The Jesus Christians. 5. Answering the “Left Behind” Book Series

By publishing novels of their own, challenging the famous end-of-the-world franchise, the group presented its post-tribulationist millennialism. 

By Massimo Introvigne and María Vardé

May 7, 2025

Article 5 of 10. Read article 1, article 2, article 3, and article 4.

Dave McKay’s novel “Survivors,” 2002, written under the pseudonym Zion Ben Jonah.”

The Jesus Christians have always been deeply interested in Biblical prophecy and the Book of Revelation. They can be called a millenarian movement according to the definitions of Catherine Wessinger. She distinguishes between “catastrophic” and “progressive” millennialism. Among Christians, some liberal groups believe that the world, thanks to human efforts, will progressively improve until an era of universal peace comes and Jesus Christ returns. Since the world around us does not offer many reasons for such an optimistic view, their “progressive” millennialism is less popular than the “catastrophic” millennialism of those who believe that the horrors of the “Great Tribulation” described in the Book of Revelation are quickly approaching.

Christian catastrophic millennialists are, however, distinguished into two groups. This distinction is crucial to understanding the eschatology of the Jesus Christians. Both groups believe in the Rapture, i.e., that Jesus will take his loyal followers to heaven at the end of time. However, they disagree on when this will happen. “Pre-tribulationists” believe that the Rapture will take place before the Great Tribulation starts. “Post-tribulationists” believe that the Rapture will happen after the Great Tribulation, preceding the millennial reign of Jesus Christ.

While outsiders may regard this as an abstruse theological question, it is the subject of fierce debates among conservative Protestants. It also has moral and practical implications. Pre-tribulationists believe that those loyal to Jesus will be spared the horrible suffering described in the Book of Revelation, as they will be raptured before the seven trumpets of Revelation 8 sound to announce devastating plagues. Post-tribulationists teach that, rather than preparing for the Rapture, Christians should understand that they will endure a terrible persecution from the Antichrist and Satan during the Great Tribulation, in which many of them will die, although they will be resurrected at the Second Coming of Jesus.

Millions of English-speaking readers know the pre-tribulationist perspective from the best-selling series of novels “Left Behind,” published between 1995 and 2007 by Baptist minister Tim LaHaye (1926–2016) and Moody Bible Institute graduate Jerry B. Jenkins (b. 1949). Including foreign translations, the series of 13 volumes, plus three serving as a prequel, has sold 65 million copies.

The first twelve volumes of the “Left Behind” series.

“Left Behind” opens with a scene with strong overtones aboard an intercontinental flight. While Captain Rayford Steele, a married man, is flirting with flight attendant Hattie Durham, later to become the Antichrist’s mistress before converting, several passengers suddenly disappear, much to the astonishment of famed journalist Cameron “Buck” Williams, also a passenger on the flight. When he lands with his plane, Captain Steele—the hero of the saga— discovers that his Christian wife and son have also disappeared, while his agnostic daughter Chloe has been “left behind,” just like him. Millions of people have disappeared, in fact, including—in an unexpected gesture of benevolence by the Evangelical authors toward their Catholic readers—the Pope in Rome. Slowly but surely, people like Steele and Williams—who will end up marrying Chloe—realize that this is indeed the Rapture the evangelicals had talked about for so long, and they are converted.

The Great Tribulation starts with the signing of a treaty between a powerful gentile leader and Israel, which promises the Jewish nation seven years of peace. This Western leader, although posing as a mild, peace-loving politician, is in fact the Antichrist, a man made powerful with exceptional abilities by Satan. In “Left Behind,” the Antichrist is Nicolae Carpathia, a Romanian politician who suddenly emerges into the world spotlight and takes over the United Nations, converting it into a world government, the Global Community, which has its headquarters in a city called New Babylon, near Baghdad.

“Left Behind”’s Great Tribulation can be divided into two parts. The first phase, lasting three and a half years, is the period during which the Antichrist keeps his covenant with Israel. The second phase follows the betrayal of that covenant. In the first phase, the action takes place mainly in Rome, Israel, and the Antichrist’s headquarters near Baghdad. In Rome, a new apostate Church, or false religion, emerges, presented in “Left Behind” as the Enigma Babylon One World Faith, and placed under the authority of a liberal American cardinal turned new Pope, Peter II. It gathers most of the world’s religions into an organization or federation, although some resist. From his headquarters, the Antichrist is busy ruling the world, while considerable destruction is caused by God’s judgments listed in Revelation 6:2–17 as the first six of the seven seals. They include a world war—an ultimately doomed Anglo-American attempt to resist Carpathia—, famine, pestilence, a great earthquake, and the persecution of believers. These are people who were not believers before the Rapture—otherwise, in the pre-tribulationist logic of “Left Behind,” they would have been raptured. They understood the Rapture only after it happened, and converted.

