“Money is the root of all evil.”

by K.W. Leslie, 07 October 2020

1 Timothy 6.10.

This is rather well-known out-of-context scripture. So well known in fact, your average Christian already knows it’s taken out of context, and many a pagan likewise knows better. It’s the common proverb “Money is the root of all evil,” and it’s a misquote of something Paul wrote to Timothy:

1 Timothy 6.10 KJV
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

It’s the love of money. Not money itself. Money is morally neutral. But loving money—especially when people love it more than God, their neighbors, their own lives and health and reputation and integrity—certainly produces evil.

Now yeah, many a Christian (especially when they’re really kinda Mammonist) read the King James Version and balk: “All evil? I don’t think every evil in the world is based on the love of money. I can think of a few evils which had nothing to do with money. Like adultery; that’s more about loving nooky.” So as a result we got other translations of the bible which don’t say all.

1 Timothy 6.10 NKJV
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

But notice the words “kind of” have to be in gray (or, in other editions, in italics) because they have to be added to the text. ’Cause the original Greek has ῥίζα γὰρ πάντων τῶν κακῶν ἐστιν ἡ φιλαργυρία/rhídza gar pánton ton kakón estin i filaryiría, “For the root of all the evil is money-love.”

So no, Paul didn’t say money-love is the root of many kinds of evil. He flat-out wrote it’s the root of all the evil.

But hold up: Neither did he say money-love is the root of all evil. It’s the root of all the evil. All which evil?

Um… all the evil he was just writing about in the previous verse. Which you probably didn’t read, ’cause we just pulled this verse straight out of its context. In context, you’ll see Paul was writing about people who wanna be rich—and the root of all their evil, is the love of money. Not the root of humanity’s evil. He didn’t write this verse to be universally applied to everybody. (Not even if you add the words “all kinds” to make it sound like it’s universally applicable. Bad translators! No doughnut for you.)

1 Timothy 6.9-10 KJV
9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. 10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

The pursuit of Mammon, the worship of Mammon, trips people into all sorts of failings and compromises and corruptions. And the root of all this evil is the love of Mammon. It’s not safe to love money!

Back to the bad interpretations, and bad bible translations. Poke around and you’ll find a lot of translations have compromised this verse by making it read, “all kinds of evil”—as if not every failing of a Mammonist stems from money-worship. Bible Gateway has a bigger list.

AMPLIFIED. For the love of money [that is, the greedy desire for it and the willingness to gain it unethically] is a root of all sorts of evil…
CSV, NRSV. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil…
ESV. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.
GOOD NEWS. For the love of money is a source of all kinds of evil.
ISV, NIV, WEB For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
NASB. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil…
NLT For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

It blurs Paul’s obvious intent in writing what he did to Timothy. All so we don’t leap to the conclusion—based on an out-of-context reading of the verse—that every evil in humanity stems from money. Of course not every evil does. The serpent didn’t tempt Eve with the fruit’s cash value! But that’s not even what the verse is about.

“Prophets” who only share encouraging words.

by K.W. Leslie, 06 October 2020

There’s a rather loaded word we Christians use on a frequent basis: “Word.” It refers to Jesus. It can also refer to the bible, either as a whole, or to specific statements of God in the scriptures. It can refer to the gospel, Mt 13.19 the “good word.” It can refer to any message or lesson, really: A Sunday school class, a sermon, or a prayer where the petitioner slipped a lesson into it, passive-aggressive or not.

Or it can just be a short, positive saying. An “encouraging word.” A T-shirt slogan, easily short enough for text messages and Twitter.

All my life I’ve heard these little sayings. Had a pastor who’d like to start each Sunday morning service with one of them: “Church, I have a word for you.” Then he’d share it. Might be a popular saying; might be a clever saying; might be a bible verse. Might expound on it a little, but it’d take him no more than 30 seconds, ’cause he was gonna pray, and then we were gonna sing. “Church, be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.” It’d be short.

