Invest in Jesus: Neoliberalism and The Left Behind Novels

Invest in Jesus: Neoliberalism and the Left behind Novels
Author(s): Andrew Strombeck

Source: Cultural Critique, No. 64 (Autumn, 2006), pp. 161-195
Published by: University of Minnesota Press
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INVESTIN JESUS
ANDTHELEFTBEHINDNOVELS
NEOLIBERALISM
Ande
* gmec
In caseof theRapture,carwill bedriverless.

-Contemporary
bumper sticker
In caseof theRapture,canI haveyourcar?

-Another
contemporary bumper sticker
Wildly selling throughout the past decade, the Left Behind

series-fifteen novels that narrate an evangelical Christian apocalypse-has emerged as the most visible symbol of a thriving Christian popular culture, and, by extension, an Americanevangelicalism
that has sounded particularly triumphant in the wake of the 2004
election.' Despite theirwide popularity,the books have only recently
become objectsof criticalinquiry;as MelaniMcAlisternotes, the books
have been "all but invisible in liberal and intellectual circles" (774).
When cultural critics have addressed the books, they tend to accept
them as exactly what the authors claim them to be-straightforward
extensions of a narrowlyconceived Christianevangelical culture. Of
course, this interpretationhas some merit, especially given the conservative,evangelicalcredentialsof the books' coauthorsTimLaHaye
and JerryJenkins.2Nevertheless, this overrelianceon authorialintention tends to obstructa full critique of the books as complex cultural
objects.The purpose of this essay is to expand the criticalframework
in which the books have been read so far.I argue that, as much as the
books reflect a narrow,ChristianRight agenda, they also reinforcea
more hegemonic ideology, the widely shared devotion to marketcapitalism known as neoliberalism.Although the novels, with theirseemingly antimodern fundamentalism, seem to occupy the margins of
CulturalCritique64-Fall 2006-Copyright 2006 Regents of the Universityof Minnesota
162
ANDREWSTROMBECK
a certain America, in their devotion to free-marketcapitalism they

occupy the center.
The two bumper stickers that I use as epigraphs humorously
evoke the conflicted relationshipbetween the premillennialisttheology of the Left Behind books and the consumer culture in which it
operates. While one would expect the series to celebratethe solemn
sentiments of the formersticker,the books in fact take greatjoy in the
more crass impulse of the latter.In the first volume, LeftBehind,the
apocalypse is a financial opportunity, a good time to pick up a car
on the cheap. This consumerismreflects the books' own position as
products of global capitalism, marketed and distributed using the
same mechanismsas Microsoftsoftwareor Disney movies. The series
enjoys a wide distribution;the sleek-looking,colorful books surface
prominently everywhere, from Wal-Martto Costco to Borders,displayed for maximum promotion at the end of the aisle.3This wide
distribution,I argue, echoes the books' ideas;while the books do furthera narrowconservativeagenda,they simultaneouslyreinforcemore
widely acceptedthemes of marketsand privatization.The books' cultural work extends beyond a mere recycling of a Christian agenda,
and instead manifestsa complex,but coherent,culturallogic. Reading
the books in this light foregroundsnot only theirdistinctivenesswithin
a historyof apocalypticfundamentalismbut also theircontinuitywith
the largerAmericanculture. The ordinarinessof neoliberalismorganizes the apocalyptic imagination;visions of the apocalypse fuel the
desire for neoliberalmanagement.In the LeftBehindbooks, the apocalypse is largely not transformative;throughoutthe books' upheaval
and disaster, markets persist as the most efficient way of resisting
totalitarianevil. And yet the smooth operationof neoliberalideology
ultimately proves unable to containthe books' sufferingand destruction. Their devotion to market logic even in the face of catastrophe
ends up demonstrating-if briefly-the shortcomingsof neoliberalism's totalized vision.
APOCALYPSEOR NOW?
Building on a tradition of premillennialist theology, the Left Behind
books begin with the "Rapture" (or disappearance), of all the world's

INVEST IN JESUS
Christians.4 The eponymous first book describes the chaos resulting

from driverless cars, engineerless trains, and pilotless planes. After
this apocalyptic inaugural event, the rest of the books relate the story
of the Tribulation Force, a band of newly converted Christians (after
the rapture, the conversions continue, assisted by helpful videotapes
left by Raptured pastors) who endure and resist the Antichrist's global
domination. The Antichrist is a Romanian businessman named Nicolae Carpathia who rises to world power based on his charisma and
"such an intimate knowledge of the United Nations that it was if he
had invented and developed the organization himself" (Left Behind
246). In the aftermath of the world-shaking disappearances, Carpathia
becomes the secretary-general of the U.N., gradually converting it
into a world government called the Global Community. At first beneficent and humanitarian, the Global Community mutates over the
course of the books into a totalitarian state with full control over the
world's media and military. More importantly for this essay, the Global
Community maintains a state-run economy; after the fourth book, no
one can buy or sell anything without "the Mark of the Beast," a tattooed identification that the Christians refuse to accept.5 These Christians-the members of the Tribulation Force-work to keep themselves
safe while disseminating information about Christianity. In the postapocalyptic era, they form a kind of underground resistance against the
domination of the Global Community, a resistance that includes establishing an alternate, free-market economy for the Christians. In narrating these stories, the books offer readers action-packed pages, with
enough car chases, gunfights, fire-breathing prophets, and narrowly
escaped deaths to keep even the most distracted reader interested.6
The majority of reviews in the American mainstream press position the books as part of the Christian Right's political mission, especially its connection to the Bush administration. Such an interpretation
is offered even by seasoned cultural critic Joan Didion, whose piece
in The New YorkReview of Books can be roughly summarized by its
title: "Mr. Bush and the Divine." Similar readings surface in academic
criticism of the books, notably in Peter Yoonsuk Paik's recent assertion that the books represent one of the "political fantasies behind
much of the popular support for the neo-imperialist policies of the
second Bush administration" (1).7 Paik's reading characterizes the
books as the product of, on the one hand, an American consumer

163
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ANDREWSTROMBECK
culture"whoseprimaryconcernis the satisfactionof fleshlyand material appetites" (3) and, on the other, of a rabid apocalypticism that
welcomeswarsas a fulfillmentof prophecy(13).Otherreaders,notably
GershomGorenburg,see the books primarilyin terms of evangelical
wish fulfillment.Fortheirreaders,Gorenburgargues,the LeftBehind
books offerthe "delicioussatisfactionof being right,"a sense thatthose
labeled "weirdos"by mainstream culture have won (33). Melani
McAlisteris one of the books' most astute readers,perhapsas a result
of her long work on evangelical apocalypticism.McAlistercriticizes
accounts that foreground the authors' conservative credentials and,
as a result, view the books as a "revivalof 1980s-stylepolitical fundamentalism,"as symbolized by JerryFalwell'sMoralMajority(781).
But by interpretingthe books as primarily "about"evangelical support for a Palestine-freeIsrael, McAlister perpetuates the idea that
the books function as propagandafor the ChristianRight. Although
these readingsall have a degree of truth,they obscurethe books' complexity,a complexityforegroundedby Amy JohnsonFrykholm'sbooklength study of Left Behind readers.With Frykholm,I argue that the
Left Behind books representthe intersection of a numberof cultural
vectors;among these, fundamentalistChristianitylooms large but is
by no means totalizing.
In America, the apocalypse has always been a metaphor, as
RobertFullerdemonstratesin his remarkablehistory of premillennialist theology, Namingthe Antichrist.The Antichrist has been yoked
to everything from Native Americans to Soviet Communism.In the
period after 1970,as Fullershows, the Antichrist has been primarily
invoked againstthe productsof both the liberalstate and late capitalism. Writerslike Hal Lindsey and PeterLalondelocate the influence
of the Antichrist in education, technology, the global economy, and
multiculturalism.Computer technology, for example, has been invoked as the mechanismfor the Antichrist'sdomination;the markof
the beast becomes an implanted microchip.In most respects, the Left
Behind books remain consistent with the general outlines of recent
premillennialisttheology: the Antichrist is a charismaticfigure; the
Antichristforms a one-world religion;the Antichristcreatesa global
economy; the Antichrist is a European leader who uses the United
Nations. But the books deviate from some of the general contours of
the premillennialist vision expressed by, say, Lindsey. It is here, I argue,

INVESTIN JESUS
that the books demonstrate their commitment to neoliberal values.