Three key events happen at this time in Jerusalem. First, the Temple is rebuilt and Levitical sacrifices are resumed in the Old Testament style, while the Mosque of Omar is peacefully relocated to New Babylon. In the novels, Temple sacrifices are performed by Orthodox Jews and are largely irrelevant. These Jews have come to compromise with the new global religion Enigma Babylon One World Faith and are left alone because they do not actually matter. On the other hand, 144,000 Jews, most of them non-Orthodox, convert to Christianity. In “Left Behind,” they meet in the main stadium in Jerusalem to challenge the Antichrist, who also attends the meeting.

Poster for the second “Left Behind” movie series (2014).

Third, two mysterious Witnesses appear in Jerusalem as predicted in Revelation 11. Dressed in sackcloth, they take up residence near the Temple, proclaim the word of God, and perform amazing miracles. Both the followers of the Antichrist and the Orthodox Jews try to kill them with all kinds of modern weapons, but they are struck dead by God’s power. Only when their 1260-day preaching period is over can the Two Witnesses be killed by the Antichrist. However, God raises them from the dead and takes them to heaven. Although many interpreters insist that we do not know the identity of the Two Witnesses and that they are likely to carry out their ministry in the second half of the Tribulation, “Left Behind” identifies them with Moses and Elijah and places them in the first half.

The second half of the Tribulation begins when the Antichrist breaks his agreement with Israel. He enters the Temple in Jerusalem, forbids Levitical sacrifices from this time on, and installs an idol of himself in the sanctuary. He has persuaded many that he died and was resurrected—in effect by Satan, unless it was a mere deception—, and now proclaims himself to be God. There is no need from now on for a worldwide apostate Church, and it is destroyed along with all its leaders. All religions are persecuted. In the meantime, the seventh seal has been broken and seven trumpets have sounded, each bringing a new chastisement, including a worldwide agricultural crisis and an invasion of locusts that torment people for five months without anyone dying from their bite.

The Tribulation concludes with the Battle of Armageddon, and the destruction of all Satanic armies by Jesus and his angels at the Lord’s Second Coming. The Christians raptured before the Tribulation, together with those who died during the Tribulation, all return to earth to share in Jesus’ 1000-year glorious reign, the Millennium. At the end of the Millennium, Satan, imprisoned during the thousand years, is released, and persuades others to join him in a final rebellion. These rebels and Satan himself are thrown into a lake of fire and condemned to final damnation, along with the wicked who died previously and now rise again only to hear their final sentences. The Christian saints reign forever in a New Jerusalem, in a “new heaven and a new earth.”

The popularity of “Left Behind” was a cause of concern for McKay, who has always stood firmly in the post-tribulationist camp. The group later called Jesus Christians preached the imminence of the end times since its beginnings. In 1989, “silent prophets” from the group appeared in various locations in Queensland—starting from Rockhampton, where their performance was deemed illegal and they were kept in jail for one month—and New South Wales. They had grown long beards, were dressed in hessian robes, and were chained to each other at the ankles. They stood silently, holding scrolls with prophetic verses of the Bible announcing future catastrophes.

The spectacular “prophet campaign” of 1989.

McKay answered “Left Behind” in 2002 with a novel of his own, “Survivors.” It was supplemented in 2008 by “Listening” and “Destroyers.” These were not prequels nor sequels but “equels,” covering the same time span but in different geographic locations. McKay did not believe he could compete with “Left Behind” in terms of sales. Apart from lacking access to mass distribution and publicity, the “Survivors” series largely lacks the fast-paced action parts that kept readers following the “Left Behind” series. It also lacks romance, an important component of “Left Behind”’s success.

There is a reason for this, which the Jesus Christians call the “144k vision.” It refers to the End Times army of 144,000 of Revelation 7 and Revelation 14. It is described in the Bible as including “those who did not defile themselves with women, for they remained virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (Revelation 14:4). McKay, who is himself married with children, has presented alternatively a spiritualized and a more literal understanding of Revelation 14:4. He has always maintained that the key is “following the Lamb [Jesus] wherever he goes.” About the “Virgin Army” of 144,000, at one stage he reported that. “In the past, I have offered a liberal, highly spiritualised interpretation of this passage. I have done much the same with other passages in the New Testament about celibacy, suggesting that people could be married without it affecting their ability to work for God, so long as they didn’t have children… But our experience has been that couples have used those teachings to avoid other parts of the Bible that are much clearer about our need to forsake our spouses and children for God. And, having taken that first step, to get married, most of them have later fallen away from literal obedience to just about anything else that Jesus taught. I do not see any point in forbidding marriage (as the Catholics do for their leaders), since the Bible teaches that such a doctrine is wrong. But I think we need to do like the Bible does, and be fairly certain about telling people where marriage is likely to lead them. Chances are that, if any of you singles get married, we are going to lose a couple more radical 100% sold-out red-hot warriors for Christ. It doesn’t have to be that way, but, based on past experience, it probably will be. So I am now starting to believe that the army of 144,000 may in fact be literally virgins…”