Christians like to encourage each other with such things. We’ll make memes of them and scatter them all over the internet. We teach ’em to newbies and children. Most are good, and consistent with the scriptures. Some are bunk. But I tend to call them generic Christian truth. Stuff like:

  • Jesus loves you. (This I know, for the bible tells me so.)
  • Be of good cheer!
  • God considers you valuable. You’re not irrelevant.
  • It’s the Father’s good pleasure to give you his kingdom.
  • Jesus is the way, truth, and life.
  • Heaven is real, and someday you get to see it.
  • God wants to help, so don’t forget to pray.
  • Stop fixating on the world’s chaos. It’s passing away.
  • Jesus is returning!

And so on. We put ’em on T-shirts and bumper stickers, put ’em into Christian pop songs, and use ’em to encourage one another. Anybody can do it.

And it takes no prophetic ability whatsoever. The Holy Spirit doesn’t have to tell me, “Hey, go tell that stranger I love her.” You already know God loves her; you can tell her without any prompting from him. We can tell anyone, at any time, “Hey, God loves you!” ’Cause it’s true.

Although sometimes the Spirit does have to give us a little kick in the pants. But that little kick doesn’t count as prophecy; it’s not always because these strangers have to hear God loves them. Yeah, sometimes they do… but a lot of times the Spirit gives us that kick because we suck at encouraging others. So if you ever thought to yourself, “Why’d the Spirit make me go say something to that stranger? He looked so unimpressed”—it’s not because that person needed to hear anything, but because the Spirit’s teaching you to obey. Good Christian. Keep it up.

But let’s get off that tangent and get to those Christians who specialize in sharing generic Christian truths… and think it’s their prophetic ministry.

Yeah. There are such creatures. I know plenty. And I’m not knocking the encouragement! Christians need to encourage one another; probably more than we already do.

The catch is these people think what they’re doing is prophetic, and it’s really not. Like I said, encouragement takes no prophetic ability whatsoever. You don’t need to personally hear God say, “Tell this person these words” before you can share a generic Christian truth with ’em. Plenty of cessationists, who are dead certain God doesn’t talk to people anymore, tweet encouragement at one another. (As they should: Since they think God abandoned us, they especially need the encouragement!) You can slap a bumper sticker on your car, park it, and leave it there… and it’ll encourage every Christian who sees it, including the one who finally tows your car away. And you won’t have done anything more.

But you know how some people would really like to become prophets, and are willing to call anything prophetic if it means they’re prophets. So yeah, they’ll consider encouraging words to be “prophecies.” Even though they’re not. Even when they misinterpret scripture (“God knows the plans he has for you!”) or aren’t even scriptural at all (“Everything happens for a reason!”). You know, stuff the Holy Spirit doesn’t do.

Is it “debts” or “trespasses”?

by K.W. Leslie, 30 September 2020

Matthew 6.12.

I used to be in a small group which consisted of Christians from various churches in town. So, different denominations and traditions. Most were Baptist, partly ’cause there are a lot of Baptists in town, partly ’cause we met at a nondenominational Baptist church, so their members came out to represent. And many weren’t Baptist; I’m not. But we all have the same Lord Jesus, so we tried to avoid the churches’ doctrinal hangups and focus on what unifies us in him.

Anyway one of the unifying things we did was, at the end of each meeting, we’d say the Lord’s Prayer together. We have that in common, right?

Except… well, translations. Most of us have it memorized in either the Book of Common Prayer version or the King James Version. A few know it best in the NIV or ESV, or whatever’s their favorite translation. (Or their pastor’s favorite.) But the majority know it in either the BCP or KJV.

Spot the differences.

Book of Common Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
Matthew 6.9-13 KJV
9B Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
in earth, as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,
for ever. Amen.

Some of the differences go largely unnoticed: “Who art in heaven” and “Which art in heaven” is a minor difference in pronunciation, same as the “on earth” and “in earth.” There’s a bit of confusion at the end when the BCP has “for ever and ever” and the KJV only has “for ever.”

But the real hiccup is where the BCP has “trespasses” and the KJV has “debtors.”

At first you might think (’cause some have): “Well the Lord’s Prayer is also in Luke, so let’s see what word Luke used,” but that’ll just frustrate you: Luke has Jesus say,

Luke 11.4 KJV
And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.

