Friday, April 02, 2004

methinks he doth protest too much...

Like many people who make a living off of being offended, Carl Olson has a nice cottage industry based around refuting the Left Behind series. Here is his latest foray on NationalReview.com. His snobbery is indeed evident, although he rejects that from the start of the article. It is not snobbery toward the poor writing, as he suggests, but snobbery towards though who hold a different view of eschatology than he does.

I honestly have not delved deeply enough into the eschatological writings of the Bible to label myself pre- or post- or a-millenial. What is more likely behind Olsen is that the Left Behind books point a finger right at the catholic church, and as a self-proclaimed "former Rapture-believing Fundamentalist-turned-Papist" he quite understandably doesn't want his fellow catholics to look too closely or ask too many questions.

I quite frankly can't read the Left Behind series because the writing is so poor and the characters are so laughable. Even the very legitimate criticisms levelled at Rome lose their sting because they are so contrived. I still find it funny that people like Olsen that critique LaHaye and Jenkins for the commercial success of Left Behind seem to be doing quite well for themselves refuting it. What is that old saying about the pot and the kettle, and one calls the other black?

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