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Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America | 
| Author: Amy Johnson Frykholm
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: EBooks
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $19.25
You Save: $15.75 (45%)
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 26630
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Edition: 1
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
ASIN: B000S1L6AY
Publication Date: February 4, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In the 'twinkling of an eye' Jesus secretly returns to earth and gathers to him all believers. As they are taken to heaven, the world they leave behind is plunged into chaos. Cars and airplanes crash and people search in vain for loved ones. Plagues, famine, and suffering follow. The antichrist emerges to rule the world and to destroy those who oppose him. Finally, Christ comes again in glory, defeats the antichrist and reigns over the earth. This apocalyptic scenario is anticipated by millions of Americans. These millions have made the Left Behind series--novels that depict the rapture and apocalypse--perennial bestsellers, with over 40 million copies now in print. In Rapture Culture, Amy Johnson Frykholm explores this remarkable phenomenon, seeking to understand why American evangelicals find the idea of the rapture so compelling. What is the secret behind the remarkable popularity of the apocalyptic genre? One answer, she argues, is that the books provide a sense of identification and communal belonging that counters the 'social atomization' that characterizes modern life. This also helps explain why they appeal to female readers, despite the deeply patriarchal worldview they promote. Tracing the evolution of the genre of rapture fiction, Frykholm notes that at one time such narratives expressed a sense of alienation from modern life and protest against the loss of tradition and the marginalization of conservative religious views. Now, however, evangelicalism's renewed popular appeal has rendered such themes obsolete. Left Behind evinces a new embrace of technology and consumer goods as tools for God's work, while retaining a protest against modernity's transformation of traditional family life. Drawing on extensive interviews with readers of the novels, Rapture Culture sheds light on a mindset that is little understood and far more common than many of us suppose.
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| Customer Reviews:
Excellent work in many regards February 18, 2007
Martin R. Stacy (Omaha, Ne USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Ms Frykholm provides her informative analysis with sympathy toward the people/movement/phenomenon she observes. Her work neglected to note that the Scofield Bible which is held by many as the cornerstone of Rapture teaching was (if my information is correct) published originally by Oxford. She failed to compare evangelical Christian culture in America before and after the adoption of dispensational/rapture theology. She also presumes that someone converted by a book would have an interest in documentation. That is rarely the case. A couple of my friends became evangelical Christians after contact with the teaching of Hal Lindsey. And even though both are socially prominent in the community and unashemed of their faith, I don't believe they have ever publicly credited Hal's theology. While one can sympathize with Ms. Frykholm's desire, I have never seen people who get salvation from endtime theology highlight the book that caused them to become Christians. Rather they concentrate more on the Bible, their new social contacts in their church, and perhaps on more "prophecy" study. It would also have been nice contrast the endtimers' social networks with either some non-endtime evangelicals social networks or perhaps a non-evangelical's social network. Nonetheless, this book probably is one of the very few that treat a large part of Americans' beliefs/lifestyle seriously and ought to be read by every thinking evangelical and every non-evangelical that wants a better grasp of rapture culture.
Rapture Culture Review June 22, 2004
William Frank (Leadville, CO United States)
24 out of 29 found this review helpful
Rapture Culture by Amy Johnson Frykholm explores both the reactions of readers to the Left Behind series, and the historical and societal context of the readers and the authors of this series, which has sold so phenomenally. Amy Johnson Frykholm provides excellent background material on the roots and growth of the evangelical movement in American popular religion over the last 150 years. She also explains rapture belief and its historical development both in its predominant form of dispensational premillenialism and less common forms of dispensational belief.Frykholm shows that belief in the secret rapture of true believers in Jesus Christ draws believers together not only into their church groups, but forms them into a distinct culture within the larger society. She explores the way this rapture culture affects the relationships of believers among themselves, with their families and with those outside the culture. She also shows how the rapture culture produces strongly homogeneous political convictions. Frykholm explores the background and convictions of the authors of the Left Behind series, Timothy LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Much of the book is a fascinating and illuminating discussion of the varieties of reactions of readers to the books, drawn from a series of interviews by the author with a diverse cross-section of readers. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in gaining insight into evangelical Christianity and the theology of the secret rapture of Jesus Christ which sets evangelicalism apart from mainline Protestant Christianity as well as from Catholic and Orthodox Christianity.
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