First, while the books decry international financiers, the logic of freemarket capitalism saturates their narratives. Second, the books refuse
to damn the technological products of multinational capitalism-there
is no fear of supercomputers here. Instead, the books' Christian characters use every technological advantage available, including sportutility vehicles, satellite cell phones, and solar-powered wireless
laptops. Finally, the books refuse to condemn multiculturalism and
in fact emphasize the multicultural composition of their protagonist
group. The overall effect of these choices is to emphasize fundamentalism's continuity, not discontinuity, with postmodernity. The books
establish their Christian protagonists as typical late-capitalist subjects.
Premillennialist theology emerges as merely one thread of a complex
tapestry, a tapestry woven on the loom of neoliberalism. McAlister,
and technolamong others, views these changes-multiculturalism
the
of
books'
to
widen the
fundamentalism,
ogy-as part
designed
books' appeal by establishing their characters as "more modern than
modern," thus dispelling the reputation of fundamentalists as "oldfashioned and unsophisticated" (783). Although McAlister nods to
the cultural work these modifications accomplish, she locates the
books' "core" with fundamentalist doctrine. In contrast to McAlister's
view that the books represent merely an updated version of an old
narrative, I argue that the books exhibit a more intact, more coherent
cultural logic. In particular, I agree with Frykholm that the characters' modernity reflects changes in Christian evangelical culture as
much as it does a "marketing scheme" for fundamentalist ideas. As
Paul Apostolidis argues, this evangelical culture has come to identify
with the petit bourgeois class that is the primary beneficiary of neoliberal politics.
In the Left Behind series, then, the apocalypse is not simplistic.
The books' apparent one-dimensionality, as propaganda for the Christian Right, belies their complicated, contradictory richness. They
combine scenes of Biblical interpretation, horror-movie imagery, spy
novels, conspiracy theory, and family-rearing doctrine, to name a few.
All of this makes for texts that writhe and buckle in culturally difficult ways. They struggle to contain issues of sexuality, gender, race,
globalization, privatization, interpretation, and mass-mediation. Their
narratives work to incorporate disparate agendas, all while churning

165
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ANDREWSTROMBECK
out a story catchy enough to capture the imagination of millions. A

scene fromthe secondbook, Tribulation
Force,will serveto demonstrate
Set
in
this
Nicolae
briefly
complexity.
Carpathia'sUnited Nations
office, it describes a meeting between Carpathiaand CameronWilliams, a key memberof the TribulationForce.Carpathiaannounceshis
plans to purchasemajormedia-"the greatnewspapersof the world,
the television networks, the wire services"-and to use this media
as a vehicle for the dissemination of his ideas. "If ever the time was
right to have a positive influence on the media, it is now" (Tribulation
Force128). Because Williams is a leading reporterfor the Newsweeklike GlobalWeekly,Carpathiaasks him to run one of these media
outlets. WhatCarpathiaproposes-and eventually accomplishes-is
government ownership of the media, since Carpathia is then the
secretary-generalof the United Nations.This scene indexes key political fears on the Right: concentratedglobal power and a conspiring
"liberal"media. With his plan for global disarmament,Carpathiais,
at least early in the series, nothing if not liberal. But by making the
journalistWilliams a key member of the TribulationForce, LaHaye
and Jenkinscomplicate an easy demonization of the media.8Moreover, as I will emphasize later,Carpathia'schoice of Williamsis part
of a strangepatternof the Antichristhiring Christians,a patternthat
reflectsthe books' neoliberaladherenceto marketsolutions. Williams
is the best candidate for the job, the logic goes, and so of course he
should be hired. While the Antichrist's identity as a businessman
might seem to contradictthe books' adherence to market values, it
in fact demonstratestheir complex relationshipwith capitalism.The
books enjoy Williams's professional success even as they distrust
the organizations that make this success possible. Finally, the idea
of media consolidation here occurs within the historical context of
conservative-drivenderegulation of the media in the United States,
which has left not liberals like Carpathiain control but conservatives like Fox's Rupert Murdoch and Clear Channel Communication's Lowry Mays.
The apocalypse is now. In narratingevents that occur in the near
future, the books offer their readersa kind of "uncanny"connection
to everyday events. The world they present is the contemporary world
but a contemporary world whose characteristics have morphed to reveal prophecy. In a sense, the books describe what Derrida has called

INVEST IN JESUS
167
"spectral"time, a time that is "out of joint"because it is neither the

futurenor the presentbut a kind of ghostly futurethathauntsthe present. In adaptingprophetictime to the contemporaryworld, the books
deliveran uncertainrecognitionfor theirreaders,a world thatindexes
the empirical experience of late-capitalistlife. The present shudders
and buckles in the books, visible here, visible there, but always receding. The apocalypse becomes a way to understandcontemporary
political problems,and in particularto unify the seemingly extreme
elements of the Right with the more "centrist"(read:"hegemonic")
philosophy of neoliberalism.
THE POLITICALRATIONALITY
OF NEOLIBERALISM
In a recent article, Wendy Brown points to a definition of neoliberalism that extends beyond the conventionalunderstandingof the term
as a set of economic policies. Although neoliberalismhas been heavily critiqued in antiglobalization circles for the havoc it wreaks on
debtor nations, Brown finds it operating more widely, as a form of
governancethatsupersedesliberaldemocracy.Brownarguesthatneoliberalism,beyond simply privatizingstate functions,in factpromotes
marketsmore grandly,as "theorganizingand regulativeprinciple of
the state and society" (11).For neoliberals,marketrationalityshould
penetrate into every corner of contemporaryexistence, placing state
and individual decisions on the same continuum. Under neoliberalism, not only does the state perceive markets as the best solution to
social problems-the best way to distribute wealth and democracy
most widely-but ultimately,the state's role is only to constructcitizens as "entrepreneurialactors"in everyday life, to the point where
moral and ethical actions are framedin marketterms.9Neoliberalism
"configur(es)morality entirely as a matter of rational deliberation
aboutcosts,benefits,and consequences"(15).In Brown'sreading,neoliberalismis as much social philosophy as economic philosophy.As
such, it has a set of values and a culture, both of which must be ideologically promoted for its economics to succeed. This means thatneoliberalism is flexible enough to cannibalize multiple forms of social
life; its values have the capacity to encompass both Clintonian centrists and Reagan-Bush neoconservatives (though, as Brown observes,

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ANDREWSTROMBECK
This also means thatneoliberalculnot without producingtensions).1'0

ture idealizes those social actorswho best conformto its mandatesand who most benefit from them-the global petit bourgeoisie of
neoliberalprofessionals.
The Left Behindbooks are suffused with neoliberalvalues-specifically,those aroundmarketrationalityand the validationof a global
meritocracy.Even as the books seemingly decry the global community that many neoliberals (like George Soros) claim to want, they
reinforcethe politicalrationalitythatBrowndescribes,castingits characters as rationalmarketactors first,Christianssecond. In the midst
of apocalypse, good is privatized and evil state-run.The ideology of
marketreliancesurfacesin the books' professionallysuccessful characters, in their love of the technologicalsymbols of global capitalism
(SUVs,cell phones, high-poweredlaptops) and, in the face of a global
state-runeconomy,the use of marketsby good characters.Ultimately,
too, the booksestablishfaithitself as a market-baseddecision;believing
Christiansare simply rationaleconomicactorsmakinga good choice
given the availableoptions. In doing so, the books reflecton theirown
position as productsof Christiancapitalismand work to validatetheir
own presencein the culture.But they also allow theirreadersto imagine the global system throughthe lens of a rigidly market-basedideology. The books perform "cognitivemapping,"what FredricJameson
describes as narrativesthat strive for "self-consciousnessabout the
global totality,"a totality that can be only dimly perceived (2)."
THEMILITIACOMPOUND
ANDTHEGATED
COMMUNITY
On the one hand, then, the LeftBehindbooks occupy the margins,the
extremist ideology of the far (Christian)Right. On the other hand,
they occupy the very center, the adherence to market ideology that
forms the core of contemporaryAmerican politics. In melding the
far Right with neoliberalism,then, the Left Behind books simultaneously hail the subjects of the militia compound and the gated community.12These two spaces could not be fartherapart.One occupies
the far margins, the remote states, the extreme edges of belief. The
other seems ever closer to the symbolic heart of American public discourse, is saturated with anticrime, profamily, privatized discourse,

INVEST IN JESUS
and is contiguous with the corporate sprawl that covers more and
more of the country's surface. Militias are nowhere; gated communities are everywhere. Militia groups symbolize a reactionary, far-Right
ideology built around self-reliance and violence. Gated communitieswhich Linda Kintz calls the premier site of American evangelical
Christianity-represent a self-dubbed "mainstream" America built
around rising incomes and property values. The groups share some
core beliefs, especially around distrust of government. But while the
militia member resists and fears the global, the gated-community resident-or neoliberal professional-necessarily participates in global
trade, both in working and consuming. In negotiating between these
two ideologies, the books index a complicated set of beliefs.
In both spaces, walls protect against a catastrophe that is simultaneously part of the future and present, a catastrophe imagined as
both urban Other and bureaucratic totalitarianism. Both the militia
compound and gated community respond to apocalypse with a vocabulary of security and escape. For the militia member, this vocabulary
consists of stockpiled weapons, stored food, and remote compounds;
for the gated-community resident, this vocabulary consists of rugged sport-utility vehicles, satellite phones, and unlimited wealth. The
series' protagonist group, the Tribulation Force, indexes both spaces.
In doing so, this group of Christians embodies both the survivalist
and the neoliberal professional. On the one hand, the Tribulation Force
employs the methods of the right-wing survivalist movement: selfreliance, security obsession, stealth, stockpiling, violence. But on the
other hand, the members of the Tribulation Force engage in all of the
fantasies inherent to the neoliberal professional: workplace achievement, high-level recognition, unlimited finances, international travel,
and occupation of elite spaces.
Given the Tribulation Force's name and revolutionary action, the
participants' resemblance to militia members comes as no surprise.
They stockpile food, create remote "safe houses" and set up an alternative distribution network. More generally, as Gorenburg observes,
the Left Behind series depends very much on militia-themed beliefs,
the fantasies about Armageddon that have circulated through groups
like the Militia of Montana, the Order, and Posse Commitatus (34). In
locating the Antichrist in the United Nations, the books fictionally
confirm longstanding militia beliefs that the U.N. is bent on world