So it’s half a vote for “debts,” because the second part of the verse describes debtors. But it doesn’t matter what people are voting: Those who say the Book of Common Prayer version have a really strong traditional bias in favor of “trespasses,” since it’s what they’ve been praying all their lives, every time they recite the Lord’s Prayer. And those who quote the King James Version have a likewise strong traditional bias in favor of “debts,” because it’s what they’ve been praying all their lives… and I’m not gonna even get into the type of KJV worshiper who thinks the KJV is the one true bible and every other variant is satanic.

Okay. Is this minor difference of wording a big deal? Of course not. But not every Christian has the maturity to recognize this, and they want to pick a fight. They wanna be the prayer leaders, largely so they can impose their favorite version of the Lord’s Prayer on everybody, and make everyone say “debts” or “trespasses” as they please.

And somehow they don’t notice everybody is pretty much saying whatever translation of the Lord’s Prayer they’re accustomed to saying anyway: For one second of cacophony, the BCP fans are saying “trespasses” and the KJV fans are saying “debts,” because nobody’s following the prayer leader: As usual, they’re reciting by memory.

And y’know what? That’s okay.

And y’know what else? If it’s not okay—if it’s making you nuts—go back and read the Lord’s Prayer again: “As we forgive those who trespass against us,” or “As we forgive our debtors,” or “As we forgive every one that is indebted to us.” We’re supposed to forgive the people who “say it wrong,” same as we’re supposed to forgive everyone. If you can’t do that, you’re doing it wrong.

Daily bread.

by K.W. Leslie, 29 September 2020

Matthew 6.11, Luke 11.3.

Whenever we read Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, or any of his other teachings, they make way more sense when we remember his audience at the time consisted of poor people.

In the United States, “poor” usually means you don’t have a lot of money, and live within limited means. In ancient Israel, “poor” meant you had no money. Maybe you had stuff to barter; usually not. You lived from job to job, from harvest to harvest, doing the best you could with what few resources you had. Any time you did have money, taxmen would take it away, priests and Pharisees would demand you give it to temple, or rich people would con you out of it.

So when Jesus speaks on money, possessions, or economics: His audience seldom had those things. We do have these things. Even our “poor” have these things. We’re very blessed.

So. We recognize when Jesus, in the Lord’s Prayer tells us to pray for daily bread, he doesn’t literally mean bread; he means food in general. That interpretation is fine. But so many Americans expand it: “Oh he doesn’t necessarily mean food; he means spiritual food. He means we’re to do the will of his Father, Jn 4.34 so we’re to ask God for the strength and power to do that.” Or, if they’re more into Mammon and materialism, they claim it means financial food: Give us this day our weekly paycheck, that with it we might pay our bills and buy whatever we covet.

And yeah, we recognize we should go to God first when we want anything, and submit to his will when he tells us yes or no. But when Jesus told us to pray for daily bread, it’s not a metaphor for our every necessity or desire. It’s about sustaining our lives. We need food so we can live. We need to recognize our dependence on God for our lives. So when he says pray for daily bread, pray for daily bread.

Yeah, you can pray for spiritual growth too. You can pray for money. You can ask God for anything, and he’s not stingy. But don’t go reading your various other desires into the Lord’s Prayer, and pray for those things instead of what Jesus told us to pray for. Pray for bread.

And specifically, pray for tomorrow’s bread. Because that’s a better translation of what Jesus commanded.

Thy kingdom come.

by K.W. Leslie, 28 September 2020

Matthew 6.10, Luke 11.2.

Matthew 6.10 KWL
“Make your kingdom come. Make your will happen both in heaven and on earth.”
 
Luke 11.2 KWL
Jesus told them, “When you pray, say: ‘Father!
Sanctify your name. Bring your kingdom.’ ”

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus told us to ask our Father ἐλθέτω βασιλεία σου/elthéto i vasileía su, “must come, the kingdom of yours.” The literal translation is a bit Yoda-like, which is why “Your kingdom come” is how the ESV put it, and of course we all know the Book of Common Prayer and KJV translation.

