The end of the world has always excited people who have little to bide their time. Today, apocalypse paranoia is spread at the speed of e-mail-all over the world.
The modern day soothsayers-Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins-have already cashed in on the perpetual interest in Armageddon with their best-selling books dubbed "The Left Behind Series." These books are long-winded and mediocre at best, filling 10 400-page books with what The Bible managed to cover in 10 pages. With flat characters and unbelievable melodrama, it is obvious that these books were churned out with rabbit speed to separate as many people from their money as possible.
Now, however, sales have plummeted with the short attention spans of readers and already other publishers are using the same ideas to sell their hack novels-different only by way of book cover and title. So, what better way to continue generating fear-driven revenue than to offer a "weekly analysis of world events and their relationship to end-time prophecy" over the Internet?
That's what the new offspring of "The Left Behind Series" entails, aptly dubbed, "Interpreting the Signs." It is a weekly newsletter put together by the Left Behind writers and supposed "End Times Analyst" Mark Hitchcock. (If such a title isn't a euphemism for hopelessly self-employed, I don't know what is). But no doubt they've found their vehicle for extra profit, doing what publications such as The National Enquirer have done for years. The difference is what guise these hokey messages take. Both say the same absurd things, marking SARS as the beginning of the end, for instance, despite its contemporaneous nature.
However, a Christian cannot find The National Enquirer at a Christian bookstore, yet these stores parade "The Left Behind Series" as if it is not only the finest literature of our times, but also bears Christ's seal of approval. The weekly blatherskite about Nostradamus having Elvis's baby pasted on a grocery store checkout line is not hurting anyone, but the idea that these three men have anything novel or valuable to say about the End of Days is ridiculous.
I cannot help but think that if Christ came back today, these guys wouldn't swell with pride at how they prepared everyone for the rapture. I'm fairly certain that when the man does come back, he won't be giving another sermon on the mount; he'll be preheating his oven to 451 degrees and tossing these useless books where they belong.
Certainly this newsletter idea is only following in the footsteps of other online scams, but rambling about global economies and the Mark of the Beast while charging $29.95 and claiming Christian backing is more unethical than any of the babbling Bible thumpers we've had on campus: at least they're not trying to charge us.
This so-called "Prophecy Club" should be ashamed. Perhaps, as they're constructing vaults to store all of the money they've gleaned from this, they tell themselves that they have the moral high ground-raising education and turning people toward Christ before it is too late.
Me, I chalk this up as another piece of fodder SPAM to ignore and click to the recycle bin, but I can only hope that such a display of desperate and timely greed does not succeed, and that people will realize that if the end does come, no $30 newsletter is going to make a difference.
Darren Todd is an English literature senior. Reach him at lawrence.todd@asu.edu.