169
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1 ANDREWSTROMBECK
takeover.Thebooks' warningsagainstone-world currenciesand oneworld religions fall into a similar vein. Militia groups believe in an
already-presentend to the United States,an end thatmustbe defended
against with stockpiledweapons and pure beliefs. In the books, milithe series'
tias arestructurallyequivalentto Christians;by Armageddon,
eleventhbook, militias are one of three groups-besides Christianswho have rejectedthe Antichrist's mark of the beast (the others are
"devoutMuslims"and "practicingJews who did not believe in Jesus
as messiah" [233]).The books affirm militia members' own apocalyptic fantasies;when the one-world government comes, when the
black helicoptersstart flying, the militias will not give up their independence. The books suggest that their readersbe physically as well
as spiritually prepared.The enemy is coming, and one must take to
the hills with weapons in orderto survive. This idea is paralyzingbut
enjoyable. It is enjoyable in the way that the eighties paramilitary
fantasy film RedDawn is enjoyable,or in the way that Tom Clancyare enjoyinspired video games like SplinterCell:PandoraTomorrow
able: the fantasy of being pitted, alone with one's resources,against
an all-powerfulenemy.
But if the books draw on themes beloved of the far Right, they
articulatethese themes within the confinesof the gated community.13
Describing the gated community as the symbolic space of a certain
evangelicalChristianity,Kintz links militia isolation with these more
conventionalspaces of late capitalism:
groupsescapingto "pure"placeslikethePacificNorthwestare
Far-right
only the most extremeversionof this phenomenonbasedon achieving
a sense of securitythatis highlydependenton purgingdifferenceand
communitiesof the same.Thesearehandystructures,as
reconstructing
well, for enablingglobalcorporationsand the wealthyto jettisontheir
publicresponsibilitiesand anykindof commitmentto the publicgood.
In fact, that commitmenthas been redefinedin terms of supply-side
economicsto meanthatone'sobligationto the socialgood is to become
wealthy(108).
As she does throughouther book, Kintz here acknowledges the continuity between a neoliberalorientationtoward governmentand the
isolationism of the militia compound. She views the gated community as part of the same system of ideas, grounded in a desire for
security, a security that translates into a division between the pure

INVEST IN JESUS
and the different. These communities, which have proliferated across

the American landscape since the mid-eighties, control access to neighborhoods through walls, cameras, and security guards. As Edward
Blakey and Mary Snyder argue, these communities represent merely
the latest evolution in the idea of the suburbs. They function here,
then, as shorthand for a host of (white) American practices of flight
from the inner city, resistance to taxation, and faith in market-based
solutions.
Contradiction between the two spaces arises primarily in their
respective visions of the global. Whereas militias maintain a far-Right
paranoia about global management in any form, gated communities
implicitly reinforce a globalized, neoliberal vision. While the gatedcommunity resident may maintain a distrust of government, they are
clearly not "off the grid" when it comes to globalization, for the neoliberal professional's purchases, employment, and services all depend
on global capitalism (a fact immediately visible at a Wal-Mart during a dockworkers' strike). The contrast between these two positions
forms one of the Left Behind books' major contradictions. Despite their
anxiety about one-world control, the books ultimately reinforce the
neoliberal doctrine of privatization. The books simultaneously decry
global control-the United Nations, a global religion, a universal
currency-and celebrate global mobility. (As historian Mark Driscoll
points out, although demonized as an enemy of American sovereignty,
the United Nations has in recent years acted in concert with organizations like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.) They
rail against "international financiers" one page and reinforce a privatized vision consistent with the IMF on the next. Ultimately, as I will
discuss later, the books resolve this contradiction in their approach to
subjectivity, as economic globalization is displaced onto cultural globalization. In reading the books, readers can imagine a world populated by people who sound just like them; identity, in these books, is
often a matter of switching appearances. The books here participate
in utopian ideals of border crossing; even as they upend globalism in
one section, they reassert it in this strange narrative of sameness.
The Left Behind books establish the suburbs as the proper place of
fundamentalist Christianity and reinforce the gated community's flight
from an urban Other. The residents of gated communities are insulated
from, as Mike Davis puts it, "'unsavory' groups and individuals, even

171
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ANDREWSTROMBECK
crowds in general"(224).In his landmarkreading of "FortressLA,"

Davis explains that the desire for security derives from a fear of the
apocalypse, specifically that form of apocalypse symbolized by the
urbanriots of the sixties. Davis reads Los Angeles as regulatingthese
fearsthroughthe segmentation,privatization,and surveillanceof public space, for the benefit of a middle class now enjoying a prestige
symbol-security-once restrictedto the very rich. Although gatedcommunity advocates justify their high security in terms of crime
rates, Davis argues that security has more to do with avoiding the
apocalypse:these security measuresare meant to keep out an underclass Other who threatens property,livelihood, and ultimately life.
As Lauren Berlantnotes, the secure, privatized space of the gated
community has as its opposite the "culturallyvital, multiethniccity"
(5).The city,in her reading,representseverythingthatthe "residential
enclave where the 'family lives"' does not, including public services,
diversity, and democratic participation. But the city represents the
gated community's Other in another sense; the city, and its multiethnicresidents,representsexactly thatwhich drives fearfulresidents
into gated communities. Often, as Davis implies, the city represents
the apocalypse.
The Left Behind books describe the apocalypse in the language
of FortressLA. After the Raptureoccurs, the world endures plagues
and tribulations-most of the Left Behind series concerns itself
with outlining these plagues, which include worldwide war,a megaearthquake,scorpion-like locusts, blood-filled seas, and so on. But
the firstplague to visit the planet post-Raptureis one familiarto anyone watching television in the summer of 1965or the spring of 1992:
"Thenews was full of crime, looting, people taking advantageof the
chaos"(LeftBehind207).The firstvictim of post-Rapturechaos is suburban security.After a break-inat the house of key members of the
TribulationForce-Rayford and Chloe Steele-pastor Bruce Barnes
notes, "It'sbecoming epidemic. It's as if the inner city has moved to
the suburbs.We'reno saferhere any more"(LeftBehind265).Theword
epidemichere links everydayfear of crime to the widespreadhorrorof
the apocalypse. As elsewhere, the books establish the apocalypse as
an intensification of contemporary social problems. When Barnes later
proposes building an underground shelter as protection from future
horrors, the specter of "looting" haunts the idea. If the backyard fallout

INVESTIN JESUS
shelter organized a certain fifties suburban imaginary, the "safe room"

organizes the post-sixties suburban imaginary. Davis writes, "Residential architects are borrowing design secrets from overseas embassies and military command posts. One of the features most in demand
is the 'terrorist-proof security room' concealed in the houseplan and
accessed by sliding panels and secret doors"' (248). Fictionalized in
the 2002 David Fincher movie Panic Room, these rooms represent the
premier symbol of privatized security, the place where the home becomes a bunker. In the Left Behind books, the suburban home literally becomes a bunker, as Rayford Steele explains:
Picture a subdivision, a housing development maybe thirty years old
that has been tossed into the blender.... We took over half of a badly
damaged duplex, two homes in one. We expanded a cellar to make an
underground hiding place, which we didn't need-at least not that we
knew of-until now. We rigged our own makeshift well and solar power
plant, and took various routes to the place that made it look as if we
could be headed anywhere." (TheIndwelling338)
This passage conflates the militia compound and the suburban home,
as suburban space becomes heavily fortified. As Davis demonstrates,
this ideal represents the limit logic of security-the ultimate in fortification against evil. The idea of immorality and evil yokes the Antichrist's forces with more ordinary fears of crime. The paramilitary
fantasy organizing militia life converges with the security fantasy
organizing gated community life. In the books, the home becomes a
fortress, with all of the equipment for defending against an apocalyptic Other. For the characters, the equipment of security condenses
with rhetoric of home life: "Closing the door, she checked the motion
detector, then sat before the periscope. ... She rather liked having the
contraption in the middle of her home. It satisfied some inner need
to protect-control, Buck would have teased-her friends and loved
ones, the more than two hundred who now lived underground in San
Diego" (Armageddon26).
But the books do more than establish well-defended suburban
locales; they also allow their characters to travel the globe while
remaining secure. They do so with the expensive technologies that
symbolize the petit bourgeois professional. Throughout the books,
characters make frequent use of sport-utility vehicles, satellite phones,

