Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America

by Amy Frykholm

In the twinkling of an eye Jesus secretly returns to earth and gathers to him all believers. As they are taken to heaven, the world they leave behind is plunged into chaos. Cars and airplanes crash and people search in vain for loved ones. Plagues, famine, and suffering follow. The antichrist emerges to rule the world and to destroy those who oppose him. Finally, Christ comes again in glory, defeats the antichrist and reigns over the earth. This apocalyptic scenario is anticipated by millions of Americans. These millions have made the Left Behind series--novels that depict the rapture and apocalypse--perennial bestsellers, with over 40 million copies now in print.

In Rapture Culture, Amy Johnson Frykholm explores this remarkable phenomenon, seeking to understand why American evangelicals find the idea of the rapture so compelling. What is the secret behind the remarkable popularity of the apocalyptic genre? One answer, she argues, is that the books provide a sense of identification and communal belonging that counters the social atomization that characterizes modern life. This also helps explain why they appeal to female readers, despite the deeply patriarchal worldview they promote.

Tracing the evolution of the genre of rapture fiction, Frykholm notes that at one time such narratives expressed a sense of alienation from modern life and protest against the loss of tradition and the marginalization of conservative religious views. Now, however, evangelicalism's renewed popular appeal has rendered such themes obsolete. Left Behind evinces a new embrace of technology and consumer goods as tools for God's work, while retaining a protest against modernity's transformation of traditional family life.

Drawing on extensive interviews with readers of the novels, Rapture Culture sheds light on a mindset that is little understood and far more common than many of us suppose.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity

240 pages, Hardcover

First published February 4, 2004

About the author

Amy Frykholm is an American writer whose four books of non-fiction have covered the territory of American religion from apocalypticists to saints. She is an award winning writer and senior editor for the magazine The Christian Century, appears frequently on television and radio programs as an expert in American religion, and has lectured widely on subjects like the Rapture, purity culture, and lost female figures in Christianity. She has a PhD in Literature from Duke University.

Reviews

[Alison Hardtmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a few years I've been reading a blog that deconstructs the Left Behind books, a popular series of novels about the Apocalypse, page by page, examining why they are bad, both from the standpoint of the writing and of the eschatology behind the events they describe. So when I saw this book I was intrigued at the thought of finding out who reads these books and why.

Frykholm is well-situated to look at this topic. She approaches her project as an ethnographer, and one who is able to approach both the books' defenders and detractors with openness and with a lack of judgement. She interviews a number of people, attending church with them and learning about how the books fit into their worlds. The book consists mainly of these interviews, along with her observations and I found it interesting. It certainly reinforces my desire to never read the series!

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decently written investigation of evangelicals who have read the Left Behind series and their thoughts on the books. Frykholm does a good job of making them out to not be a monolithic group, and captures the many ways that they use the texts. It's well written though not particularly poetic. (I breezed through the volume in a few days.) My main complaints would be that it's hard to track any specific big picture conclusions beyond that these particular evangelicals vary. It's also a bit difficult to keep track of who she interviewed - some subjects get discussed extensively, while others get only one or two sentences. This style of presentation makes it difficult to get a feel for the extent of her work.

[Lydia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been interested in Left Behind ever since reading a deconstruction/close reading by Fred Clark i believe on Patheos back in the day. Mind you, not enough to engage directly with the hateful things themselves, but I'm endless fascinated by the theology and people that they represent.
This was a really enjoyable perspective on the readers of this series and the way they incorporate the books into their beliefs and practices (or not). It's more open and fair-minded than I could ever be.

[Readnponder · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book grew out of a dissertation. As such, it is scholarly more so than written for a general audience. It is essentially an ethnography on the subset of evangelicals who read the "Left Behind" series.

I must confess that I read the first two books in the series and then abandoned it. Too much action and violence, not enough character development. Nevertheless, I attend a church that is somewhat preoccupied with end time themes, which is why I read "Rapture Culture."

