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On a strange level, says Barnhart, the show is like "recent media saturation coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II, which was both too much and not enough. These superficial treatments of Christianity seem to flow from a television mindset that recognizes the importance of religion in the lives of ordinary Americans, but is unable to explore the idea much further than that."

Beyond the Schiavovertones (Lighting Girl ends up in a persistent vegetative state in a Florida hospital) and the self-plagiarism of writer/creator David Seltzer (who wrote The Omen three decades ago), the show apparently falls prey to the No. 1 problem of Hollywood's apocalyptic dramas: All the good Christians want to stop Jesus from returning.

In American eschatology, only bad Christians—by which people like The New York Times columnist Frank Rich mean "Mr. Bush's base," and the red-staters for whom Revelations was presumably created—are rooting for the Apocalypse.

In Sunday's Times, Rich explains that Revelations is part of the Christian right's culture of death: From The Passion to Terri Schiavo to Pope John Paul II, we conservative Christians are apparently obsessed with death over life. "No one does the culture of death with more of a vengeance — literally so — than the doomsday right," Rich wrote. "The Left Behind novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins all but pant for the bloody demise of nonbelievers at Armageddon. And now, as Eric J. Greenberg has reported in The Forward, there's even a children's auxiliary: a 40-title series, Left Behind: The Kids, that warns Jewish children of the hell that awaits them if they don't convert before it's too late. Eleven million copies have been sold on top of the original series' 60 million."

Rich, of course, misses the point (in the same way that Scottish soccer fans recently missed the point). Granted, some dispensationalists over the years have missed the point, too. But most have kept focus: The Second Coming of Jesus is something that all Christians agree on and eagerly await. "Come, Lord Jesus" is not a curse, but a prayer of hope.

When Christ returns, as the Nicene Creed says, he will come "in glory to judge the living and the dead." And yes, he will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. We Christians eagerly await that day. But what we look forward to isn't seeing unbelievers destroyed while we scoff, "See ya, suckas!" The chaff that we most eagerly await the destruction of is the destruction of our own chaff, the immolation of that part of us that keeps us from seeing and following God as he truly is.

Thunderstruck's Steve Beard reports that the show's creators deliberately tried to be specific in the show's religious perspective rather than shoot for the bland, vaguely monotheistic spirituality of Touched by Joan's Highway to Heaven:

"We felt what needed to be done is a television show that expressed itself as Christian," [executive producer Gavin] Polone told The New York Times. "We're very clear about that here. … The words 'Jesus Christ' or 'Christ' are used three times a minute." Of course he exaggerates to make the point that the networks adhere to a draconian gag rule regarding the most-well-known figure in human history.

"I think it's going to be provocative because we actually say the name Jesus Christ, and we talk about the Bible, and we talk about specific Scriptures and what they mean," writer David Seltzer further elaborates in a teleconference with reporters. "I think an audience also will become aware of the fact that the world really is on the cusp of ending, and will look at their own faith and their own doubt and their own ability, perhaps, to affect the outcome of the very dangerous times that we live in."

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April (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49