Dear Catholic Exchange:
I have recently seen an article that mentioned the Christadelphians. Who are they and what do they believe. I have also heard about the Left Behind book series, several of my Protestant friends have tried to get me to read them. However, I have heard that they are inaccurate and anti-Catholic. Can you help me with these questions?
Thank You,
Natasha Bergfalk
Dear Ms. Bergfalk,
First, regarding Christadelphians and their beliefs, briefly, this pacifist movement was founded in the 1800s by John Thomas, a physician and the son of a Congregationalist minister. The sect is not Christian, nor do they believe in a Trinitarian Godhead. Rather they believe that God is unitarian, the Father alone is God; the Holy Spirit is the force of God; and Jesus is a sort of created god who was once a mortal man. They do not accept the immortality of the soul or eternal punishment, therefore, they hold that the wicked cease to exist completely after death and will not be raised to new life.
(This information was taken from two articles that appeared in This Rock magazine in May 1994. The articles can be read on-line at the EWTN website here and here.)
Secondly, regarding the Left Behind series, please see the article “A Statement on Left Behind books and videos by the Catholic Conference of Illinois” provided at the end of this letter. In addition to this article, you may wish to read our Faith Facts Apocalypse Not Now The Church, The Millennium, and The Rapture and Now You See 'Em, Now You Don't, which demonstrates the lack of evidence in support of the Rapture.
United in the Faith,
Kathleen Rohan
Information Specialist
Catholics United for the Faith
827 North Fourth Street
Steubenville, OH 43952
800-MY-FAITH (800-693-2484)
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Statement on Left Behind books and videos by the Catholic Conference of Illinois
When Jesus told us to be alert and ready for his return, he also warned there would be false prophets. One of the most attractively marketed recent false “prophets” has been the Left Behind series, published by Tyndale House Press in Wheaton, Illinois. Since 1995, the series by Mr. Tim LaHaye and Mr. Jerry B. Jenkins has been a tool for active promotion of a fundamentalist theology of the end times in conflict with Catholic teachings. More than that, the series has been a vehicle for anti-Catholic sentiments by the way Catholics are characterized and treated in the plot line.
Promoted nationally in grocery checkout aisles, discount outlets and bookstores, over the Internet and even through book sale fundraisers in Catholic schools, these novels are now in the tenth installment of the adult series and the twenty-fourth volume of the children’s version. There are also two videos (produced by Cloud Ten Productions), a board game, and other marketed items. These materials, about fictionalized end-times, popularize a common fundamentalist belief in a time of tribulation after the “rapture” (when the “good people” are secretly taken up overnight to Heaven) and before the Second Coming of Christ. This belief is not supported in Scripture.
Responding to similar fundamentalist agendas back in 1937, Pius XI, in Divini Redemptoris said any such speculations about a period when a remnant of the Church progresses towards its own ultimate victory might of themselves be a sign of the Antichrist:
“The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism”…
The Catechism of the Catholic Church continues, “The kingdom will be fulfilled then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only in God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil”… (676-677).
The scenario in Left Behind, of a “tribulation force” of born-again former sinners who attempt personally to derail the progress of the Anti-Christ, is broadly classifiable as pre-millenarianism. The pseudo-historical backdrop for the story ties apocalyptic scripture to specific events in history, an error known as pre-millennial dispensationalism. In later books in the series, the new Pope is depicted as instrumental in establishing a relativistic world religion encouraged by the Anti-Christ and operated from New Babylon (formerly Rome). The Left Behind series is anti-Catholic in content and form, consistent with Mr. LaHaye’s other writings, in which he associates the Church with “Babylonian mysticism.”
Tyndale House, and by association Cloud Ten Productions, have made clear in their marketing that they feel divinely inspired to promote their theological agenda among the most vulnerable. A recent promotional mailer, created by the Christian Film and Television Commission for their second Left Behind video, claims: “God is using the Left Behind films, as He has used the books, to reach out and touch the lives of people who won’t go to church, but in their hearts are looking for the answers to life’s questions.” If there are any doubts that the aim of the Left Behind series is as much to promote a fundamentalist agenda as to make money, these marketing techniques should put them to rest.
Attractively-Packaged Proselytization
While many adult Catholics are secure enough in their faith to avoid being proselytized by such works, or by the direct preaching of fundamentalists, the real danger of Left Behind is its attractiveness as a story of good people in a heroic battle against ultimate evil. Readers lacking a full understanding of Catholic scriptural teaching about the end times in many cases have internalized this fictional post-rapture time of tribulation when sinners are left to battle the Anti-Christ, because it sounds familiar and “biblical.”
Overall, these books reinforce an unhealthy and immature belief in a harshly judgmental God whose mercy we earn by good behavior. In response to reading them, Catholic catechists have been observed confusing and even frightening children in religious education programs by teaching the “rapture” as if it were an article of Catholic faith. There is also real danger that Catholics persuaded by this agenda may judge other people on spiritual fitness for the “rapture.”
A Call for Better Catechesis about the End Times
We, the Catholic Bishops of Illinois, call upon those responsible for faith formation to provide planned, coherent, and informed catechesis to all age groups about Church teachings on the end of the world, based on scripture and tradition. We also call upon Catholic institutions libraries, bookstores, schools, and parishes to remove any Left Behind books and videos from their shelves, to prohibit the sale of these materials in Catholic venues, and to provide the faithful with information that these materials are, in fact, a marketing tool for fundamentalist preaching about the end times and a thinly disguised polemic against the Catholic Church.
Any persons interested in obtaining a more faithful reading list, on this subject or any other aspect of Catholic teaching, should contact their Diocesan Office of Religious Education for guidance.