Reviews for Skipping Towards Armageddon: The Politics and Propaganda of the Left Behind Novels and the LaHaye Empire

The average rating for Skipping Towards Armageddon: The Politics and Propaganda of the Left Behind Novels and the LaHaye Empire based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2007-06-25 00:00:00 Daniel Chase Protestant Evangelicalism in America is a potent cultural, historical, and political force. It is an inseparable part of our national character. This is nothing new. As a religious denomination, the personal faith of Evangelicalism brings hope to millions of followers, just as other forms of religious belief enrich and give meaning to the adherents of these faiths. But below the surface there is a more dangerous, ominous, and cynically manipulated message bent more on enforcing a political ideology in the United States and around the world than any type of religious belief. In reality, this political-Evangelicalism could be compared to what some call the takeover of the Islamic faith with a form of virulent political-Islam. The core objectives of each are to control minds, markets, and resources. Where one uses barbarous terrorist tactics, spiteful propaganda, and violence to achieve its goals, the other uses flashy and pervasive television, radio, savvy publishing and technological propaganda as means to deliver its message. The most effective message yet found by the people seeking to hijack Protestantism is the LEFT BEHIND series, described in a marketing report commissioned by Tyndale House (the series' publisher) as "one of the most widely experienced religious teaching or evangelistic tools among adults who are not born again Christians," and that books "reached a larger unduplicated audience of non-believers than most religious television or radio ministries draw through their programs."

Review # 2 was written on 2008-03-30 00:00:00 John Giacobbi This one nearly got two stars (HORRORS!). Although the premise stands solid--and thus secured the blessed third star--the composition is painfully shaky. The text just screams for an editor, and not just because of the countless typographical and spelling errors but also for Standaert's tendency to make an assertion in one sentence and then restate the assertion, with nearly identical terms, in the next. These bothersome prose couplets average every page or two. If a little more time had been spent passing over and organizing the text, the book might have contended for FOUR STAR status. Standaert should be commended for performing the unenviable task of wading neck deep into the 12-part Left Behind series and other such premillennialist dreck, and distilling them to their essential racist, paranoid, and misanthropic elements. It reminds responsible citizens why it should bother us that some lunatic ex-Bircher and creationist goober like LaHaye had the ear of the Reagan and Bush II White Houses.