This video is about the Left Behind: The Kids series by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye. I share my experience with rapture …
50 COMMENTS
A few small corrections:
14:54 – Judd scoffed at his little brother (not sister) 15:58 – Vicki’s dad crying when she challenges him could still be abusive (just in a different way) 35:09 – The “age of accountability” is 8 (not 7)
Being stuck in a plane with a missing pilot would be unfortunate, but overall it's a great voluntary, painless way to thin out the population, which would result in a desirable reduction in competition between the remaining ones. The author tries to play on children's fear of getting lost, of being alone. You know what? Getting rid of this fear is one of the signs of emotional maturity.
Even though I never actually read any of those books, those things were still heavily taught to us as kids and I still have horrid anxiety about the people around me suddenly disappearing and/or dying. It's gotten a bit better but I still will kinda panic if I can't find anyone within a few minutes
Unless evangelicals rewrote the Bible (believable), I don’t see why in the WORLD they think there’d be this much chaos just because 144,000 people disappear, out of 7+Billion people on earth 🤷🏽♀️
I'm so glad to hear from someone else who got messed up over the Rapture and was scared that they weren't really saved. That was my experience for years! I don't think I read the kids series because I think I was reading the adult series by middle school. In church as a child and into my teen years, I prayed the "prayer of salvation" just about any time it was offered, because I was afraid that the last time(s) didn't "take", like maybe I hadn't been as sincere as I thought I'd been, or my heart wasn't pure or, I don't know. I was just afraid that I would turn out to be one of those people who thought they were saved but weren't. I was afraid I'd wake up in the morning and my parents would be gone and I'd have nobody to take care of me because my whole family would be gone. I used to panic about it sometimes, like if I couldn't find a family member quickly or if they didn't respond quickly to a text or phone call. I really thought these 2 authors had basically figured out how the Rapture and the Tribulation would go, that while the story was made up, the framework it was built around was mostly or completely true. I thought the two authors were like modern prophets, that they'd studied the Bible enough that God had decided to give them special insight into Revelation so they could share its message through the Left Behind books. And I was oddly comforted, too, by how, if I was one of the people left behind, I'd have a second chance to make sure my salvation "took" and wasn't somehow invalid (and I was upset that I'd only find out if my salvation "took" after it was too late for the first go-around). I was also comforted by the books because it felt like I had a road map for how to survive if I was left behind. I was just a kid…
I prayed that freaking prayer SO MANY TIMES. I was never sure. I never felt that ✨change✨ they said I would feel. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to keep saying it. To mean it harder this time. To be perfect this go round, just in case.
My daughter has been reading these and seems to really enjoy them but doesn't seem disturbed by them. I think as long as she's reading them as fiction she should be ok. She loves creepy / scary things and the rapture is probably one of the scariest things. I grew up believing it. Very scary. But I'll tell my daughter it's just fiction.
Thank you for speaking out against people who look down on those who live in trailer parks. I grew up in a trailer park and when I heard the term "trailer trash" I was ashamed.
As soon as I saw the thumbnail, I thought "oh NOOOOO". I devoured these books and often finished one on the way home from the Christian bookstore! I started reading these after I had already read some of the adult ones, so I was familiar with the cameos like Hattie and Buck. It's hard to imagine why I was so into these as a preteen and young teen, but they were absolutely fascinating to me like they were for you.
I found my old copies of the kids' books recently and threw them all in the recycle – partly because I didn't want to donate them and have others read them, and also because they were crappy mass market paperbacks and all wrinkly. Good riddance to them!
When LaHaye is talking about the "worst president ever", it's amazing to me that he's talking about a white, Southern Christian who dedicated his life to public service and helping the less fortunate. Way to show your hand, bro. (I'm not arguing that Jimmy Carter was a great president or anything, but he's certainly a better example of Christ-like behaviour than THAT douchecanoe.)