The arrival of God’s kingdom is the gospel. It’s not John 3.16, no matter how much we love that verse. Eternal life is part of it, but the more important thing is where we spend this eternal life, and John 3.16 says nothing about that. You know the verse; you know this already. It’s why when Christians interpret the verse for other people, we tend to explain “will have everlasting life in heaven, with Jesus.” But Jesus never said that: In his second coming, he’s coming to earth to take over. God’s kingdom’s gonna be here. We Christians have been laying the groundwork for it.

And doing a rotten job of it, but that stands to reason: Too many of us think the kingdom’s not here. We anticipate an otherworldly, cosmic heaven; we figure we leave this world behind to fall apart and be destroyed. The millennium isn’t part of our plans.

So why have we bothered to pray “Thy kingdom come”? Well, ’cause the words are there, so we recite them by rote, but never meditated on them any. We just presumed God’d make his kingdom come by blowing up the earth while we all watch safely from heaven, and that’s where his kingdom is. And since God’s gonna blow up the earth, why bother to care of it? This world is passing away, so it’s okay if we pollute and spoil it, ’cause God’ll make us another one.

But once we realize God’s kingdom is located here, on our planet; once we realize God’s kingdom is meant to fix everything that’s broken on our planet (’cause God’s in the business of fixing what’s broken); and once we realize the Holy Spirit’s been given to us so we can get started already on God’s plan to make all things new: It’s gonna radically transform our nihilistic attitudes towards our world. And towards the people on it, whose glimpses of the coming kingdom are gonna attract them to it far better than warnings of doom and gloom.

Hallowed be thy name.

by K.W. Leslie, 27 September 2020

Matthew 6.9, Luke 11.2.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus told us to ask our Father to ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου/aghiasthíto to ónoma su, “sanctify” or “make holy” or “hallowify” (to coin a word) “the name of yours.” The Book of Common Prayer and KJV went with “Hallowed be thy name,” which means the same thing, but Christians commonly misinterpret it to mean “I sanctify your name,” or “I praise your name.” We think this is praise and worship on our part. It’s not. It’s a request for our Father to make his own name holy. For him to act.

Part of our presumption comes from a way-too-common Christian misbelief that our prayers aren’t really about asking God to do anything. Because, the attitude is, God doesn’t actually answer prayer. He sits on his heavenly arse, watches us humans stumble around, reminds us to read our bibles, but isn’t gonna intervene in human affairs till the End Times—if they even ever happen. Besides, he’s already planned out everything he’s gonna do, so all our after-the-fact prayers won’t change a whiff of it. So what’s the point of prayer then? Changing us—changing our attitudes about God by reciting various truths about him, like we do with our worship music, until these ideas finally sink in and transform us.

(As if this even works with worship music. Just look at all the Christian jerks whose favorite songs, so they claim, are hymns. But lemme stop here before I rant futher.)

Thanks to this mindset, Christians imagine “Hallowed be thy name” is just another reminder to think of God’s name as holy. To not take it in vain. To glorify and worship him, and tell other people how awesome and mighty he is. To remember God is holy—and because we so often misdefine holy as good, to also remember God is good. Or because we so often misdefine holy as solemn, to remember to treat God as formal.

We really do botch the meaning of what Jesus is trying to teach us in this prayer, don’t we? It’s why Christians can recite the Lord’s Prayer the world over, sometimes every single day, and still not behave any more like Jesus than before.

So to remind you: Holiness means something’s not like anyone or anything else, because it’s distinctly used for divine purposes. It’s weird. Good-weird, not weird for weirdness’ sake, not twisted, not evil-weird. When we pray for God to make his name holy, we want him to not be like any other higher power, any other mighty thing, any other force in the cosmos, any other god. We want him to stand out. He’s not like anything or anyone else. He’s infinitely better.

Now. Does recognizing the Lord’s Prayer is about actually asking God for stuff, and that it’s not merely about changing our own attitudes, mean our attitudes don’t need to change? Of course not. If we want God to make his name holy, part of that means we need to make his name holy too. Stop treating God as if he’s just anyone else. He’s not.

And no, I absolutely do not mean we should treat him more formally, more solemnly, with more ritual and ceremony and gravitas and all that crap we do to suck up to people in authority. God’s uniqueness is reflected by two things about him: He’s almighty, of course. And, more importantly, more relevantly to us, his character: He’s infinitely good. Infinitely gracious. He infinitely loves us. Has infinite patience with us. He’s infinitely kind. Infinitely faithful. He’s not like anyone else because, unlike everyone else, he’ll never, ever fail us.