The author makes her own position clear from the outset--she is not an evangelical, nor a fan of the "Left Behind" series. However, I did not feel her personal views biased her research, except maybe in one point. She kept trying to push gender issues into the series. Her interview subjects did not bite. They claimed they did not see stereotyped gender roles prescribed in the stores. They saw both males and females exhibiting courage, etc.

I did not realize there has been eschatological fiction since the early 1900s. People have thought it was the end-of-the-world for quite some time. This tends to put the current prophets in perspective.

I found the discussion of technology in eschatological fiction interesting. What's "new" tends to be scary. In earlier end-times books, it was barcodes or CCTV cameras. Now it is globalization. Readers who work in a tech field seem to be less alarmed by that aspect of the books.

The author contends that the series serves to affirm the beliefs of evangelical Christians and interestly tend to be read in community. The books get passed around small groups and families. The series portrays the fears Christians have about shifting morals, the rise of gay rights, abortion, and other social issues.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't be left behind on this one! Of the current books on the Left Behind series, this is the most cogently argued and sophisticated look at this literary phenomenon set with the context of a much larger history of evangelical prophecy belief in modern America and Europe.

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for exploring where the idea of "the rapture" originates and it is very insightful about American culture. The main focus, however, is on the Timothy LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins series of "Left Behind" novels. As Frykholm ably points out, these books have had a tremendous impact on American thought. Their sales outstrip many secular novels, if not quite reaching the level of Harry Potter. Like Harry Potter, however, Left Behind is set in a fictional universe based on a specific reading of some biblical apocalyptic texts. Many may be surprised to learn that "mainstream" Christianity disagrees with the series on almost every point.

The book includes information Frykholm gleaned from interviews with readers of the books. She tries to draw some general conclusions from the wide diversity of people who read the books for various reasons. Of course, with millions of readers any selection of interviewees will need to be limited. Nevertheless, it is fascinating to see how seriously some people take these books. It can be a bit difficult to read for those of us raised in Fundamentalist settings where such books were treated as fact rather than fiction (metaphorically, of course). It should help people understand just how deeply rooted evangelical Christianity is in American culture. In that regard this is a very important book. Left Behind is only a small part of the story.

I blogged about it as well, for those interested: Sects and Violence in the Ancient World.

[Zachary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read most of the Left Behind series as a kid, primarily because of a fascination with the cover of "Armageddon" that gave way to an overall fascination with the story and the interweaving of biblical prophecy in a familiar fictional venue. I never believed in the series' interpretation of things with any force, and never actually finished the series, but was definitely interested in them for quite a while. This study of the series' readers and reading practices is an interesting look at the culture that produced the books, and the culture that the books help produce amidst a network of other cultural influences. There are some fascinating insights and some really interesting theoretical work, as well as just curious interviews that help connect disparate elements of Christian culture to the practices that connect to the books and beyond. But the book is also fairly descriptive, and I wish that it engaged some elements of cultural theory more critically or extensively, rather than just including drive-by references to people like Horkheimer, Adorno, or Althusser. Certainly a lot of great stuff to be found in this book, but I wish that it pushed its own findings and interests just a step or two further down the analytical line.

[Rach · Rating 5 out of 5]

wrote my term paper for american religious history on this! It inspired me to write a script for a video essay that will never be finished and will never amount to anything. :)

[Hugh Mahon · Rating 5 out of 5]

prescient

[Debbie Mcnulty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really well researched book. It was somewhat dry in some areas but if you can plow through that there is a lot of good info in there. I found the interviews with the readers of apocalyptic literature (if you can call it literature) really interesting. I found her to be compassionate towards her subjects in a way I am not sure I could be. Very insightful thoughts regarding the start of the evangelical movement.

[Michael Nady]

gives an insight on some theological foundations of American Evangelism

[Mark Cheathem · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read on the Left Behind book culture. It isn't an analysis of the book, but more a sociological analysis of the readers.

[Gary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dissertation.