173
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ANDREWSTROMBECK
and high-poweredlaptop computers.Forthe neoliberalsubject,these

technologies symbolizeboth mobility and security.They take the safe
house-if not the panic room-on the road. For vehicles, the characters choose only the heaviest, most expensive SUVs available:Hummers, RangeRovers,and ToyotaLand Cruisers.Having just acquired
a white Hummer, Cameron Williams marvels over its power ("the
gigantic Hummerpropellingitself easily over the jaggedterrain")and
observes to another characterthat the car could "crush"one of the
Global Community'smore compact cars (TheMark106).14With their
aggressivelydesigned exteriorsand reputationfor use in militarycontexts, these vehicles epitomize security. For these characters-as,
arguably,for the gated-communityresident-SUVs become an extension of theirlimitlesssuccess,coupledwith theirendless need formore
security. Satellite phones function similarly; in the books, all team
membersare outfittedwith ultrasecurephones thatwork everywhere.
Satellitephones are anotherexpensivesymbol of globalmobility;they
work in any country without any need to rely on local infrastructure.
Finally,the team's relianceon high-powered,wireless-equippedlapNot only do neoliberal
tops offersa thirdsymbol of mobile security.15
on
but,
arguablythe rhetoricof
professionalsphysically rely laptops,
informationtechnology has emphasized a utopian vision of borderless mobility, a vision enjoyed only by members of the global petit
bourgeoisie.
The gates defend against an Other: inside, the chosen; outside,
the unbelieving masses. These unbelieving masses divide into two
groups: first, the Global Community forces-those employed by the
Antichrist-and second, all nonbelievers,which in the beginning of
the series means simply means not believing and later means taking
the markof the beast.The TribulationForcebuilds safe houses to keep
out the Global Community forces, much as Winston and Juliarent a
room in NineteenEighty-Fourto escape Big Brother.But in the Left
Behind books, Big Brotherand the proles get all mixed up; the safe
houses here keep out everyone. In the books' apocalyptic imaginary,
the Otheris paradoxicallythatwhich causes and suffersthe most from
the disaster of apocalypse. The books have trouble differentiating
between members of the Antichrist's organization and suffering nonChristians. Apocalyptic Otherness condenses with more ordinary
Otherness. One of the books' most intriguing scenes in this regard is

INVEST IN JESUS
one from Desecrationwhere Chloe Williams finds a group of innercity Christians living in an abandoned Chicago bank vault. This
group-survivors of a ministrycalled The Place-has lived separately
fromthe books' otherChristians,who arelead by the TribulationForce
and bound togetherby the TribulationForce'sWebsite.16These characters remain outside of this network until Williamsdiscovers them.
They are all "poorblacksand Latinos"and all former"pimps,whores,
crackheads, drunks,players,hustlers,motherswith no husbands,and
children with no fathers"(290).These charactersrepresentthe series'
only attempt to represent the urban Other, a figure they otherwise
relegate to "looting."To find these characters,Chloe has to venture
outside the safe house and actually walk the streets of (deserted)Chicago. Fora moment, it seems as though the world outside the gates is
not as threateningas it seemed, that perhapsthe books are capableof
recognizingan (apocalyptic)Other.Evenif the books treatthese characters in a patronizing,stereotypicalmanner,this scene nevertheless
offers a glimpse beyond the rigid exclusions of the gated community.
But readerslearnlaterthatthe group fromThe Placeactuallydid pose
a threat-they helped "compromise"the Tribulation Force's safe
house. Twobooks later,Williamsthinks, "Itwas [she] who had stumbled upon The Place in Chicago with its exciting band of self-taught
believers. On the other hand, all that activity, their moving in with
the Trib Force, was the first step in compromising the safe house"
42). If, at the books' beginning, charactersfret about the
(Armageddon
inner city moving to the suburbs, when the inner city moves to the
safe house, the results are just as bad.
THENEOLIBERAL
PROFESSIONALS
OF LEFTBEHIND
The gates protecta particularform of life;the citizens thatlive in these
gated communities are the global petit bourgeoisie, the managers
and professionals who represent the world's skilled workers, those
who succeed under neoliberalism.For these workers,the marketis a
meritocracy, with the best jobs, and the most spoils, going to the most
skilled. Left Behind replicates this logic by endowing its Christian
characters with overwhelming competence. In the books, professionally successful Christians bear out a market ideology, a market that

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ANDREWSTROMBECK
naturally favors Christians.As McAlisterobserves, these Christians

are "toughand modernpeople,"as competentwith technologyas their
secular peers (777).But they also tend to exceed these peers by leaps
and bounds; in the series, the Christiansare the highest-skilledand
highest-paidcharacterson the planet.CameronWilliamsis a starjournalist. RayfordSteele is a successful pilot, skilled to the point where
he is one of only six pilots qualified to fly the Antichrist'sAir Force
One. Othercharactersare expert programmers,Nobel Prize-winning
botanists,head nurses,documentforgers,and disguise specialists.The
book registersthe high skill of these charactersin several ways: first,
as with Williams,the Antichrist'sorganizationhires them for important positions. ProgrammerDavid Hassid, for example,is a high-level
director for the Global Community.Second, team members are able
to outsmartthe GlobalCommunity in near-preposterousways. Hassid has bugged both the Antichrist'spalace and plane, and manages
to listen in on conversationswithout even the suggestion of being
caught. Hassid can also perform amazing feats of hacking, such as
controlling the security system of a Chicago skyscraperfrom Baghdad. Finally,the books allow the charactersto move through privileged spaces:first-classcabins, world headquarters,high-end hotels,
and so on. Despite the chaos wrought by the apocalypse, these characters move around the world with ease. In a sense, they are much
like the rich in Sdo Paolo, who fly helicopters from place to place in
orderto avoid the city's large poor population-a state of affairsthat
sometimes seems the logical end of Davis's FortressLA.17
In his analysis of the "networksociety,"a reading of neoliberalism's economy, society, and culture, Manuel Castells describes the
developmentof a global elite-the dominantfinancial,technological,
and managerialprofessionals-whose "segmentationand disorientation" of the masses serve as twin mechanisms of domination (446).
Castells finds two majorcharacteristicsof these elites' social organization on a global scale. First, they seclude themselves within elite
spaces, whose ultimate manifestationand symbol is the gated community (447). Second, they maintain globally consistent spaces and
lifestyles throughwhich they operate--corporatehotel rooms,airport
VIP lounges, first-class cabins, all of which, in d~cor and access to
communications technology, "induce abstraction from the surrounding

INVEST IN JESUS
world" and serve as "symbols of an international culture whose identity is not linked to any specific society but to membership of the managerial circles of the informational economy across a global cultural
spectrum" (447). This is the symbolic imaginary presented in the Left
Behind series, the fantasy of global mobility and management that
originates with an elite (of which LaHaye and Jenkins are members),
and whose identity, as Paul Apostolidis argues, is consistent with a
Christian evangelical identity.18
But what reader are these superskilled characters designed to
appeal to? Do they perhaps provide a fantasy for readers left out of economic and political success? Joan Didion observes of the Left Behind
series, "it is from this assumption of competence, of the ability to
manage a hostile environment, that the series derives both its potency
and its interest: this is a story that feeds on wish fulfillment, a dream
of the unempowered, the kind of dream that can be put to political
use, and can also entrap those who would use it" (81). Highly professional Christians appeal, of course, to Christians that feel unempowered, but they also contribute to a sense of Christianity as consistent
with the scientifico-managerial world of global capitalism. In Didion's
reading, the power fantasies of the series allow the disempowered to
imagine the kind of life a managerial professional enjoys, with unlimited success, wealth, and mobility. But in another sense, the depiction
of Christians as superskilled professionals is neither a fantasy nor
surprising. As Paul Apostolidis points out in his reading of Focus on
the Family, Christian culture often promotes a version of Christian
fundamentalism congruent with secular management. In Apostolidis's
reading, the terms Christian and professionalare by no means contradictory. Focus on the Family's James Dobson, for example, promotes
himself as a high-quality psychologist. In Dobson's self-presentation,
Christians are "in this world" as well as "of this world," in the sense
that they are extremely successful professionals. In the Left Behind
books, one needs more than just faith for salvation in a certain Christian narrative. One also needs professional skills, and these skills meld
with one's Christian identity.
The books bestow praise on professionals, in sometimes surprising ways, as is the case with journalist Williams (the contemporary
Right being no friends of "the media"). Nevertheless, they also apply

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STROMBECK
marketlogic to professionals,differentiating-in the cold logic of university cutbacks-between useful and inutile professions.The seventh
demonstratesthis logic in the treatmentof a statebook, TheIndwelling,
sponsored (and homosexual) artist, Guy Blod, who produces "Godless" art for the Antichrist'sheadquarters,and who is charged with
creating a twenty-foot replica of Carpathia'sbody after he dies. The
books mock Blod relentlessly,from the "French"pronunciationof his
name, to his comfortablenesswith nudity, to his love for new clothes,
to his mannerof speaking (TheIndwelling61-66). This scene also presents a rich intersectionbetween neoliberallogic and Christianconservatism. Guy's art is worthless because it's not useful; therefore
he is useless as a professional. His skills, sculpting and painting,
contributenothing to the hard, utilitarianbusiness logic of the postapocalypse. Blod thus indexes the emphasis neoliberalismplaces on
efficiencyover culturalenrichment,an emphasis especially visible in
university funding, as Lisa Duggan argues. Simultaneously,though,
this scene echoes the debates around public funding of "indecent"
art. Such scenes demonstratethe effortlessmelding of neoliberaland
Christianconservativeideology.
This professionallogic works in an inclusionaryas well as exclusionary way. The heroes here are bourgeois professionals;the books
contain few working-classcharacters(despite their readers'reputation for being lower class). When the books reach across class lines,
they must firstprofessionalizethe workingclass. One character,Zeke,
is a formermechanicand "formerdruggie-biker-tattooartist"(Desecration173).While the books repeatedlyemphasizeZeke's homespun
intelligence in the face of "intellectuals,"they reinforcethe logic of
class division even as they apparentlyquestion it. First,they continually comment on a disjunctionbetween Zeke's appearanceand his
naturalintelligence:"Likeeveryoneelse, she liked the way he thought,
though his way of expressinghimself might fool a strangerinto think173).Second,they make Zeke
ing he was less thanbright"(Desecration
an expert in disguise and forgery. In making Zeke an expert, they
professionalizehim, making him into an "acceptable"memberof the
working class. Zeke's expertise contrastsmarkedlywith the ordinary
drudgery experienced in working-class life; he is effectively crafted
into a neoliberal professional.