This was genuinely really eye-opening for me. I grew up with the concept of the Rapture, but in a very distant capacity that meant it wasn't part of what I would consider my religious trauma — but it's not hard to imagine myself as a kid absorbing a story like this, with the lurid details and the slow creep of the horrific realization of being left behind by a God I knew to be quite vengeful, and being terrified that it might all come true one day. It makes me think of my childhood neighbor, whose church I went to for about a year and who told me about how she screamed and cried to be saved when she was about 3 or 4. I don't remember whether she mentioned the Rapture or not, and obviously at that age she would have been too young to read these books, but I wonder if stories like this were present in her little kid mind. What an awful thing to put in a child's head.
Hello! Not sure if you wanted a technical answer or not but I grew up baptist and even in my mom's time in the 80s it was thought the clothes would be left. I believe it was thought you're taken up into heaven with your current body and after the millennial kingdom when Christ rules and the final battle happens that you are finally given a new body. Hope that makes sense.
My husband and I were casual Christians ( church on holidays) . We've always been agnostic. My stepmother had my son read the series one summer he visited without me. Funnily enough, he told me those books mixed with how fanatical his grandmother was helped his journey out of Christianity.
My parents and these books (and rapture theology stemming from the Left Behind franchise) traumatized me so deeply that sometimes when I wake up on a quiet morning, or if the power is out, my first groggy thought is that I missed the rapture! Even though I don't believe any of that anymore! It really is funny how fundie parents obsessed with the satanic panic thought these ideas and anxieties were ok, but halloween was too scary and evil!
As a Roman Catholic, this is very interesting to me as a peek inside something we have no concept of. I had classmates in high school who were very into Left Behind and I knew what it was abt, but never “got” it.
I read the first few grownup books in the series. After a couple installments, I couldn’t abide the trite writing and worse editing. I think characters even changed gender, with no reason once or twice.
I learned about Left Behind from an episode of the Omnibus podcast. My family is secular, but I went to a fundie church for about two years as a kid with my friend. I had no idea how much of these images we have of what happens “when Jesus comes back” was just fan-fiction from a couple decades ago.
Fun soundtrack: So Many Dynamos, “Search Party,” & Harvey Danger “Plague of Locusts.”
I used to be terrified at the thought of living forever and ever in heaven without any end. My young mind simply could not comprehend eternity. Atheism has brought so much peace to my life. Love your videos <3
I never read any of these books. I remember when I was a teenager me and my friends got all worried about the rapture and the sign of the beast. I don't remember why but one of my friends was very Bible christian. I really don't even know what religion she was but they spoke in tongues. She may have been the one that brought it up. Anyway I was Catholic and we really didn't talk about the rapture so this was new to me. One of my friends ended up calling a priest and he basically told her it's symbolic and nit to worry. That was actually comforting. We calmed down after that.
That man is scary but he represents what tens millions of people in this country think. My sister had told me that Donald Trump was sent by God.She probably knows who this man is and believes everything he's saying.
I’m with you, my first question was why are their clothes left but not their bodies? Aren’t just their souls going to heaven? But then Catholics are pretty keen on their burials to still have whatever is left of their bodies 🤷🏻♀️ i just think some of these people don’t take a minute to consider continuity or logic of their beliefs
So, what I’m hearing is Christian’s who really believe this shouldn’t be allowed to be pilots, drive or operate other heavy machinery? 😂 They should be more considerate of everyone ‘left behind’ to deal with their carnage
Love the ex fundie library series. Did you ever read the Captivating book for women's roles and the corresponding Wild at Heart book for the men. Love to see that vid. The Left Behind series scared me for sure. Great work.
I was very very obsessed with these when I was younger. When you said you wholeheartedly believed this was the picture of what would happen, I felt that. My mom and I used to talk about it all of the time. I picked them up because I tried to read revelations when I was a kid and was confused and my mom was reading the adult Left Behind series so I figured I could read the kids one (and since there were 40 books and my elementary school had them for AR points, I was BANKING on those AR points). I read them when I was 8-10 years old (it took me a few years to find the last ten books). I reread them at least three times. I cannot BELIEVE how much my perception of God was led by those books, it's insane! ALSO, I'm pretty sure Vicki challenged her dad to tears trying to get him to abuse her again because she would rather be abused than have a religious family. I vividly remember that for some reason.
