Religions have fads. Ideas go in and out of style like men’s ties go from wide to thin and then back to wide again. The rise of interest in millennial or “end of the world” prophesies are one example as they increase in popularity in times of social upheaval, such as following the tumultuous decade of the 1960’s. Some people understandably seek comfort in their belief of a divine plan during periods of apparent chaos.
Hal Lindsey, who died last November, was arguably the most popular and some would say influential Protestant theologian of the 20th century. He co-wrote the 1970 apocalyptic book The Late Great Planet Earth, which focused on end times theology.
His ideas were first adopted byyounger Christian seekers (“Jesus Freaks”) living on the West Coast. But they broke into the mainstream as his book sold 35 million copies by the year 2000. Wikipedia reports that his book was also the best-selling “nonfiction” book of the 1970’s decade selling more than 10 million copies.
Lindsey brought the formerly obscure biblical theology named premillennialism into the mainstream, introducing audiences to the now common concepts of the Rapture, the Antichrist, and the Mark of the Beast. Premillennialism states that Christians will be taken up to heaven prior to the tribulation, the expected period of chaos and suffering that will occur before Christ returns at the end of the world.
Lindsey turned significant parts of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament scripture into prophecy by claiming the Book of Revelations and selected other Biblical passages were a roadmap for what will happen at “the end of time.”
He begins by claiming that various prophets in the Bible accurately predicted events such as the two instances where Jews were captured as slaves and how and when they would be freed. He then goes on to conclude that statements in the Bible also predict what is happening in the present day (especially the return of the Jews to Israel) and in the near future leading up to the 2nd coming of Christ.
But Lindsey does not say that he is a prophet. So, his claims about the Bible are not prophetic like the ones he mentions in the Bible. However, he has faith that the text itself is prophetic, and he is the one heroically revealing its secrets. Here we have a modern day DaVinci Code drama.
Lindsey made the urgent plea that Christians treat the Book ofRevelations as the most important book in the Bible since the world had entered the new dispensation (or Biblical age) of the “end times”, making the rest of the Bible less relevant. Revelations was said to describe the literal events that will occur then.
Lindsey spoke directly to Christian youth about the crises of the late 1960’s, including Vietnam, protests, riots, the cold war, and the threat of nuclear war. He told people that all major events were predicted in Revelations and other passages in books such as those in Daniel, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. This made the Bible and its many formerly obscure passages relevant to people in the present day.
God controlled the world and would rapture the faithful into heaven prior to the 7-year period of the Great Tribulation but Christians must first look for the signs and understand God’s plan i.e., listen to and accept Lindsey’s new interpretation of scripture.
Lindsey listed a series of things that had to happen before the end of time: The Jews must return to Israel, recapture Jerusalem, and rebuild the temple destroyed by Romans in the year 70 CE (this seems to lack evidence since there is a Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem but not a Jewish temple). Only then could the rapture occur, and believing Christians be brought directly to heaven. They would thus avoid the painful period of the tribulation as well as physical death that non-Christians must face.
Lindsey became wealthy from book sales but had several divorces, to which some other more family focused Christian leaders objected. But he also lost credibility when he predicted that the Rapture would occur 40 years (one biblical generation) after the Jews returned to Israel (1948). The late 1980’s and more specifically 1988 came and went but the world did not end. The threat of world war that he predicted involving the Soviet Union was diminished after its breakup in the early 1990’s and his prophesied war did not occur. Even though some of his major predictions failed, he continued to rewrite and revise his theories right up until his recent death in 2024.
The Catholic Church has mostly rejected a focus on millennialism (cataclysmic end of the world prophesies) but there was much disagreement in the early Church with the respected Doctor of the Church Saint Augustine eventually rejecting the approach. But large numbers of Protestants believe in some flavor of millennialism and that it is important to understand and study the coming apocalypse.
Perhaps the most inconsistent thing was that Lindsey’s highly symbolic theology was based on a fundamentalist biblical view, a widespread doctrinewhich arose in the early 20th century.
The first of five principles of fundamentalism is that Christian readers of the Bible must have “A literal interpretation of the Bible” and believe the Bible to be inerrant (perfect without falsehoods or mistakes). This liking for literal interpretation goes back to Martin Luther at the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, who found the Catholic acceptance of symbolic (ethical, allegorical, and mystical) interpretations of the Bible to be imprecise and open to too much ambiguity and controversy.
When a text is highly symbolic, in a given passage, many things are not what they appear to be and the more important meanings can be hidden or obscured.