INVEST IN JESUS
AND MULTICULTURALISM
NEOLIBERALISM
But how do the books reconcile their commitment to bordered elitism-the gated community of the petit bourgeois professional-with
the ostensible egalitarianism of Christianity? They do so in multiple
ways. As noted, the books tend to professionalize the working class.
But they also displace class equality onto multicultural equality. The
books officially care nothing for race, culture, or ethnicity. As such,
they both reinforce a neoliberal vision of the globe and maintain a
utopian vision of Christian egalitarianism. Egalitarianism here is the
egalitarianism of the market, which responds equally to all subjects
with resources ("Money is the great leveler," says Marx), which are
the subjects the books establish for Christian conversion.
But this multiculturalism is ambiguous. On the one hand, as
McAlister observes, it allows for a seemingly progressive multiculturalism even within the books' Christian conservative vision (789).19
On the other hand, multiculturalism erodes into a vision of subjects
that are entirely alike in their difference. By the ninth book (Desecration)
the Tribulation Force has expanded beyond its initial white American
foundations to assemble a globally diverse team, with a Polish Jew
(David Hassid), a Native American (Hannah Palemoon), a Jordanian
Arab (Abdullah Smith), a Kuwaiti (Albie), a Chinese (Chang Wong),
two Israelis (Chaim Rosenweig, Tsion Ben-Judah), and a Greek (Lukas
Miklos). LaHaye and Jenkins present these characters as representations of an even greater diversity. But this diversity is only superficial.
For example, when the authors introduce Hannah, in the eighth book,
she acknowledges cultural imperialism, noting the pain of living on
a reservation and being stereotyped as "Indians with teepees," even
while naturalizing the notion of Christians "witnessing" to her reservation (217). Initially, then, the books locate Hannah as culturally
specific, as having an ethnic identity, but as the books proceed, her
identity falls away, until she sounds no different than the "white"
characters. Only her name remains, residue of a white imaginary
around Native Americans. While McAlister attributes this superficiality to the authors' lack of cultural sophistication, I view the depiction
of Hannah as very deliberate and indicative of a vision of "multiculturalism" that maintains some differences but at core demands a

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1 ANDREWSTROMBECK
cultural sameness. Once characters become Christian, they abandon their culturalcharacteristics(789).The vision of "sameness"that
emerges here, under the mark of God (and its opposition to the corresponding mark of the Antichrist) is beyond race, beyond politics,
beyond class, and beyond skill level: no matter their background,
characterstalk the same, act the same, and have the same values.
Although this sense of "sameness"in part intersects with a neoconservative agenda of "colorblindness"visible in anti-affirmative
actionrhetoric,neoliberalismis at workhere,too. Whatthe LeftBehind
series offers at core is a kind of simulacrumof recognition,a universal acceptancecloakedin sameness-the same simulacrumofferedby
neoliberalism.Neoliberalismhas to somehow account for the rights
legacy of the Enlightenment;more narrowly,and recently,it has to
accountfor the legacy of postwarsocial movementsarguingfor recognition. The Left Behindbooks, as documents both of neoconservativism and neoliberalism,must somehow account for rights, and they
do so by preaching a gospel of sameness. The global sameness here
demanded by Christianity is analogous to the global sameness demanded by institutions like the IMFand the WorldBank,institutions
that requirethe same practices among member countries regardless
of theirparticularculturalcircumstances.Makingbodies safe forJesus
is like making countries safe for capital.In the Left Behindbooks, as
in neoliberalism,individuals from all sorts of backgroundscan get
along, provided they capitulate to a bland sameness equally represented by the neoliberal professional and the "LeftBehind" Christian. The globalmanagementsymbolizedby the hated United Nations
makes its return here at the level of identity. While including multiculturalcharacters,the books demandrigid adherenceto gendercodes
and reduce ethnic/cultural identities to brief sketches. Ethnicidentities emerge only as loose stereotypes, such as "the honor of the
Middle Easternman" or the "hardwork of the Chinese."Otherwise,
all characterssound and act no differently than the books' white
characters.The books supersede a conservative view of identityantimulticulturalist-with a neoliberalview of identity-necessarily
global, and thus, to a degree, necessarily multiculturalist.As Lisa
Duggan argues, culture is part and parcel of a neoliberal agenda, and
neoliberal philosophy can work comfortably alongside identity politics, and the "culture wars" can serve as a key ally of privatization.

INVEST IN JESUS
She writes, "The culture wars strategy allowed emerging neoliberal

forces to attack and isolate the cultures of downward redistribution
located within social movement since the 1960s. The flip side of this
strategy was the nurturing of forms of 'identity politics' recruitable
for policies of upward redistribution" (42).
NEOLIBERALFAITH
But the books' commitment to neoliberalism runs deeper than obsessions with security, technology, and petit bourgeois professionalism.
Market rationality surfaces in the very act that the books emphasize
as central to their mission: conversion.20 Although, arguably, the books
focus much more on fighting evil than on conversions, conversion is
nevertheless what the books themselves claim they are about, both in
terms of their narrative and their function as commodities. (The Left
Behind Web site-www.leftbehind.com-has
a whole section on readers who come to Jesus after finishing one volume or another.) In The
Mark,the series' eighth volume, Hannah Palemoon-the Native American member of the Tribulation Force-relates to another member that,
before the Rapture, she'd known about Christianity from the missionaries that came to her reservation. But she didn't convert, she
says, because "I was afraid I'd wind up in a cult or a multi-level marketing machine" (217). Her statement conflates "wild" capitalism with
"wild" religion. She learns later, of course, that she was wrong. Christianity is not a cult, as the worldwide disappearance of Christians
proves. Christianity is also not a multilevel marketing machine. It is
more like a well-run corporation, and non-Christians would be wise
to invest in it. The books promote conversion as a rational choice,
with nothing of the difficulty of Pascal's "kneel down and you shall
believe." Consider, for example, a speech made by Chaim Rosenzweig,
a converted Jew (the books love to convert Jews) chosen to preach in
a kind of showdown with the Antichrist:
Of the billionsand billionsof people who have everlived, One stands
head and shouldersabovethe restin termsof influence.Moreschools,
colleges,hospitalsand orphanageshave been startedbecauseof him
thanbecauseof anyoneelse. Moreartwas created,moremusicwritten,
and more humanitarian acts performed due to him and his influence

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ANDREWSTROMBECK
than anyone else ever. Great international encyclopedias devote twenty
thousandwordsto describinghimandhis influenceon theworld.Even

our calendaris based on his birth.And all this he accomplishedin a
publicministrythatlastedjustthreeanda halfyears.... Centuriesafter
his publicunmercifulmocking,his persecutionandmartyrdom,
billions
claimmembershipin his church,makingit by farthe largestreligionin
the world. (Desecration231)
Invest in Jesus. Productivity is up, way up.21 Like the choice to bank
at Bank of Americabecause they're everywhere,or to buy Microsoft

because they're the biggest, the choice to convertto Christianityis a
simple matterof marketlogic. Youget morebang for yourbuck;kneel
down and your purchasewill be secure,or at least backedup with the
longest encyclopediaarticles. Christians,the good guys, the marked,
are those who make good marketdecisions. The books present character conversions similarly;the events of the book are supposed to
always add up to faith.Forexample,afterthe Antichristis resurrected,
one character,clearlyon the roadto her conversion,notes, "It'sall true,
isn't it?" to which a Christian characterreplies, "Of course it is ...
what are you going to do about it?" (374).Faith,like good investing
or consuming, is merely a matter of making good observations and
acting on them. The characters,then, act in accordancewith what
neoliberalismdemands of its subjects:that they be rationalactors in
all spheres.22
Technologyfurtherlinks conversionto neoliberalism.The Scriptures say all the world will hear aboutJesus;since the advent of satellite technology, televangelists have pointed to it as a means for this
prophecy to come true. In the books, the TribulationForcesets up a
satellite dish on a rooftop-apocalyptic events having decimated the
"wired"world. ReferencingMatthew10:27,a characterdescribesthis
set-upas "preachingfromthe housetops"(TheMark291).Butthe books
take technology a step further and post Jesus on the Internet.Tsion
Ben-Judah,another converted Jew who serves as the Tribulation
Force'sNumber One Preacher,teaches a "billionpeople" through a
"big Internet church,"the "most popular Website in history" (Desecration120).The apocalypse yields the ultimate dot-com boom, with
Ben-Judah's site scoring numbers that would shame Amazon.com's
Jeff Bezos. More than any other technology, the Internet serves as
a metaphor for neoliberalism's spread across the globe, the fantasy