After reading a few comments I see there are a lot of ex Christians here. Not sure what the devil has to offer, other than an eternity in the lake of fire. God has an eternal paradise. Seems like an easy choice.
The age of accountability originates with the Catholic Church. That is when a child raised in the Catholic Church typically has their first confession and receives their first communion. I am also aware that most Protestant Evangelicals don't count Catholics as "Christian", largely due to a misunderstanding of intercessory prayer.
21 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. 2 Then I, [a]John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
5 Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said [b]to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”
And He said to me, “It[c] is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. 7 He who overcomes [d]shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.
Not a single saved person on this comment section. Not one. Strange. The tribulation comes BEFORE the rapture of the church. This could be the decade. No way to tell for sure. But you have to make a choice.
Oh I do see one person. A Catholic.
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Even though I wasn’t raised Christian (I was raised Catholic) I ended up reading that book during my middle school years just because it was a free book on Kindle and back then I loved reading (still do but my choice of medium is different now). I don’t remember if it scared me ever, maybe because I despised the Church already it didn’t have an effect on me. But I remember I found the books interesting enough that I wanted to read the next book, even though that one wasn’t free. I guess I still find the book interesting but maybe in a different way then before.
Wait the rapture left behind dental fillings of a Christian ? Would it leave behind a steel hip ? So many technical questions about the Rapture universe.
A few small corrections:
14:54 – Judd scoffed at his little brother (not sister)
15:58 – Vicki’s dad crying when she challenges him could still be abusive (just in a different way)
35:09 – The “age of accountability” is 8 (not 7)
The worst President in the history of The United States is Donald Trump… That is a given.
My guess with the old man who was raptured is that she didn't truely believe but pretended to to make her husband happy
Being stuck in a plane with a missing pilot would be unfortunate, but overall it's a great voluntary, painless way to thin out the population, which would result in a desirable reduction in competition between the remaining ones.
The author tries to play on children's fear of getting lost, of being alone. You know what? Getting rid of this fear is one of the signs of emotional maturity.
Even though I never actually read any of those books, those things were still heavily taught to us as kids and I still have horrid anxiety about the people around me suddenly disappearing and/or dying. It's gotten a bit better but I still will kinda panic if I can't find anyone within a few minutes
Cannot wait for part two. This sh💩t is wild
I am so sorry that you went through this.
You are a majestic autumn tree.
Unless evangelicals rewrote the Bible (believable), I don’t see why in the WORLD they think there’d be this much chaos just because 144,000 people disappear, out of 7+Billion people on earth 🤷🏽♀️
I'm so glad to hear from someone else who got messed up over the Rapture and was scared that they weren't really saved. That was my experience for years! I don't think I read the kids series because I think I was reading the adult series by middle school. In church as a child and into my teen years, I prayed the "prayer of salvation" just about any time it was offered, because I was afraid that the last time(s) didn't "take", like maybe I hadn't been as sincere as I thought I'd been, or my heart wasn't pure or, I don't know. I was just afraid that I would turn out to be one of those people who thought they were saved but weren't. I was afraid I'd wake up in the morning and my parents would be gone and I'd have nobody to take care of me because my whole family would be gone. I used to panic about it sometimes, like if I couldn't find a family member quickly or if they didn't respond quickly to a text or phone call. I really thought these 2 authors had basically figured out how the Rapture and the Tribulation would go, that while the story was made up, the framework it was built around was mostly or completely true. I thought the two authors were like modern prophets, that they'd studied the Bible enough that God had decided to give them special insight into Revelation so they could share its message through the Left Behind books. And I was oddly comforted, too, by how, if I was one of the people left behind, I'd have a second chance to make sure my salvation "took" and wasn't somehow invalid (and I was upset that I'd only find out if my salvation "took" after it was too late for the first go-around). I was also comforted by the books because it felt like I had a road map for how to survive if I was left behind. I was just a kid…
Just watched it. I have seen movies of Left behind as teen in 1990s. Not read books.
I prayed that freaking prayer SO MANY TIMES. I was never sure. I never felt that ✨change✨ they said I would feel. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to keep saying it. To mean it harder this time. To be perfect this go round, just in case.
