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Emily Johnston, a college sophomore, wasn't seeking salvation. She just wanted to read a novel that a classmate had lent to her.

So on a cool night in October 1998, the aspiring artist from Charlotte, North Carolina, settled into her dorm room at Sweetbriar College, planning to skim the prologue to Left Behind. Then she would study for two exams scheduled for the next day.

By sunrise, she hadn't completed a lick of her studies, but she had finished the 468-page end-times novel. At breakfast, she told her astonished friend that she was going out that day to buy the second book.

And to the eternal delight of her friend, Emily announced she now knew Jesus. "One night we had been talking about her beliefs," Emily says in reflection. "I'd never gone to church in my life. I was of the opinion that if God was going to accept me, he would accept me whether or not I went to church. My parents were pretty much open-minded. They wanted us to decide what we were going to do. They were of the opinion that if we were Buddhists or Jewish … they would support us."

After she read Left Behind, she says, she understood for the first time that Jesus Christ is the only way to God and to eternal life in heaven.

The letter she wrote to authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins about the impact of their work is typical of the thousands they have received. Their Left Behind fiction series, about life on earth after the rapture, when Christ takes believers to heaven, has attracted millions of fans.

Last-days yarns have been spun before, from speculative/prophetic books like Hal Lindsey's best-selling The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) to Larry Norman's Jesus-rock ballad "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" on the album Only Visiting This Planet (1972). End-times novels have been written recently by people like Christian financial adviser Larry Burkett, Christian psychiatrist Paul Meier, and novelist Randy Alcorn. But never have the mysteries of Revelation been examined at greater length or in more white-knuckle detail than in the hit series that began with the book Left Behind, published in 1995 by Tyndale House.

What started as a trilogy, expanded into seven books, and now is projected to be a 12-volume series. Assassins, No. 6 in the series, hit bookstores in August; the last book won't be published until late 2002. Jerry Jenkins, who does the writing, has stepped up his pace to two books a year. (In the tradition of Star Wars, the authors now are considering writing a prequel. Also, Namesake Entertainment plans to release a movie based on Left Behind in September 2000.)

Since the publication of Left Behind, millions of readers have been captivated by the adventures of pilot Rayford Steele, his daughter Chloe, reporter Buck Williams, and Rayford's new wife Amanda. (Rayford's first wife—a believer—was taken up in the rapture.) The 7.4 million adult books LaHaye and Jenkins have sold as of August put them in league with authors like John Grisham and Stephen King, without a single plug from Oprah Winfrey.

The sales and impact of the books have been so notable that even People magazine and a front-page story in The New York Times gave them positive ink last year.

Not only have they stayed on Christian bestseller charts, they have climbed to the top of the lists kept by—among others—The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and Amazon.com. The No. 2 ranking on the Times's list is all the more significant because the Times doesn't monitor sales in Christian bookstores.

For LaHaye and Jenkins, the seven-plus years of writing about the end times have been anything but a tribulation. A lot of work, certainly, but labor rewarded with stories of lives changed.

"We have received tens of thousands of letters from people who say they've been challenged to live more aggressively evangelistic lives," Jenkins says. "We've heard two thousand stories from people who have received Christ. We heard about an old man who read the books through a magnifying glass and was saved. He said it was not from what he read through the glass but what he read through his heart.

"Some have said the books are the longest, most expensive gospel tracts they've ever seen."

No argument on impact
Though successful at the bookstores, the series has drawn its share of criticism. In World magazine, Fred Baue called Apollyon "TV for readers" and wrote that "the characters are so comic-book-like and the novel itself so poorly written … that serious theological concerns are trivialized."

But the series has received critical praise as well. Matthew Scully, a contributing editor for National Review, wrote a glowing essay that reviewed the first four books of the series. "It's a highly imaginative piece of work," he wrote in December 1998, "with much Christian wisdom and a message of readiness relevant enough to all regardless of which comes first—one's own last days or the world's."

Roy Fish, Distinguished Professor of Evangelism at Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, is an unabashed fan of the books, although he doesn't buy the authors' scenarios. "I've read them all," he says. "I have a little bit of a problem with the eschatology [the study of last things] that's set forth. I'm not sure everything they say is going to happen will happen. It's extra-biblical, not anti-biblical. But I know there are multitudes of people who go along with this." Fish notes that plenty of well-educated Bible scholars have contended for this pre-tribulation interpretation of Revelation.

"I don't have a scheme of my own," he says. "I contend for the return of Jesus. I contend for a millennium and that Jesus will reign on earth. He's coming, he's going to set up a kingdom. That's about as dogmatic as I can get. The minute details … no man knows the details. I don't think God intended for us to be able to work it out on charts."

