Also appealing, of course, is the fact that there are only three books in the series; the link is to the first one.
This past vacation, I picked up an interesting twist on the idea in Father Elijah. Father Elijah is a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust who moves to Israel and rises high in politics. He marries, but his pregnant wife is killed by a terrorist bomb. He goes into shock and finally emerges in a monastery where he becomes a Catholic priest. His mission? Preach the gospel to the Antichrist! This is by far the most complex of the Armageddon books I've read. As a non-Catholic, it gave me some additional respect for Catholic traditions. The characters were complex and often unpredictable, sort of like real life. It's a thick book, too. There are apparently some more in a loose series by Michael D. O'Brien.
This past week on the Rofters (Readers of First Things) discussion group, there was a link to more apocalyptic writing by a Canadian. It is reasoned, not hysterical, and ultimately gives one pause.
I do know that even Jesus said that only the Father knows the day and time. If Jesus didn't know then I feel perfectly OK about not knowing for sure what's going on. I'll try to keep my oil jars full and be prepared all the time.