The Rapture, also known as the day the annoying ones leave party time.
So he thinks Jimmy Carter was the worst president in America?
Even though Carter was a Christian too…
My daughter has been reading these and seems to really enjoy them but doesn't seem disturbed by them. I think as long as she's reading them as fiction she should be ok. She loves creepy / scary things and the rapture is probably one of the scariest things. I grew up believing it. Very scary. But I'll tell my daughter it's just fiction.
Thank you for speaking out against people who look down on those who live in trailer parks. I grew up in a trailer park and when I heard the term "trailer trash" I was ashamed.
“Unequally yoked” sounds like something kids on Tik Tok would say
As soon as I saw the thumbnail, I thought "oh NOOOOO". I devoured these books and often finished one on the way home from the Christian bookstore! I started reading these after I had already read some of the adult ones, so I was familiar with the cameos like Hattie and Buck. It's hard to imagine why I was so into these as a preteen and young teen, but they were absolutely fascinating to me like they were for you.
I found my old copies of the kids' books recently and threw them all in the recycle – partly because I didn't want to donate them and have others read them, and also because they were crappy mass market paperbacks and all wrinkly. Good riddance to them!
When LaHaye is talking about the "worst president ever", it's amazing to me that he's talking about a white, Southern Christian who dedicated his life to public service and helping the less fortunate. Way to show your hand, bro. (I'm not arguing that Jimmy Carter was a great president or anything, but he's certainly a better example of Christ-like behaviour than THAT douchecanoe.)
This was genuinely really eye-opening for me. I grew up with the concept of the Rapture, but in a very distant capacity that meant it wasn't part of what I would consider my religious trauma — but it's not hard to imagine myself as a kid absorbing a story like this, with the lurid details and the slow creep of the horrific realization of being left behind by a God I knew to be quite vengeful, and being terrified that it might all come true one day. It makes me think of my childhood neighbor, whose church I went to for about a year and who told me about how she screamed and cried to be saved when she was about 3 or 4. I don't remember whether she mentioned the Rapture or not, and obviously at that age she would have been too young to read these books, but I wonder if stories like this were present in her little kid mind. What an awful thing to put in a child's head.
Love how it's the husbands in the "unequally yoked" marriages being raptured, too, not the wives.
Horror novels for “Christians”.
Hello! Not sure if you wanted a technical answer or not but I grew up baptist and even in my mom's time in the 80s it was thought the clothes would be left. I believe it was thought you're taken up into heaven with your current body and after the millennial kingdom when Christ rules and the final battle happens that you are finally given a new body. Hope that makes sense.
My husband and I were casual Christians ( church on holidays) . We've always been agnostic. My stepmother had my son read the series one summer he visited without me. Funnily enough, he told me those books mixed with how fanatical his grandmother was helped his journey out of Christianity.
I'm so glad I didn't grow up on this shit.
My parents and these books (and rapture theology stemming from the Left Behind franchise) traumatized me so deeply that sometimes when I wake up on a quiet morning, or if the power is out, my first groggy thought is that I missed the rapture! Even though I don't believe any of that anymore! It really is funny how fundie parents obsessed with the satanic panic thought these ideas and anxieties were ok, but halloween was too scary and evil!
Look at that old bag of spiders Tim LaHaye talk about getting rid of public schools and going back to good old slavery days. Disgusting.
As a Roman Catholic, this is very interesting to me as a peek inside something we have no concept of. I had classmates in high school who were very into Left Behind and I knew what it was abt, but never “got” it.
I read the first few grownup books in the series. After a couple installments, I couldn’t abide the trite writing and worse editing. I think characters even changed gender, with no reason once or twice.
The rapture was my BIGGEST FEAR I would NEVER read revelations bc it freaked me out
I spent a lot of time in awe of the kid who had the nerve to steal his dad's credit card, get cash, and just GET ON A PLANE
I learned about Left Behind from an episode of the Omnibus podcast. My family is secular, but I went to a fundie church for about two years as a kid with my friend. I had no idea how much of these images we have of what happens “when Jesus comes back” was just fan-fiction from a couple decades ago.
