Dec. 26, 1999

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The end of the world, as we know it, will be a lot like an episode of ‘‘The X-Files.’’

People disappear mysteriously into thin air. Sinister conspiracies lurk in the shadows. Supernatural powers are exploited. A well-scrubbed band of good guys fights for our souls.

Introducing the Book of Revelation, as told to Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.

To millions of readers, no introduction is necessary. Since 1995, LaHaye and Jenkins have been pumping out biblical-inspired fiction at a clip that would make Stephen King feel like a slacker.

The New Testament prophecies foretelling the end of the world have become a lucrative franchise for the authors, who are on the sixth installment in their ‘‘Left Behind’’ series of books.

While Christian artists have crossed into mainstream popular culture before — singer Amy Grant comes quickly to mind — there has never been anything quite like ‘‘Left Behind.’’

With 10.6 million copies already sold, the apocalyptic series is transforming the dusty image of Christian publishing, which has traditionally been identified more with Billy Graham and Norman Vincent Peale than Michael Crichton and John Grisham.

And they are not just moving into the aisles of traditionally Christian bookstores.

Go to any Books-a-Million or Barnes & Noble Booksellers, and you’ll find a lot of valuable realestate devoted to the ‘‘Left Behind’’ books — which have eye-grabbing covers like any other self-respecting best seller. The star treatment, in other words, as any book on The New York Times best-seller list demands.

‘‘It’s selling extremely well,’’ said William Schuetze, co-owner of Hawley-Cooke Booksellers, which is moving the books in the series — the most recent, ‘‘Assassins,’’ came out last summer — as fast as they come into the company’s three Louisville-area stores. ‘‘As soon as one comes out, there is tremendous demand for the next one.’’

‘‘Left Behind’’ and its five sequels (12 books are planned, two per year through 2002) tell the story of Rayford Steele, an airline pilot who suddenly finds himself in the midst of God’s final judgment.

Ambivalent at first, Steele becomes born again and joins a small group of fellow believers in battle against the Antichrist. The script sticks close to Revelation (LaHaye is a former pastor) and the books are fast-paced, action-packed and rife with the usual clichés found in most pulp thrillers.

Consider this passage from Revelation . . .

Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

. . . and this passage from ‘‘Left Behind’’ . . .

The senior flight attendant pulled him into the galleyway, but there was no passion in her touch. Her fingers felt like talons on his forearm, and her body shuddered in the darkness.

‘‘Hattie.’’

She pressed him back against the cooking compartments, her face close to his. Had she not been clearly terrified, he might have enjoyed this and returned her embrace. Her knees buckled as she tried to speak, and her voice came in a whiny squeal.

‘‘People are missing,’’ she managed in a whisper, burying her head in his chest.

. . . and you can see why Christians and non-Christians might be flocking to ‘‘Left Behind.’’

IT’S THE SAME basic story as found in the Bible, only with a lot more explosions. It’s pure pot-boiler, but with one key difference — an evangelical streak runs through ‘‘Left Behind,’’ its Christian mission as clear as holy water.

‘‘Our mission is to get good material based on the Bible into the hands of readers,’’ said Mavis Sanders, the public-relations director at Tyndale House Publishers of suburban Chicago, publisher of the series. ‘‘Our bread-and-butter is the Bible. But there are a lot of ways to spread the message.’’

The books are selling so well that Tyndale House is suddenly a player in the publishing world. A ‘‘Left Behind’’ movie is in development, and a series of kids’ books based on the series has sold a healthy 1.6 million copies on its own.

It’s been a wake-up call to the rest of the industry.

Religion and spirituality are hot topics these days, and the entertainment industry is rushing to tap into it, with offerings that range from CBS’ wholesome ‘‘Touched by an Angel’’ to filmmaker Kevin Smith’s satirical ‘‘Dogma.’’

As with most things, it’s money, not God, driving this, said Robert Thompson, a professor of film and television at Syracuse University. The industry is only trying to keep up with our insatiable hunger for entertainment.

‘‘Culture is being devoured faster than it can be produced,’’ said Thompson, an expert on pop culture. ‘‘The industry is trying to fill that void, and religion is one of the last things they hadn’t exploited.’’

Secular publishers like Penguin are heavily promoting such Christian authors as Jan Karon, whose Mitford books have an unlikely hero, a dedicated minister in a small town. Harlequin, the dime-store romance publisher, has begun a series of Christian romance novels. Zondervan, a religious wing of HarperCollins, is getting into the game with a series of thrillers with Christian themes.

All the more compelling given that fiction isn’t, in general, as hot as non-fiction these days, Schuetze said.

‘‘Fiction is a tough sell,’’ he said. ‘‘Right now, you’re seeing a lot of interest in listing books, like ESPN’s best of the century, or books like ‘Century,’ which are retrospectives keyed to the millennium.’’

The millennium, of course, has everything to do with the success of ‘‘Left Behind,’’ Thompson said. Some of the most deeply religious believe the end of the millennium will signal the beginning of the prophecies laid out in Revelations. That minority aside, the society at large is succumbing to a certain amount of millennium hype.

