As it turns out, Left Behind has very little to do with the novel it’s based on. In many ways, that’s a very good thing. The first book in LaHaye’s series follows two protagonists: "revered" airline pilot Rayford Steele and superstar journalist Cameron "Buck" Williams. Unexplained disappearances rock the world, and a charismatic Antichrist rises to power, while Rayford, his daughter Chloe, and Buck prepare to survive the end times as part of the guerrilla "Tribulation Force." This all sounds tremendously exciting, until you realize that both men are arrogant and vindictive bores, the Rapture is forgotten within a few chapters, and the Antichrist is a minor Romanian politician jockeying for leadership of the UN.

With its unpleasant characters, glacial pace, and bizarre preoccupation with phone calls and travel plans, Left Behind may be one of the dullest books (and most cynical money grabs, since its story would be stretched over 15 more volumes and a young adult series) to ever hit the bestseller lists. A 2000 film adaptation, starring Kirk Cameron of Growing Pains, didn’t redeem it.

I’m reasonably confident guessing the original script for this version of Left Behind was not written for Tim LaHaye’s megafranchise at all. The characters and basic setup of the book are channeled into a disaster movie about Rayford (played by Nicolas Cage) struggling to land his plane amid the chaos of millions of people inexplicably disappearing. It’s more Langoliers than Leftovers: runways have gone dark, fuel is running low, and the remaining passengers are growing more paranoid by the minute. There’s no UN, no Antichrist, and in fact the whole plot of the movie covers 25 pages in the book — although, granted, they’re probably the most exciting 25 pages.

The whole plot of the movie covers 25 pages in the book



Left Behind is far less overtly religious than its source. But stripping out almost the entire plot reveals a grim story about religion, evil, and salvation. One of the long-running criticisms of the series, covered at length in writer Fred Clark’s brilliant deconstruction of the novels, is that it’s a fundamentalist revenge fantasy, where an angry God comes back to give sinners their just deserts. The book portrays most of those left behind as either willfully ignorant or outright evil, to the point of including a conversation about how doctors are upset that there are no fetuses left to abort. In turning an evangelical book into a semi-secular movie, the filmmakers somehow, perhaps accidentally, made the story even bleaker: God is capricious and terrifying, and he is going to hurt you.

In any medium, this is an inescapable fact of Left Behind, and of most Christian accounts of the apocalypse. Still, it’s usually balanced by descriptions of God’s love and a promise of protection and eternal life if sinners are born again. Someone may question why God allows evil in the world — as Chloe frequently does in the film — but they’re quickly set straight. Fans of Left Behind in particular often describe it as a hopeful book, promising that redemption is still possible after believers disappear. Whether or not it’s convincing, there’s at least an assertion that God is, in fact, good, and people who reject him are getting what they deserve.