Fun soundtrack: So Many Dynamos, “Search Party,” & Harvey Danger “Plague of Locusts.”
I used to be terrified at the thought of living forever and ever in heaven without any end. My young mind simply could not comprehend eternity. Atheism has brought so much peace to my life. Love your videos <3
I never read any of these books. I remember when I was a teenager me and my friends got all worried about the rapture and the sign of the beast. I don't remember why but one of my friends was very Bible christian. I really don't even know what religion she was but they spoke in tongues. She may have been the one that brought it up. Anyway I was Catholic and we really didn't talk about the rapture so this was new to me. One of my friends ended up calling a priest and he basically told her it's symbolic and nit to worry. That was actually comforting. We calmed down after that.
That man is scary but he represents what tens millions of people in this country think. My sister had told me that Donald Trump was sent by God.She probably knows who this man is and believes everything he's saying.
Could have had less of those fundie a–holes, we all now what they are.
I’m with you, my first question was why are their clothes left but not their bodies? Aren’t just their souls going to heaven? But then Catholics are pretty keen on their burials to still have whatever is left of their bodies 🤷🏻♀️ i just think some of these people don’t take a minute to consider continuity or logic of their beliefs
So, what I’m hearing is Christian’s who really believe this shouldn’t be allowed to be pilots, drive or operate other heavy machinery? 😂 They should be more considerate of everyone ‘left behind’ to deal with their carnage
Love the ex fundie library series. Did you ever read the Captivating book for women's roles and the corresponding Wild at Heart book for the men. Love to see that vid. The Left Behind series scared me for sure. Great work.
If you guys think this is scary and traumatic, wait until you hear about the Forbidden Doors series…
This was amazing and I’m so excited for the second part and I hope there are more after that 😁
I was very very obsessed with these when I was younger. When you said you wholeheartedly believed this was the picture of what would happen, I felt that. My mom and I used to talk about it all of the time. I picked them up because I tried to read revelations when I was a kid and was confused and my mom was reading the adult Left Behind series so I figured I could read the kids one (and since there were 40 books and my elementary school had them for AR points, I was BANKING on those AR points). I read them when I was 8-10 years old (it took me a few years to find the last ten books). I reread them at least three times. I cannot BELIEVE how much my perception of God was led by those books, it's insane! ALSO, I'm pretty sure Vicki challenged her dad to tears trying to get him to abuse her again because she would rather be abused than have a religious family. I vividly remember that for some reason.
"Ex-Fundie" So you chose the path to darkness. I am sure there is a reason.
After reading a few comments I see there are a lot of ex Christians here. Not sure what the devil has to offer, other than an eternity in the lake of fire. God has an eternal paradise. Seems like an easy choice.
The age of accountability originates with the Catholic Church. That is when a child raised in the Catholic Church typically has their first confession and receives their first communion. I am also aware that most Protestant Evangelicals don't count Catholics as "Christian", largely due to a misunderstanding of intercessory prayer.
Just curious what does the devil have to offer?
Rev 21
All Things Made New
21 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. 2 Then I, [a]John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
5 Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said [b]to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”
And He said to me, “It[c] is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. 7 He who overcomes [d]shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.
8:22 I'm like omg Elly I know it's spooky season but you have to warn me more before a jumpscare like that
Not a single saved person on this comment section. Not one. Strange. The tribulation comes BEFORE the rapture of the church. This could be the decade. No way to tell for sure. But you have to make a choice.
Oh I do see one person. A Catholic.
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
I want to watch this one, but it might be too much for me.
Even though I wasn’t raised Christian (I was raised Catholic) I ended up reading that book during my middle school years just because it was a free book on Kindle and back then I loved reading (still do but my choice of medium is different now). I don’t remember if it scared me ever, maybe because I despised the Church already it didn’t have an effect on me. But I remember I found the books interesting enough that I wanted to read the next book, even though that one wasn’t free. I guess I still find the book interesting but maybe in a different way then before.
Wait the rapture left behind dental fillings of a Christian ? Would it leave behind a steel hip ? So many technical questions about the Rapture universe.