Okay, so the answer to the question of why I'm reading the "Left Behind" books-

Because it's cheesy fun?

Definately, yes.

But there's something else to it. These books, despite it all, are hugely popular in the US. Millions and millions of people buy these things. Now, it's hard to tell whether people actually belive half the stuff or whether they're like Harry Potter for Jesus Freaks. Just as people who read Harry Potter do so because who doesn't want to be a wizard, hang out at Hogwarts, and learn all sorts of cool spells that help you defeat bad people, maybe the Left Behind folks read the books because they all want to be Super-Christians, have their paranoid fantasies come true, and fight to help bring back the return of Jesus.

Or maybe they believe it all.

One of the guys who wrote the books, Tim LaHaye is a big figure in Republican politics. He just endorsed Mike Huckabee (who apparently is a big fan) in fact. He is also some big figure in some super shadowy religious cabal with major influence within the Republican Party, especially the Bush administration. Bush himself gave a speech to LaHaye's organization in 1999 that the White House refuses to release as it's expected it's full of crazy. LaHaye, himself, has said that the book is somewhat true, or, at least, possibly about to be true.

So I'm reading it partially because it's important to read because it gives you an understanding of how the Red Staters think.

And what can we see about the people who are into the book: to read the subtext is to give you an understanding of just what lurks beneath all of that. Jews are seen as kind of nice, affable, people who are tragically doomed because they backed the wrong Messiah. They're kind of like those nice, kind of loser friends who you know will be stuck to being losers unless they change their ways (in the books, meaning convert). And then there's all the fear about anything "One World"-like, meaning anything that unites the world. The U.N., after all, is extremely powerful in the book and the Anti-Christ (who is European) achieves his power through the U.N and brings people together for awhile until he starts nuking people). I'm not quite sure why all the one-world paranoia and whether it's just a function of xenophobia or because that's what the prophecies say so things like the U.N. or any sort of agreement that brings countires and people together is seen as evil and wrong because it's a manifestion of the Anti-Christ. All those whacky militias that ran loose in the '90s are seen as heroes in the book.

The group that really takes it on the chin are the Catholics. It is first said that not many Catholics are raptured. The Pope, however, is but it's said that before he got Raptured, instituted a bunch of reforms to Catholocism that made it more Protestant-like. When the Anti-Christ unites all the religions to create one giant religion (somethat that is very, very bad), it is the new Pope who runs it all. And, finally, once the evil bad guy takes over, he is referred to in the same ways that the Pope is referred to.

In other words, these books maybe dumb and maybe stupid, but there's a lot to learn from them.

They still kind of suck, though