Biola UniversityAlan Hultberg, Associate Professor of Bible Exposition and New Testament at Talbot, shares a review of the most recently released Left Behind movie:
I recently previewed the upcoming Nicholas Cage film, Left Behind, based on the books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. The film centers on the chaos that ensues after the instantaneous disappearance of millions of people worldwide due to the coming of Christ for his church, an event known as “the rapture.”
Most of the action takes place on the streets of New York City, following a young college student, Chloe, as she searches for her missing brother and mother, and in an airliner bound for London, which follows Chloe’s father, the plane’s pilot, as he deals with emotional and mechanical problems that result from the rapture. The film moves forward on the twin tracks of the characters’ coming to the realization of the cause of the bizarre disappearances and the stressful need to land the crippled and quickly defueling airliner.
I’ll let others talk about the merits of the film as a film, but I’d like to address the film’s approach to the precipitating event of the action, the rapture. The rapture is a doctrine taught especially in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 4 and verses 15-17. There, Paul teaches that at the return of Christ, all believers will be caught up (i.e., “raptured”) to meet the Lord in the air. The bodies of dead believers will be resurrected, and, according to 1 Cor 15:51-55, all believers, living and dead, will be glorified. The timing of this event is debated among biblical scholars, and Left Behind presents a scenario based on one interpretation of that timing, an interpretation known as pretribulationism.
Pretribulationists understand the Bible (especially the books of Daniel, 2 Thessalonians, and Revelation) to predict the rule of a satanically inspired world dictator, commonly known as the Antichrist, for the final seven years of this age — a time pretribulationists refer to as “the tribulation.” This dictator will deceive the population of earth into worshipping him and will severely persecute those who don’t. The worship of this dictator will center on a statue he will erect in the newly-built Jewish temple in Jerusalem, what the Bible calls the “abomination of desolation” and whi