INVEST IN JESUS
of borderless commerce. The reality, of course, is that a digital divide

persists and likely will persist for the foreseeable future. For most
of the world, the Internet is and will remain only a metaphor for
connectedness.
CHRISTIANFUNDAMENTALISM
AND THESPIRIT OF
GLOBALCAPITALISM
In many ways, of course, the commitment to neoliberal faith here is
nothing new. In Holy Terrors,Bruce Lincoln argues that American
Protestantism, lacking a central bureaucracy, has historically seen
entrepreneurial success and affluence as a measure of spiritual success. In a sense, then, the logic of what is now called neoliberalism
penetrates deep into a certain history of evangelical faith. Market logic
overtakes theological logic, eliding the potential conflicts between the
life of the spirit and the life of the economy. And it works both ways:
Duggan refers to neoliberalism as a "reigning theology" (3) and to its
promoters as a "secular priesthood" (19). The slippage between the
theological and the economic echoes and repeats the slippages between
the moral and the economic, a state of affairs whereby making money
equates to morally responsible action. Brown nicely sums up the neat
ties binding neoliberalism and moral action, writing, "neoliberalism
equates moral responsibility with rational action; it relieves the discrepancy between economic and moral behavior by configuring morality entirely as a matter of rational deliberation about costs, benefits,
and consequences" (15). Following in the footsteps of the (controversial, even for evangelicals) "name it, claim it" movement (when you
pray for a Cadillac, be sure you tell God which color), the Left Behind
series presents faith as just one more consumer choice. In a sense, it
reproduces the choice to buy the books within the pages of the books
itself. The books work to reinforce not just a community of readers
but a community of consumers.23
In their validation of neoliberal values, these books demonstrate
that the relationship between Protestantism and capitalism diagnosed
by Max Weber continues under late capitalism, moving from what
Weber saw as a focus on accumulation to a focus on consumption
and markets. Christianity becomes the vehicle for articulating a gated

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ANDREWSTROMBECK
paradiseon earth,imagininga heavenlyconflicttranslatedinto everyday economics (while continuing to profess belief in a real heaven,
where, one would suppose, capitalism is divinely frictionless). The
Left Behindbooks validate the desiring structuresof both consumption and markets;Jesus is a good investment,with the ultimate payoff. In supporting neoliberalism,the books demonstratethe Right's
successfulfusion of corporatecapitalismand social conservatism.But
they also demonstratethe extent to which neoliberalismhas cannibalized even the most "extremist"forms of social life, registeringthat
the much-discussedpost-Reagan"triumphof the Right"is itself subservient to a largerhegemony.24Partly,of course, what this reflectsis
the genealogy of the New Right, which, as historianBruceSchulman
demonstrates,has been tethered to free-marketbeliefs from its origins in the seventies.25In The Seventies:The GreatShift in American
Culture,Society,and Politics,Schulman depicts the Right not as an
uneasily grouped coalition but as a tight network of groups that co-
ordinate on a whole set of issues, from abortion to antitaxation.In

this sense, the contemporarystrain of Christianfundamentalismhas
been crossbred with neoliberalism for the past thirty years.
Late capitalism, and the neoliberal philosophy that promotes

it, produces violent disruptions of nation, community,and familydownsizing, privatizing, and commodifying every form of social life,
"parsinghuman beings into free-floatinglabor units, commodities,

clients, stakeholders,strangers,their subjectivity distilled into ever
more objectified ensembles of interests, entitlements, appetites, de-
sires,purchasing'power'"(Comoroffand Comoroff333).Againstthese
disruptions, Christianfundamentalism-whatever its faults-would
seem to offer a stable realm: a return to community, a resurgence of
civil society, sanctity for the individual.But in the LeftBehindbooks,

at least, none of these values can come at the cost of challengingthe
market. Instead, they are positioned as products of the market itself.
It is the marketas much as Biblicalbelief that offers salvation in the

series. The books offer proof of the utopian goals profferedby neoliberals-that
unfettered market capitalism really does produce a
more equitable, free, and moral society. Like other productions of

the Christian Right, though, the Left Behind books demonstrate the
inconsistency of Christian Right ideology, the cracks and fissures

INVEST IN JESUS
runningthroughthe movement.While the group's leaders-men like

LaHaye,Focus on the Family'sJames Dobson, and Pat Robertsoncling staunchly to a probusiness,neoliberalvision, such ideas sit uncertainlyalongsidethe hope for utopiantransformationlatentin some
forms of Christianity. Even the decision to be "born again," here
rationalized as a market decision, potentially translates into a hope
for transformation.If, as Ulrich Beckand others argue, the neoliberal
abandonment of the welfare state has lead to a state of despair (a
despair Beck calls risk, but despair nevertheless),Christianity,even
in its most fundamentalistform, should respond to this despair.But
in the LeftBehind series, what Christianityasks of its followers is not
Kierkegaard'stransformativeleap of faith but rathera mere continuation of everydaylife in the neoliberalUnited States.At their core,the
Left Behind books establish fundamentalistChristians as not much
different than other late capitalist subjects. Christian conservatism,
which often seems essentially alienated from American culture, in
fact participatesin the same marketrationalityas everyone else.
ANDTHEFUTURE:
THEUNRECOGNIZED
CAMP
PETRAAS REFUGEE
Out of these books, then, emerges a vision of Christian fundamentalism as located not at the extremes of global culture but ratherat
its core. Fundamentalism'ssupposed antimodernityevaporates,and
fundamentalistChristianity emerges as entirely consistent with the
supposedly religion-neutralideology of neoliberalism.Neoliberalism
emerges as humanity's only protection against apocalypse;security
and economic freedom work in fluid coexistence with premillennialist theology. But if the Left Behind books present a complicated logic
of management, if they face apocalypse by retreating behind symbolic and actual gates, in narratingdisaster they nevertheless open a
space to considerthe contradictionbetween neoliberalefficiencyand
the chaos of disaster.And if disaster is something that the neoliberal
professionalcontinually wards off, disaster can neverthelessbecome
a means for an imaginary identification with neoliberalism's Other,
the refugee.

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ANDREWSTROMBECK
In MeanswithoutEnd,GiorgioAgamben describesthe refugee as

the figurewho poses the premierconceptualchallengeto late-capitalist
geopolitics. Agamben calls the refugee "a limit-conceptthat at once
brings a radicalcrisis to the principles of the nation-stateand clears
the way for a renewalof categoriesthatcan no longerbe delayed"(23).
Although Agamben'stargetis the sovereignty of the nation-state,not
neoliberalismper se, his ideas apply generally to the type of insidethe-gates/outside-the-gatesexclusionsI describehere.Also, even if the
domain of the neoliberalprofessionalextends acrossnationalboundaries, the nation-stateretains a potent resonance,for within both the
militia compound and gated community,nationalismremainsa preferred vehicle for defining Otherness.ForAgamben,the refugee represents that form of human life that is no longer representablewithin
the domain of the nation-state.But the very exclusion of the refugee
confrontsglobal power with an inassimilablechallenge:"peoplewho
have really lost every quality and every specific relation except for
the pure fact of being human" (19). The always-degradablecategory
of "human rights" erodes when the refugee appears. The refugee
defies the smooth operation of global categories and, by extension,
the smooth operation of global capitalism.In the neoliberaltwentyfirst century,it is arguablydisaster alone that makes the sufferingof
the Other visible in the global media (of which the Left Behindseries
is a part).26Famines,floods, wars, plagues, earthquakesare the only
vehicle for understandingthe Other as human. (Compare,for example, coverage of the Iranianearthquakeof 2003 with recent coverage
of the Iraniannuclear program.)The refugee becomes that which is
unmanageableby neoliberalism.27
For the most part, the Left Behindbooks validate and enhance a
logic of Otherness,a logic thatworks neatly with the ideology of neoliberalism.Butbecausethe books narrateso much disaster,they instill
scenes of suffering masses that are hard to forget. It is here-in its
acknowledgment of the suffering masses, in its depiction of global
suffering-that the series points, however briefly,to a future beyond
neoliberalism. The Left Behind books offer their readers repeated
visions of displaced peoples creeping across decimated landscapes.
The apex of these scenes is the massive spectacle of many thousands
of Jews taking refuge in the fortress city Petra, after the Antichrist
decides to destroy all Jews:

INVEST IN 3ESUS
Georgeput down well outsidethe growingthrongsat Petra,openedthe

door for ventilation, and Buck and the others dozed on as load after
load of moreescapeeswas delivered.Rayfordand Chaimhad decided

to keep Chaim's presence a secret for as long as possible so as not to
interferewith the massivemove into the safe place.Thoughsome had

begun walking in and others were airlifted,hundredsof thousands
clogged the Siq, awaitingtheir helicopterhop inside. They sang and
rejoiced and prayed. (Desecration262)
Here, the books offer their readersan image familiarfrom contemporary newscasts-the vision of thousands of people on the move. The
context here-fleeing from ethnic cleansing-further links the Left
Behind Jews to the specter of the refugee. But the narrativecontains
the impact of this image, both by depicting these refugees as "singing
and rejoicingand praying"and by keeping security lines intact:the
Jews here enter into one massive gated community.As a result of this
containment,readers cannot transfer the impact of this image elsewhere, to the other depictions of sufferingthroughoutthe books, the
locusts and plagues and mega-earthquakesthat generally affect the
outside masses-those who do not sing and rejoiceand pray.Thebooks
contain the image of the refugee within a logic of Otherness.
Butthis logic of Othernesseventuallybreaksdown, if momentarily.
Forthe majorityof the books, the Otherboth deserves its apocalypse
and embodies it. As noted, the books have difficulty differentiating
between the proles and Big Brother,between the suffering masses
who have not accepted Jesus and the agents of the Antichrist. Both
tend to be equally threateningand thus equally deserving of death by
fiery hailstorm,demonic soldiers, mega-earthquakes,or neo-bubonic
plague. But this sort of logic proves difficult to keep up, and by the
series' end, a sort of compassion for the Other begins to emerge, if
shakily.By the eleventh book, all non-Christianswho have taken the
Antichrist'smarkcannotbe saved. Only at this point in the books are
Christians free to be compassionate toward the fallen-and at this
point the line between inside-the-gatesand outside-the-gatesbecomes
less rigid. RayfordSteele thinks,
(He)knew the prophecy-that peoplewould rejectGod,enoughtimes
that God would harden their hearts and they wouldn't be able to choose
him even if they wanted to. But knowing it didn't mean Rayford under-
stoodit.And it certainlydidn'tmeanhe hadto likeit. He couldn'tmake

187
188
ANDREWSTROMBECK
it compute with the God he knew, the loving and merciful one who
seemed to look for ways to welcomeeveryoneinto heaven,not keep

themout. (18)
Here, the Other becomes less alien. At long last, the series dares to
questionthe tyrannical,brutallogic of the premillennialistGod.Steele,
here, is more mercifulthan his God, even if he still falls back on the
immobile truth of prophecy.Even if this is a case of forgiving those
who are alreadydamned, of visiting the imprisoned after clamoring
for their imprisonment,it neverthelessrepresentsa break.If, as Guy
Debord argues, late-capitalistideology can only admit truths once
they no longer apply-"it is inasmuchas individual reality is not that
it is allowed to appear" (16)-the Left Behind books point to such
reality at the moment of its eclipse. That is, the artificialdivision of
the world into gated and nongated hesitates only at the moment this
division succeeds absolutely.
Only in thesepassagesdoes the books'commitmentto the icy logic
of neoliberalismstartto breakdown, only here does the exclusionary
ontology of the gated community show cracks.Here, the books' careful division of the world into deserving and undeserving loosens.
Here, the specter of the refugee emerges to haunt the clean, securitybased logic of neoliberalism,and the masses outside the gates become
something more than simply a threateningOther. It resembles the
moment when the Bush administration'sjustificationfor the IraqWar
dissolvedinto humanitarianism.One hopes thatthe world will remind
them of this justificationwhen the next flood of refugeesis unleashed.
At such moments, the books revealthe limits of neoliberalism'soverdetermination-in Brown's words, the way the "economy must be
directed, buttressed, and protected by law and policy as well as by
the dissemination of social norms designed to facilitatecompetition,
free trade,and rationaleconomic action on the part of every member
and institution of society" (10). Neoliberalism'sneed to incorporate
"everymemberand institution" leaves it open to gaping exceptions,
which can be leveraged to challenge its relentless logic. Fundamentalist Christianity'sstrident rhetoricfails to evade this logic. But the
refugee, as emerging in the Left Behind books, presents the potential
for just such a challenge.

INVESTIN JESUS 1 189
CONCLUSION
Farfrom one-dimensionaldocuments of the ChristianRight, the Left
Behind books offer a rich glimpse into a certainAmericanimaginary,
one consistent with historicalAmericanparanoiabut simultaneously
attuned to the latest in late-capitalistideology. As novels of disaster,
but disaster containedby neoliberalsecurity,they offer a comforting
and hegemonically reinforcingnarrative.Their rampant popularity,
especially in the post-September 11 era, manifests their resonancein
the Americanimagination.Theircomplex culturalimaginaryextends
beyond a narrow Christian agenda. The books register not only the
difficult question of how the Right unites big-corporation politics
with social conservatismbut also the ability of neoliberalismto cannibalize all forms of political and social life. Ultimately,the problem
with the books is not that they are oppositional but that they are not
oppositional enough. From a Left viewpoint, the American Right's
rampant success of the past thirty years has been viewed with dismay but also with envy; accounts of the Right, such as Apostolidis's
or Berlant's,often end with a wistful note-"if only the Leftcould do
it this well." The Left Behind books, as cultural products at the apex
of a ChristianRight vision, demonstrateinstead the degree to which
the triumph of the Right is itself something of an illusion, and that
the real triumph lies with the relentless procession of post-Fordist
capitalism. In their reinforcementof a neoliberalvision, these books
point ever more to the need for a new politics that supersedes the
oppositions upon which neoliberalismrests so easily. Otherwise, the
gates will continue to go up without much protest.
Notes
1. WhileChristianpopularmusichasarguablymadedeeperinroadsintothe
mainstreamconsciousness-everythreemonths,it seems,a bandlikeSwitchfoot
orJarsof Claycrossesoveronto secularcharts-this Christianmusicis generally
not easily identifiableas such, since these bands' lyrics tend to be ambiguous
abouttheirChristianorigins.
2. LaHayeplayeda key rolein the recentascendanceof the politicalChristian Right, helping found both the Moral Majority and the less well-known but
moreinfluentialCouncilon NationalPolicy.Jenkinswrites for the MoodyBible

190
ANDREWSTROMBECK
Institute and ghostwrote Billy Graham's 1997 autobiography.Critics can be forgiven, then, for reading the Left Behind books as manifestations of their authors'
religious and political agenda. As Amy Johnson Frykholm observes, the books
do seem designed to further this political agenda, or at least this is how Tyndale
Publishers frames the books in its advertising to Christian bookstores (155). For
Tyndale,Frykhouk argues, there exists no difference between increasing the company's bottom line and converting more souls.
3. In addition to the series' novels, the Left Behind brand has produced two
movies, a children's series, graphic novels, and a "military"and "political"series
(a video game is apparently forthcoming), which relate the events of Left Behind
from the viewpoint of other characters.Besides advertising widely and maintaining a thriving Web site, TyndalePublishers has also sponsored a NASCAR vehicle.
4. As a number of commentators note, the American version of this theology
has been shaped primarily by two sources: the teachings of nineteenth-century
preacherJohn Darby and the publication of the ScofieldReferenceBible,which used
footnotes to chart Darby's ideas about the rapture and tribulation. See, for example, Frykhouk 15-18.
5. In the second chapter of Capital,Marx, quoting the Book of Revelation,
uses the Mark of the Beast as a metaphor for the money-form, the basis for the
market exchange so lauded by neoliberalism: "And that no man may buy or sell,
save that he had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name"
(181). For Marx, the apocalypse arrives as soon as commodity exchange takes
over culture.
6. A note on textual selections: a full treatment of the rich, dense books in
this series would take far more than a short essay. Nevertheless, the texts in the
Left Behind series display a consistency and continuity that allows them to function as a coherent system of ideas, with their various themes interacting rhizomatically. As a result, I strive to treat the books here as one large text, which, for
all intents and purposes, they are. But because the books develop one long story,
with the early books providing back story and the later books offering a fullfledged global vision, picking episodes from among them is necessary for a discussion of how the books develop a multifaceted neoliberal vision.
7. Glenn Shuck's Marksof theBeast:TheLeftBehindNovelsand the Strugglefor
EvangelicalIdentitywas published too late to be considered in this essay.
8. As Paul Apostodilis shows in his reading of Oliver North on James Dobson's Focuson theFamily(132-34), these ambiguous feelings toward the media are
characteristic of a Christian media culture that uses every telecommunications
tool at its disposal, even while decrying the pernicious influence of media on the
country.
9. Of course, neoliberalismis in some ways simply a new term for the set of
policies promoted beginning in the 1970s. The rise of "cultural neoliberalism"
constitutes a response to the flexible accumulation of post-Fordist capitalism.
PrefiguringBrownand Duggan, though along slightly differentlines, David Harvey
observes the wide dissemination of market values under flexible accumulation:

INVEST IN JESUS I 191
"Entrepreneurialismnow characterizes not only business action, but realms of

life as diverse as urban governance, the growth of informal sector production,
labour market organization, research and development, and it has even reached
into the nether corners of academic, literary,and artistic life" (171).
10. These tensions do surface in the Left Behind books. The first book, for
example, castigates abortion as part of an "industry,"critiquing the operation of
markets in at least one sphere of social life (268). But these tensions tend to be
exceptional; the books' overarching logic supports markets.
11. Jameson touches on the idea of cognitive mapping in Postmodernism,or
The CulturalLogicof LateCapitalismbut develops it more fully in his reading of
conspiracy films in TheGeopoliticalAesthetic,from which this quotation is taken.
12. On militias and militia culture, see Berlet and Lyons;Aho, ThePoliticsof
Righteousnessand ThisThingof Darkness;and Neiwert. On gated communities, see
Blakely and Snyder.
13. The connection is not lost on those with a militia mindset. Military analyst and mercenary Thomas Chittum, in his racist, apocalyptic Civil WarII-a
book much praised on far right Web sites-reads both militia spaces and gated
communities as different forms of preparation for what he sees as a coming race
war: "Anglos in the southwest are abandoning the Reconquista lands, seeking
refuge in the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain states .... Other anglos,
mostly affluent professionals, are stockading themselves in walled and guarded
suburbs all over the southwest" (164). Although reactionary and racist, Chittum
nevertheless seems to grasp some of the key fears operating around largely white
gated communities. The rhetoric around these communities, couched in fears of
increasing crime, easily translates into "anglos stockading themselves."
14. The fundamentalists' love for SUVs is so noticeable that it has prompted
its own countermovement within the evangelical community, a group of environmentally inclined Christians who run the anti-SUV "What Would Jesus Drive"
Web site: http://www.whatwouldjesusdrive.org/.
15. As McAlister notes, much of the books' technology-such as universally
accessible wireless networks-is currently impossible. McAlister attributes this
to the authors' "technological naivety"-implying, perhaps, that more sophisticated readers understand that such things are infeasible. I would argue that if
LaHaye and Jenkins exaggerate their technology, these exaggerations are well
within the technological imaginary of a neoliberal elite. In other words, even if
universally accessible networks aren't currently available, that's exactly what the
neoliberal professional desires (and gets, to a degree, since many of the world's
elite spaces-first-class lounges, hotels, and luxury coffee chains-are indeed
wireless accessible).
16. The idea of The Place supports, of course, the Right's preferred, privatized solution for the problems of the inner city: the Bush administration's "faithbased initiatives."
17. See Faiola Al.
18. In interviews, LaHaye has repeatedly described the scene of the series'

192
1 ANDREWSTROMBECK
inspiration, in which he notices a married pilot flirting with a flight attendant

and then imagines the Rapture occurring right then and there. The voyeurism and
self-righteousness of this scene aside, it's also interesting that it necessarily occurs
in a first-class cabin (pilots seldom venture into coach). Thus, the entire series
originates, fittingly, within an elite space.
19. For an interesting consideration of how multiculturalism works in concert with the masculinist Christianity of the Promise Keepers, see Mike Hill's
After Whiteness.
20. Frykholm reads the books' market approach to faith as merely a choice
of metaphor.She observes of an interview with Jenkins, "Becominga 'son' of God
involves something modeled on consumer culture--a commodity exchange with
salvation as that commodity" (168).Frykholmtends to describe many of the series'
narrative choices in terms of Jenkins's particular tastes. Since my own reading
sees the books as products of a larger cultural imaginary (of which LaHaye and
Jenkins are a part), I view this choice of metaphor as not incidental but representative of larger currents in the book.
21. The passage above is from Desecration,the volume published in 2001. Its
sales shot up, way up, after the September 11 attacks, making it the best selling
fictional book of the year.
22. As Brown observes, neoliberal social policy often consists simply of producing as many rational actors as possible. She writes, "Because neo-liberalism
casts rational action as a norm rather than an ontology, social policy is the means
by which the state produces subjectswhose compass is set by their rational assessment of the costs and benefits of certainacts, whether teen pregnancy,tax cheating,
or retirement planning. The neo-liberal citizen is calculating rather than ruleabiding, a Benthamite rather than a Hobbesian. The state is one of many sites
framing the calculations leading to social behaviors that keep costs low and productivity high" (16).
23. Again, as Frykholm notes, this seems to be intended by Tyndale, who
endlessly promotes the books as community-building commodities.
24. The example of the Left Behind books also demonstrates that the supposedly "rational"forces of capitalism quite easily make use of the "irrational"
desires of fundamentalism. This phenomenon is not limited to Christian fundamentalism, Timothy Mitchell has demonstrated the key role fundamentalist Islam
has historically played for the world oil industry, arguing that BenjaminBarber's
famed "Jihadvs. McWorld" opposition masks a symbiosis that Mitchell terms
"McJihad."
25. Schulman describes California's Proposition 13 antitax revolt-which
triggered an avalancheof privatization-as the galvanizing moment when a struggling conservatism found its full voice. From here, Schulman argues, New Right
organizers were able to build a powerful network of related interests, including
evangelical Christians, that gained victory after victory, culminating in Reagan's
election. In her description of cultural neoliberalism, Duggan assigns Proposition
13 a similarly important status.

INVEST IN JESUS
26. In "The Mass Public and the Mass Subject,"Michael Warner famously
argues that disaster serves to fix the identity of the late-capitalist subject. "The
transitive pleasure of witnessing/injuring (through disaster) makes available our
translation into the disembodied publicity of the mass subject.By injuring a mass
body-preferably a really massive body, somewhere-we constitute ourselves as
a noncorporeal mass witness" (179). For the most part, this is exactly the way disaster functions in the Left Behind series: readers witness the mass injuries resulting from demon-locusts and identify themselves with the unsympathetic gaze
watching the destruction. But even if Agamben's refugee merely represents an
inassimilable remainder, a point where Warner's disaster-identification mechanism breaks down, it still may offer a lever with which to pry open the airtight
hegemony of market solutions found in the Left Behind series.
27. This idea is visible also in the resistances it produces. In coverage of the
2005 tsunami, the American media continually worked to challenge any vision of
the Other as human, regularly focusing on either the paltry number of American
dead or the ways in which ThirdWorld "bureaucracy"and "corruption"thwarted
the aid efforts of the West.The rumors of a "childtrade"were especially distasteful
in this regard.
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Invest in Jesus: Neoliberalism and The Left Behind Novels

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Invest in Jesus: Neoliberalism and the Left behind Novels

Author(s): Andrew Strombeck

This content downloaded from 200.128.35.125 on Wed, 4 Feb 2015 15:46:34 PM

In caseof theRapture,carwill bedriverless.

In caseof theRapture,canI haveyourcar?

contemporary bumper sticker

Wildly selling throughout the past decade, the Left Behind

a certain America, in their devotion to free-marketcapitalism they

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Christians.4 The eponymous first book describes the chaos resulting

This content downloaded from 200.128.35.125 on Wed, 4 Feb 2015 15:46:34 PM

This content downloaded from 200.128.35.125 on Wed, 4 Feb 2015 15:46:34 PM

that the books demonstrate their commitment to neoliberal values.

This content downloaded from 200.128.35.125 on Wed, 4 Feb 2015 15:46:34 PM

out a story catchy enough to capture the imagination of millions. A

This content downloaded from 200.128.35.125 on Wed, 4 Feb 2015 15:46:34 PM

"spectral"time, a time that is "out of joint"because it is neither the

This content downloaded from 200.128.35.125 on Wed, 4 Feb 2015 15:46:34 PM

This also means thatneoliberalculnot without producingtensions).1'0

This content downloaded from 200.128.35.125 on Wed, 4 Feb 2015 15:46:34 PM

This content downloaded from 200.128.35.125 on Wed, 4 Feb 2015 15:46:34 PM

This content downloaded from 200.128.35.125 on Wed, 4 Feb 2015 15:46:34 PM

and the different. These communities, which have proliferated across

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crowds in general"(224).In his landmarkreading of "FortressLA,"

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shelter organized a certain fifties suburban imaginary, the "safe room"

This content downloaded from 200.128.35.125 on Wed, 4 Feb 2015 15:46:34 PM

and high-poweredlaptop computers.Forthe neoliberalsubject,these

This content downloaded from 200.128.35.125 on Wed, 4 Feb 2015 15:46:34 PM

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naturally favors Christians.As McAlisterobserves, these Christians

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This content downloaded from 200.128.35.125 on Wed, 4 Feb 2015 15:46:34 PM

This content downloaded from 200.128.35.125 on Wed, 4 Feb 2015 15:46:34 PM

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She writes, "The culture wars strategy allowed emerging neoliberal

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than anyone else ever. Great international encyclopedias devote twenty

thousandwordsto describinghimandhis influenceon theworld.Even

at Bank of Americabecause they're everywhere,or to buy Microsoft

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of borderless commerce. The reality, of course, is that a digital divide

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ordinate on a whole set of issues, from abortion to antitaxation.In

Late capitalism, and the neoliberal philosophy that promotes

"parsinghuman beings into free-floatinglabor units, commodities,

civil society, sanctity for the individual.But in the LeftBehindbooks,

It is the marketas much as Biblicalbelief that offers salvation in the

unfettered market capitalism really does produce a

more equitable, free, and moral society. Like other productions of

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runningthroughthe movement.While the group's leaders-men like

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In MeanswithoutEnd,GiorgioAgamben describesthe refugee as

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Georgeput down well outsidethe growingthrongsat Petra,openedthe

load of moreescapeeswas delivered.Rayfordand Chaimhad decided

interferewith the massivemove into the safe place.Thoughsome had

stoodit.And it certainlydidn'tmeanhe hadto likeit. He couldn'tmake

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seemed to look for ways to welcomeeveryoneinto heaven,not keep