So don’t put him on the same level!

Nontheism: When pagans don’t believe in God.

by K.W. Leslie, 22 September 2020
NONTHEIST 'nɑn.θi.ɪst adjective. Believes no such thing as God, gods, a universal spirit, a universal intelligence, nor a supernatural higher power, exists. (A catchall term for atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, and others who are skeptical of God and religion.)
[Nontheism 'nɑn.θi.ɪz.əm noun.]

Y’know, for the first couple centuries of Christianity, we Christians were called atheist.

See, Greco-Roman pagans believed in gods. Lots of gods. Not just their own gods—and the titans, demigods, and daemons in the Greco-Roman pantheon. They also accepted the existence of the gods of other pantheons. They didn’t presume they knew them all. So whenever they encountered an unfamiliar god, they accepted it. Even added it to their pantheon, which is why they had multiple gods of the sun (Apollo, Helios, Hyperion) and war (Ares, Athena, Enyo, Polemos).

Sometimes they figured it was just one of their gods with a different name: The Latins worshiped a Deo Pater/“Father God” (which later got contracted to Jupiter), and the Greeks presumed this was just Zeus with a Latin alias… and over time this became what the Latins believed too. The Greeks did the same with the Egyptians’ Amun-Ra; they figured he was just what Egyptians called Helios. (The Seleucids tried to pull this with our LORD, claimed he was just the Jewish version of Zeus, and tried to put a Zeus statue in the temple. The Maccabees objected rather vigorously to that idea.)

So the Greco-Romans believed there were gods everywhere. Whereas Christians and Jews have only the One, and believe the beings pagans consider “gods” aren’t gods at all. Either they’re devils pretending to be divine, or they’re the made-up gods of scam-artist priests. You know, like atheists nowadays claim about our God. (But without devils in their explanations, ’cause they don’t believe in any spirits, including evil ones.) To the ancient pagans, rejecting all their gods felt kinda like Christians didn’t believe in any god.

So if you imagine Christians and nontheists are opposites: Not really. Because both Christians and nontheists don’t believe in Zeus, Odin, and Amun-Ra. We likewise reject the divinity of Krishna, Olodumare, the Horned God, and any other pagan deities. We think it’s wrong, unhealthy, silly, or dangerous, to follow and worship such beings—same as nontheists! In that, we’re on the same side.

Where we differ is we do worship YHWH/“Jehovah”/“the LORD,” the one true God and father of Christ Jesus. Nontheists simply lump him together with all the other gods, and reject him too.

Our Father who art in heaven.

by K.W. Leslie, 21 September 2020

Matthew 6.9-10.

The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew begins with πάτερ ἡμῶν ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς/páter imón o en toís uranoís, “our Father who’s [located] in the heavens,” Mt 6.9 ’cause we’re addressing—duh—our heavenly Father.

Matthew 6.9 KWL
“So pray like this: Our Father who’s in the heavens! Sanctify your name.”

Some Christians wanna make it particularly clear which god we’re praying to. Partly because some of ’em actually think they might accidentally invoke the wrong god (and y’know, if they’re Mammonists or some other type of idolater, they might). Sometimes because they’re showing off to pagans that they worship the Father of Jesus, or some other form of hypocrisy. But Jesus would have us keep it simple: Just address our heavenly Father. There’s no special formula for addressing him; no secret password we’ve gotta say; even “in Jesus’s name” isn’t a magic spell—and you notice “in Jesus’s name” isn’t in the Lord’s Prayer either. You know who he is; he knows who he is; he knows what our relationship consists of; that’s fine.

As I said in the Lord’s Prayer article, Jesus isn’t the first to teach people God is our Father. Many a Pharisee prayer, and many Jewish prayers nowadays, address God as אָבִינוּ/avínu, “our Father”—like Avínu Malkéinu (“our Father, our king”), recited during fasts and the high holidays. If we have a relationship with him, and we should through Jesus, we should have no hesitation to approach him boldly. He 4.16 He loves us; he wants to be gracious to us; let’s feel free to talk with him about anything and everything.

