Ah, premileenial dispensationalism, the eschatological position that boils down to “God sweeping away his chosen few in preparation for ending the world or some garbage.” It’s a divisive theory held by many American Evangelicals and not many other Christians, including many of those affiliated with the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Episcopalian, Methodist, and Lutheran churches. Despite all of these well-established organizations having different interpretations of the Good Book and generally calling bullshit on this theory, it persists to this day, unsurprisingly perpetuated by the same population that thinks COVID is a hoax and left-leaning politicians drink children’s blood.

But it makes for some damn good reading. Sharknado good.

Enter the Left Behind series, literature’s answer to delicious cringe. Penned by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHeye, it was beloved (or hated) enough to score not one, but two film adaptations, one of which starred Evangelical darling Kirk Cameron. Not content to just pollute the minds of adults, the series was expanded to kids with the aptly titled series Left Behind: The Kids.

My good friend Luke of the ex-Pentecostal blog Unlearning Together (IG: @unlearning_together) mentioned re-reading the kids’ books as a project for their blog, and the idea seemed genius. Unpacking some deep-rooted religious trauma while shooting the shit about some cringy book from years ago? It sounded like a great time to me. We found some used copies on Amazon and so the games began. In several upcoming posts, we will read and discuss this literary tire fire. Below is our pre-reading discussion. Digressions include terrible fanfiction.

Luke: Hell yeah, I’m hype for this.

Jess: Right? Like I remember there being no likable characters. Or even memorable ones.

Luke: Yeah, they were barely even tropes. It was “the rich one,” the youngest one,” “the black one,” “girl.” Featuring “adult.”

Jess: I vaguely recall looking through the TVTropes page for the original books and thinking that all the characters had really awkwardly porny names.

Luke: Bahaha, yup.

Jess: RAYFORD STEELE. BUCK WILLIAMS.

Luke: RAYFORD STEELE IS 100 PERCENT AN 80s PORNSTAR NAME. Also, Nicolae Carpathia is absolutely a character in bad vampire porn.

Jess: The rule 34 almost writes itself.

Luke: Honestly.

Jess: Has Rayford Steele/Buck Williams slash been written?

Luke: If it hasn’t…it’s about to be.

Jess: THAT ship hasn’t been written. Buck/Nicolae, however…

Luke: Oooooh, spoicy. I want to look it up but I’m afraid.

Jess: There’s also an *NSYNC crossover fic. I think I found our next project.

Luke: YESS.

Jess: Oh god, the first chapter has a very explicit JC Chasez/Lance Bass love scene. I’ve seen too much.

Luke: NOOOOOOOO. Someone sat down to make this a reality.

Jess: IMAGINE BEING ONE OF THE MEMBERS OF *NSYNC AND FINDING THIS.

Luke: I wonder if Lance knows. He’s pretty active on TikTok. Hmmm…

Jess: I mean, I’d read slash of myself. Just because morbid curiosity.

Luke: Fair. Probably same. The weirder the pairing, the better to be honest.

Jess: You should see some of the Queen fanfics I’ve seen. Again, morbid curiosity. I declare myself cleared of all charges.

Luke: Bahaha. But have you been on the Property Brothers side of fanfiction?

Jess: I…don’t think I want to know.

Luke: It’s amazing.

Jess: I shall take your word for that. Anyways, any final words before we dive into this trash fire of a book? It’s not too late to turn back.

Luke: No turning back. “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

To be continued…