Marriage is not forbidden among the Jesus Christians, except for those who are divorced, for whom a second marriage is not allowed. However, they believe that Satan works by leading those married away from a radical Christian lifestyle. Some in the community used the expression “Jezebel spirit” for this attitude, named after a character in the Bible who is the epitome of the woman leading others to fornication and idolatry. However, McKay himself regarded the words “Jezebel spirit” as misogynistic and not even fitting the Biblical story of Jezebel, and used it only occasionally. In the end, he believes that the “144k vision” teaches that to “follow the Lamb wherever he goes, “of the two choices, married or single, the preferred option is to remain single.” This probably does not exclude from the Virgin Army “anyone who has ever had sex” and perhaps even some married Christians, as long as they are prepared to “very seriously and perhaps very literally forsake our wives” (or husbands) for God. Or perhaps those married and not physically virgin will only serve as “auxiliaries” of the Virgin Army.

Unlike other Christian communities, McKay teaches these doctrines while “recognising the legitimacy of masturbation. That’s a vital key that has been left out by everyone I know of who has taught celibacy. Because it has been left out, sexual hypocrisy and perversion has resulted. (Note: Even the anti-masturbation teaching is a product of the Jezebel influence in the churches, where mothers dictated what was right and wrong for their sons, rather than honest fathers).” 

Importantly, the Jesus Christians have never settled on what the Biblical references to “virginity” really mean. McKay’s main concern is not biological virginity but avoiding unnecessary attachments that may hinder the fight for Jesus in the end times.

One of the “silent prophets” of 1989.

Even without romance, “Survivors” did try to ride on the success of “Left Behind,” while proposing different teachings. McKay signed the novel “Zion Ben Jonah,” a reference to a character in “Left Behind” called Tsion Ben-Judah. The names of several characters are also similar. For example, Rayford and Chloe Steele in “Left Behind” become Rayford and Chloe Strait in Survivors. Although the book carried a disclaimer that it was “not a part of the Left Behind series,” it came dangerously close to copyright infringement, and the lawyers of the “Left Behind” authors reacted. In the end, they did not take action, and more than one million copies of “Survivors” were distributed.

The key message of “Survivors” is that, when the end times start with Russia launching a surprise nuclear attack that destroys the United States, there is no rapture. Everybody is “left behind.” Christians, misled by their churches, are just as clueless as everybody else. Some run after false self-made prophets. Meanwhile, an anti-American Tibetan called Xu Dangchao is the Secretary General of the United Nations. He will eventually emerge as the Antichrist and will be supported by the Catholic Pope Pius XIII, who will have some second thoughts but, unlike in “Left Behind,” is one of the villains in “Survivors” and is not saved or raptured.

While everybody is confused, Rayford meets in London a small group of Christians called “Jesans”—in whom readers familiar with McKay would easily recognize the Jesus Christians—who start explaining to him the true meaning of the events. They were all predicted by Biblical prophecy, although the latter was consistently misinterpreted by the mainline churches. Gradually, a group of committed followers of Jesus coming from all faiths, including former Catholics and Jehovah’s Witnesses, is formed. They become the leaders of the Tribes mentioned in Revelation 7 as forming the army of 144,000.

“Survivors” is a much darker novel than “Left Behind.” When the Mark of the Beast is imposed in the shape of a transponder inserted into the right hand, believers refuse to take it and have to survive without using money, much like the Jesus Christians. There are, however, those who have taken the Mark, yet have repented. The only solution for them is to cut off their right hand, and the opponents of the Antichrist regime do not have the leisure of using hospitals or state-of-the-art medical equipment. Surgeries to remove the right hands are nonetheless performed. 

Cutting the right hand of those who have received the Mark. From the Jesus Christians’ comic version of “Survivors.”

One consequence is that those who have their right hand cut off are easily identified by the Antichrist’s minions as converted believers and are arrested and executed, as are millions of believers during the Tribulation. The message is that Christians should start preparing on time to live without buying, selling, or using money because the Antichrist will soon compel them to do so unless they want to lose their eternal salvation.

There is a lot of blood in “Survivors”, with the explicit purpose of waking up the victims of “Churchianity” who have been taught that they will not have to suffer through the Great Tribulation since they will be raptured before it starts. As a post‑tribulationist, McKay places the rapture at the end of the Tribulation. He also suggests that in the New Jerusalem, spouses will find each other, but this will not be very important because the “corporate union” of all saints with God will supersede human loves and marriages.

Ultimately, “Survivors”’ message is that there will not be anything easy or sugary in the end times. Believers should prepare themselves for poverty, war, and torture. And the time for preparing is now.

Source: bitterwinter.org