	If you've been left behind on this reading craze and want to catch up, here are the books in order: Left Behind (1995); Tribulation Force (1996); Nicolae (1997); Soul Harvest(1998); Apollyon (1999); Assassins (1999).

His concern about speculation aside, he says the books are a welcome evangelistic tool. "It's like Hal Lindsey. Probably thousands of people were saved through reading his book," Fish says. "I'm for anything that prompts people to look to God and to read the Bible. … The books make me more aware of the coming of the Lord and encourage me to live in that anticipation.

"I think there will be many people saved. The books really make people aware of the dangers of being outside of grace when the Lord appears."

That is exactly what the authors say they want. They never mention the year 2000 or looming fears of the Y2K computer bug. In an interview last year, LaHaye told Focus on the Family's Citizen magazine that he and Jenkins weren't predicting a time frame. His vision was to write a novel that "would wake people up to the fact that Jesus is coming again, and they need to be prepared."

"What we are writing here is fiction," LaHaye said. "We haven't received any special revelation that makes our novels better than others."

Tim meets Jerry
While on an airplane flight in the 1980s, LaHaye, who has written dozens of books, got the idea for a novel about the rapture. The idea percolated for years, in need of a novelist, until his agent, Rick Christian, put him in touch with Jenkins, whom Christian also represented. Jenkins, whose more than 100 books include biographies of Hank Aaron, Meadowlark Lemon, and Nolan Ryan, was intrigued with the idea but delayed starting on it for a year while he helped Billy Graham write Just As I Am, the evangelist's autobiography.

"I liked the idea of Left Behind, and in spite of all the books I'd written, I was intimidated. Trying to digest the most cosmic event that will happen is pretty daunting," Jenkins says.

	"I know more than ever what it means to live in the light of Christ's imminent return," author Jerry Jenkins says.

He became a student of LaHaye and the Book of Revelation. Now that he has spent five years living in the last days, with at least two more years ahead of him, Jenkins's own faith has been strengthened. "I know more than ever what it means to live in the light of Christ's imminent return," he says. "Even if he tarries a thousand years, it's supposed to affect how we live."

More than a page-turner
In Modesto, California, Melody Ireland says the books are, indeed, affecting the way people live. She has given 50 sets or partial sets of the books to clients and family. She works in the insurance business, and many of the people she sees are sick or facing other crises.

"I see a lot of people who are incredibly ill or dying and not saved," she says. "I saw a few slip through my fingers. I've always wanted [an evangelistic] tool that was non-threatening. With these books, I have been inspired. People won't read the Bible, but they will read novels. If the Lord is trying to talk to them, he can use this book."

Connie Storie, who read the first five books of the series in three weeks, also has used the books for witnessing. A friend to whom she had given the books called in the middle of reading Nicolae.

"She was crying, said she was going to see her pastor. He led her to the Lord. I have seen the biggest turnaround in her," says Connie, who lives in New Bern, North Carolina. "It floored me. It's not every day God uses a book to turn a life around."

Another reader tells how her 12-year-old daughter used the series in her public school classroom. Mother and daughter had read the children's version of the series.

"I mentioned to Amy, wouldn't it be great if she did a report on the series. Amy was excited. We found a posterboard that was light blue and had clouds on it. She then drew an outline of Jesus [enhanced with glitter glue] appearing in the clouds. Around him she drew people with their arms lifted to him and meeting him in the air. She also added graves with people coming out, a plane crashing into a mountain, another plane diving into the sea, a lady crying over her empty womb, a burning house with someone crying for help in the window … at the top, she had the Bible verse about the Lord's coming, and Bible verses on how to be saved.

"She gave her report and showed her project, then asked for questions. The kids were full of questions about the Bible! She witnessed to a class of 22 kids and her teacher on how to be saved and what was going to happen if they never accepted the Lord into their life. Now everyone in the class wants to read the series."

What if it were today?
Jerry Jenkins says the work has caused him to examine everything he does in the light of the return of Christ. "It's my way of living in the end times," he says. "I tend to think a lot more 'If this were the last day … is what I am doing going to count?' "

As the scope of the series enlarged, Jenkins's pace has increased. LaHaye gives him an outline of the Scripture for each book, and he hangs the story on the outline. But not only is he writing two Left Behind books a year, he also is writing other books of his own. Last year, Viking released his Christmas novel, 'Twas the Night Before, and his new novel, Though None Go With Me, will be released in January by Zondervan.

Jenkins, who recently moved from Illinois to Colorado, is modest about his output of words and their effect. "I don't sing or dance or preach," he says. "It's all I do."

A Christian Reader original article.

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