The most effective message yet found by the hijackers of mainstream religion is Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series of apocalyptic Christian novels. This wide-ranging study examines the books and the empire behind them. Author Michael Standaert contextualizes the Left Behind phenomenon by probing millennial thinking across cultures, from pre-Christian times to the present, and tracing the evolution of militant evangelism in the U.S., uncovering the links between fundamentalist religious figures and mainstream right-wing politicians through organizations like the Moral Majority. Skipping Toward Armageddon rips the lid off the Left Behind books’ ideological underpinnings, showing how LaHaye uses them to advance the foreign and domestic policy goals Religious Right, from fomenting Middle East violence to promoting homophobia and xenophobia. The book is a timely cautionary tale, revealing that these best-selling books are not simply harmless thrillers written from an evangelical Christian perspective but a tool in a fanatical group’s agenda.