‘‘In this millennium-obsessed age, the Apocalypse is presented as the ultimate horror,’’ Thompson said. ‘‘The message of Revelations is very frightening. It basically says that if you don’t heed this warning, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble.’’

LaHaye and Jenkins, and before them trail-blazing Christian novelists like Frank Peretti, have also seized on the fact that we are running out of ways to scare ourselves, Thompson said. Movies are getting more and more graphic — compare the powerful minimalism of the original ‘‘Psycho’’ with the matter-of-fact gore of ‘‘Scream’’ — and you realize that audiences are getting more and more jaded.

‘‘THE IMAGERY of horror has been trumped so many times that there is virtually nothing left to scare us,’’ Thompson said. ‘‘To scare anyone, you have to pull out all the stops. And Revelations is about as far out there as you can get.’’

But while the Bible has inspired Hollywood epics, it is unlikely that Cecil B. DeMille’s gaudy version of ‘‘The Ten Commandments’’ inspired quite the same fervor as ‘‘Left Behind.’’ At Tyndale House, they proudly tout the numerous anecdotes about the number of people who have come into the fold thanks to LaHaye and Jenkins.

People like Jeane Frady, a 53-yearold New Albany, Ind., reader who says ‘‘Left Behind’’ sparked a spiritual awakening.

Other authors, from Dante to C. S. Lewis to J. R. R. Tolkien, have used Christianity in their writings, but ‘‘Left Behind’’ is that rare merger of overt, unabashed Christianity and ripping action. There is a decidedly unsubtle warning — shape up and fly right — within the quickly turned pages.

‘‘A girlfriend of mine loaned me the books last November, and sometime around Thanksgiving I realized ‘something’ had happened to me,’’ said Frady, who was raised a Catholic but admits a certain amount of ‘‘backsliding.’’ ‘‘I realized that the Lord loves us and is trying to get our attention.’’

Frady began attending Northside Christian Church in New Albany, where she met other ‘‘Left Behind’’ junkies. When ‘‘Assassins’’ came out, she reread the entire series. She is eagerly anticipating the movie and thinks Harrison Ford would be perfect in the lead.

SUCH DEVOTION might be considered a boon for the entire publishing industry. Think again.

‘‘I like Stephen King, I like Ken Follett and Robert Ludlum, and Anne Rice,’’ she said. ‘‘But I’m just not drawn to them anymore.’’

Her newfound passions for Christianity and hardcover fiction climaxed when she met Jenkins, who until ‘‘Left Behind’’ was best known as co-author of the ‘‘Gil Thorp’’ comic strip, at an appearance at Southeast Christian Church in eastern Jefferson County.

‘‘For me to be able to tell my story to Jerry Jenkins . . . it was just a wonderful experience,’’ Frady said, her voice wavering a bit. ‘‘Just wonderful.’’

Such encounters are being repeated all over the country, said Tyndale House’s Sanders. In Scottsdale, Ariz., more than a thousand people showed up for a midnight book-signing when ‘‘Assassins’’ was released.

Sanders sees no conflict between profits and prophets.

‘‘It’s a cliché to say this,’’ she said, ‘‘but Jesus himself was a storyteller.’’

Of course, there is nothing new about the warnings in Revelation. Anyone with a Bible — the best-selling book of all time — can read the fire-and-brimstone prophecies contained within.

But the Bible can be a tough read, with its meandering narrative, difficult syntax and words like ‘‘hast’’ and ‘‘ye.’’ That’s not a problem in ‘‘Left Behind.’’

‘‘It makes Revelations easier to understand,’’ Frady said.

Which is not something all theologians want to hear.

The Rev. Jim Chatham, himself a published author, worries that books like ‘‘Left Behind’’ oversimplify an incredibly complicated story.

‘‘A lot of people are using religion, plain and simple, to make money,’’ said Chatham, pastor at Highland Presbyterian Church in Louisville and the author of ‘‘Sundays Down South’’ (University Press of Mississippi), a memoir of his days as a Southern cleric. ‘‘But my real concern is not whether people are using Christianity to make money, but whether they are convoluting Christianity.’’

LaHaye and Jenkins are unapologetic about ‘‘Left Behind’s’’ core message, which is that the only way to Heaven is through acceptance of Jesus Christ as your personal savior. Ask any of the world’s Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, and they’ll take issue with that.

Not to mention the fact that Jewish characters in the books readily embrace Jesus once they are shown the light.

‘‘WE BELIEVE Jesus Christ is the Messiah they’ve been looking for,’’ Jenkins told Entertainment Weekly recently. ‘‘No question it’s going to offend some Jewish people.’’

Their success among Christian readers is unquestioned, but it remains to be seen whether books like ‘‘Left Behind’’ can sustain their success among mainstream readers once the initial curiosity wears off.

While they may have to tone down the moralizing and spiff up the prose, publishers see unlimited potential here, Thompson said.

‘‘People are starting to rediscover what a rip-roaring tale the Old and New Testaments are,’’ Thompson said. ‘‘You can go through the Old Testament and it reads like a Hollywood development deal.’’

Cities are destroyed by fire. Men are swallowed by whales. Sinners are washed away in catastrophic floods. Enemies are smited. Non-believers are turned into pillars of salt.

Good stuff.

Copyright 1999, The Courier-Journal