The British Daily Telegraph carries an interview with Tim LaHaye to coincide with the last Left Behind novel (well, last except for the numerous spin-offs, prequels and postscripts in the offing). LaHaye explains the Rapture, the Tribulation and the 1,000 year millennial kingdom, where
there’ll be trees that, each month, will grow a different fruit. It will be familiar to this world, but more perfect. Sheep will still be sheep. Grass will be grass. But they will be perfect…There will probably be singles’ groups [for the unmarried]…We’ve been told that we will be able to travel at the speed of thought. Personally, I plan to go planetary exploring.
LaHaye also talks of his links with Bush:
he met the President ahead of the election and has been told that Bush is a supporter of his work.
“I would think that he is a believer [in the Rapture],” he says. “He said he had a personal faith in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour, and that he prayed on a regular basis.”
However, this should be qualified by noting LaHaye’s comments to Rolling Stone back in January:
I have seen nothing from this president that would indicate that he is influenced one way or the other by my prophesy teaching.
By supporting LaHaye’s “work”, Bush is more likely to be referring to LaHaye’s long-time conservative activism.
The pre-election meeting between Bush and LaHaye was at a closed conference of the Council for National Policy in 1999. Skipp Porteous of Freedom Writer ordered a set of tapes of the meeting, only to find the Bush speech missing by order of the Bush election campaign. What Bush said to the CNP remains unknown.
(revised – link to Rolling Stone via Get Religion 5 April)
UPDATE (8 April): This article in the NY Times contains a quote from the novel, as Jesus takes out the armies of the Anti-Christ:
Men and women soldiers and horses seemed to explode where they stood…It was as if the very words of the Lord had superheated their blood, causing it to burst through their veins and skin…Even as they struggled, their own flesh dissolved, their eyes melted and their tongues disintegrated.
Not sure what the horses are supposed to have done to deserve this…
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