Short, potent, authentic prayer.

by K.W. Leslie, 20 September 2020

Matthew 6.7-8.

In his Sermon on the Mount, right after Jesus taught his followers to keep their prayers private, he added,

Matthew 6.7-8 KWL
7 “Petitioners shouldn’t be repetitive like the pagans:
They think they’ll be worth hearing because of their wordiness.
8 You shouldn’t compare yourselves with them:
Your Father has known what you have need of, before you asked him.”

The Pharisee view, one we Christians share, is our God is the living God. Whereas other religions’ gods aren’t. They’re blocks of wood, stone, and metal; they’re abstract ideas without any intelligence behind them; they’re devils tricking people into worshiping them. When we speak to our God, he speaks back. When they speak to their gods, they don’t. They can’t.

Yet instead of realizing, “Y’know, since our god never, ever responds to us, I wonder whether she’s real to begin with?” pagans just shove that idea right out of their minds as if it’s doubt or blasphemy, double down on their beliefs, and come up with a bunch of justifications for why their gods can’t talk. Humans are too insignificant or sinful; the gods are too mighty or busy or distant; the universe doesn’t express its will like that; crap like that.

Regardless of the reasons, pagans get no feedback from their gods, so when they pray, they feel the need to repeat themselves. A lot. Their gods might not’ve heard them, so they just need to make sure.

Does our God require such behavior? Absolutely not. As Jesus said, he knew our requests before we ever made ’em.

Lots of Christians interpret this as a statement of God’s omniscience, his all-knowingness. Which is indeed one of God’s powers; he knows all. But it isn’t what Jesus means by this lesson. He’s making a statement of God’s attentiveness. God’s not a distant, dispassionate, disinterested deity. He’s our Father. He cares enough about us to keep tabs on our needs. He cares about his kids.

Hal Lindsey and Al Hartley.

by K.W. Leslie, 19 September 2020

Since I’m writing about the comic book version of Hal Lindsey’s There’s a New World Coming, I should introduce you to the authors. Starting with Hal Lindsey.


Hal Lindsey. IMDB

Harold Lee Lindsey, born 23 November 1929, is a former Coast Guard tugboat captain turned evangelist. He and his second wife Jan began working with Cru (then called Campus Crusade for Christ) in the 1960s, and he got his master’s degree from Dallas Theological Seminary. I’m not sure whether Lindsey got his theological outlook from DTS or brought it with him; not that it matters.

The school was founded in 1924 by Lewis Sperry Chafer, a Darbyist who authored an eight-volume Systematic Theology which taught God from a thoroughly dispensationalist point of view: God, he taught, used multiple systems of salvation throughout human history, and the system he uses in the Christian Era is grace. But the systems of previous era were largely based on karma—on obeying your conscience, obeying your patriarch, obeying the Law, and otherwise doing it yourself. In other words Pelagianism—but the only reason Darbyists aren’t Pelagian is because they don’t claim people are currently saved through their good works. (Although many of them seriously believe the Jews still are.)

If you don’t know DTS, you definitely know its alumni. They’ve run megachurches, seminaries, Christianity Today, and run for office. Like radio preachers Chuck Swindoll and J. Vernon McGee, Ryrie Study Bible author Charles C. Ryrie, The Living Bible author Kenneth N. Taylor, The Prayer of Jabez author Bruce Wilkinson, How to Be Rich author Andy Stanley, presidential apologist Robert Jeffress, and the authors of the Expositors Bible Commentary. The school has made a huge impact on Evangelical Christianity, and the rest of Christendom—and the rest of the world, ’cause Darbyist views on Israel largely drive American foreign policy regarding Israel.

So that’s the belief system Lindsey brought with him when he published The Late Great Planet Earth in 1970, based on his notes and edited together by Carole C. Carlson. It was a monster best-seller. Sold millions of copies when, even today, only a few thousand copies puts you on the Amazon and New York Times lists. This book introduced Americans to Darbyism, and its unique interpretation of the End Times in which Jesus secretly raptures his followers before his second coming. Before any great tribulation happens.