Time’s Puff Piece: The Devil is in the Details
By Gary DeMar
President – American Vision
http://www.americanvision.org/
Gary DeMar Study Archive | Norman Geisler and “This Generation” | Norman Geisler, “You,” & “Zechariah the Son of Berechiah” | Biblical Minimalism and the “History of Preterism” | Thomas Ice and the Time Texts | Will the Real Anti-Prophets Please Stand Up? | Time’s Puff Piece: The Devil is in the Details | Dispensationalism : Being Left Behind | Zechariah 14 and the Coming of Christ | Defending the Indefensible | No Fear of the Text | The Passing Away of Heaven and Earth | Who or what is the Antichrist | Rapture Fever: Why Dispensationalism is Paralyzed | Identifying Antichrist | On Thin Ice | Using the Bible to Interpret the Bible | DeMar Articles
Cover Story: Apocalypse Now “For evangelical Christians with an interest in prophecy, the headlines always come with asterisks pointing to scriptural footnotes. That is how Todd Strandberg reads his paper. By day, he is fixing planes at Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue, Neb. But in his off-hours, he’s the webmaster at raptureready.com and the inventor of the Rapture Index, which he calls a “Dow Jones Industrial Average of End Time activity.”
A few days after having sinus surgery, Amanda Bower of Time magazine called American Vision to set up an interview with me. She was working on a four-part article on the debut of Tim LaHaye’s tenth volume in the Left Behind series, The Remnant: On the Brink of Armageddon. I spent about an hour on the phone giving her an alternative perspective. The interview went very well.
When I first picked up a copy of the July 1 issue of Time, I expected to find at least some mention of the interview. Nothing. Instead, there were more than ten pages of what looked like advertising copy for the series. Since when is Time magazine not being critical of a Christian movement that is generating a billion dollars in sales?
Just this year, LaHaye signed a $45 million, four-book deal with Bantam-Dell, whose address, ironically, is 666 5th Avenue, New York, NY. Secular publishers are bottom-line oriented. Bantam wants a piece of the $1.77 billion book publishing industry, even if its from Christians. They’ll hold their nose as they make their bank deposits. Why make Christians angry since they’ll be the ones who will help Bantam make back that $45 million. To further insure that the investment pays the necessary dividends, LaHaye had to be introduced to the secular market as a likable guy even though he believes in a Christian America and opposes abortion and homosexuality. One article even showed Tim and Beverly hugging. The feminist and homosexual writers and editors at Time must have puked as they put the make-nice story together.
My negative interview would have kicked sand in their face. Publishing deals had been made. LaHaye had to look good no matter what else he might believe. AOL Time Warner, owner of Time magazine, has a strategic alliance with Barnes & Noble. B&N operates more than 1000 super stores and mall-based stores, and operates barnesandnoble.com. Go into any B&N and you will find stacks of Left Behind books. B&N has made a fortune with Left Behind. AOL Time Warner has set up a Christian book division in Nashville, Tennessee, home of Christian publishing powerhouses Thomas Nelson and Broadman & Holman. As one publishing insider writes, “Ruffling feathers at AOL, B&N, Amazon.com, or Time Warner just doesn’t have any appeal.”
One last connection. Bantam is the U.S. subsidiary of Bertelsmann, the third largest media company in the world, with majority ownership of barnesandnoble.com, AOL online services in Europe, France, and German. What’s good for Tim LaHaye is good for AOL, which is good for AOL TimeWarner, which is good for Time magazine and vice versa
For years I wondered why the liberal Oxford University Press published the Scofield Reference Bible. I have come to believe that the best way to get Christians out of politics is to neutralize them. Dispensationalism is the best neutralizer going. Millions of Christians, most of whom are politically conservative, will see no reason to get involved politically because the rapture is just around the corner. Oxford knew this at the turn of the twentieth century, and AOL Time Warner knows it today.
What do YOU think ?
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Date: 09 Mar 2006
Time: 04:33:18Comments:
Powerful!! Keep talking Gary. Just maybe real believers in this country will wake up to the truth!
Mike
Date: 09 Jun 2006
Time: 17:04:23Comments0:
I’m sure Time would’ve included something from your interview if you’d had something important to say, but after reading how you’ve responded, it sounds like you’re just full of sour grapes.
Date: 02 Jul 2006
Time: 08:48:32Comments0:
Yes, I also see a big problem with the Christains of today just setting around in our nice air conditioned homes with a remote control in one hand and a glass of tea in the other saying please hurry up and rapture me cause it’s suppose to get worse before the coming of Christ. Where are the powerfull christain leaders at, when one person can file a lawsuit and all of a sudden God is being removed from ever place imaginable. Surely we could get back our country if we christains really wanted to but it’s suppose to get bad in order for Jesus to come back. We need to take our Scofield glasses off so we can see clearly about the rapture, tribulation, anti-christ and the so called 1000 year kingdom. Shame on us for not standing up for ” IN GOD WE TRUST ”
Wally