But for Fundamentalists, the required faith in the Bible means Christians must know precisely what at least a solid majority of Biblical passages mean so they know what they have faith in. Symbolic interpretations destroy the clarity of the Bible’s meaning leaving it open to misinterpretation and confusion, thus potentially causing a crisis of faith in Christians.
It is meaningless to say that a text is inerrant if passages in the text have multiple possible meanings and some of them may be false or misleading. This is especially true when it is difficult to determine which ones are false. Fundamentalists maintain that it is highly desirable to have a single meaning for all passages and that the simplest, most straightforward meaning be the correct one.
But the unusual part is that the Book of Revelations which Lindsey analyzed for his book, is by far the most symbolic book in the Bible. It is full of mysterious mythical figures and objects like a warring seven-headed dragon with a river coming out of his mouth, seven seals that can be opened to bring different prophetic revelations, avenging supernatural locusts with scorpion tails that repeatedly sting those who do not have the sign of God on their foreheads, apostolic figures of a lion, eagle, oxen, and man, and an angel robed in a cloud with a face like the sun and feet like pillars of fire.
In Revelations, these figures, their environment, the war and punishments that they participate in, and the prophecies they give are so fantastic, peculiar, and borderline hallucinogenic that they each could symbolize a multitude of things. They could also mean nothing at all, just as many of our nightly dreams do.
Other books in the Bible have obscure geographical or personal references which Lindsey translates to modern countries or people but his references to phrases like “The King of the North” do not provide much information to define to whom the text is referring.
Some have criticized the Revelations of Saint John as being more like a fantasy or a fever dream of divine vengeance than a religious revelation. There has been much skepticism by biblical authorities as to the value of The Book of Revelation over the years and some religious leaders have suggested that it be ignored entirely by Christians (excepting perhaps the most educated of theologians who understand its history and origins).
Lindsey’s book is riddled with tenuous interpretations. He finds what he believes to be references to China in Revelation 9, which describes an army of 200 million that will push across the Euphrates from the east and attack Israel. He uses both geography and etymology to identify Russia as the biblical land Magog. He goes through a convoluted effort supposedly quoting ancient historians to trace Gog or Magog back to modern day Russia. He says the European Union will ultimately be ruled by the Antichrist who Lindsey calls the Future Fuehrer.
His apparent minimal knowledge of history and training in ancient languages and cultures makes much of his analysis questionable. This is especially true when he is anxious to fit textual data into his chosen prophetic narrative. His book merges history with mythology and makes it difficult to separate the two.
Lindsey takes different ambiguous, biblical events and symbolic figures and puts them in a timeline, accompanied by maps to describe a future divinely directed world war involving Russia, the Middle East, Europe, and China. They will all attack Israel but be mysteriously defeated by an act of God which Lindsey believes will result in a mass conversion of Jews to Christianity. World War III will bring about the “end of the world” and the return of Jesus.
So, the question remains as to how any fundamentalist could ever want to read much less place such a high value on a highly symbolic book as Revelation together with Lindsey’s far-fetched interpretations? Also, how could Lindsey come from a fundamentalist background when much of his theory of interpretation relies on redefining or translating the meaning of places and statements in ambiguous biblical books including Revelations. Many of his claims are that Biblical events, statements, and people have a prophetic dimension and seem to mean something other than what they appear to literally mean.
Literal interpretation and Lindsey’s claimed prophetic interpretations seem diametrically opposed. But it would not be the first time that Christian theologians held contradictory and confused theories and beliefs.
And author Tim LaHaye attracted another huge audience of believers with his more recent fictional books and films the Left BehindSeries. These build upon the same contradictory theological foundation as The Late Great Planet Earth. LaHaye seems to add a new element to the apocalyptic drama as he shows Christians enjoying watching earthly non-Christians (those who were “left behind”) suffer horribly from a distance as those who were raptured live in their ideal heavenly world.
But in times of confusion and social disruption, the lure of “end of the world” prophesies as a force to unite, energize, and motivate Christians is just too tempting to resist. Ministers seek above all approaches that will draw people to Christianity and the hope of avoiding the suffering that will occur at the end of the time can be a powerful motivation to join.
It is hopeful to believe that God knows the future and is in control of events, and even more recently as some believe, the Presidential election. But it is less comforting that only a small number of select Christians will be raptured into paradise while the rest of humanity must endure the great tribulation followed by an eternity in hell.