The Late Great Planet Earth
by Hal Lindsey

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Book Reviews of The Late Great Planet Earth

Book Review: To every thing there is a season...
Summary: 3 Stars

There, he said it. Quoting Demosthenes at the very outset of the book, we've been put on notice. The mystery is, why do people want to believe this?

I remember 'The Late Great Planet Earth' from many years ago. I believe I was 15 years old at the time when I first read the book, an easy-to-read text even then, so much so that I completed it in one sitting. However, I am reminded of the letter of Paul to the Corinthians - when I was a child, I thought like a child. I have grown up, and contrary to many of the messages that 'The Late Great Planet Earth' seemed to impart, the earth is still here.

The Bible is full of prophecy, and people are interested in prophecy. There are people who seem to need prophecy of death and destruction - this is as true today as it has been throughout most of history. Most cultures have had an apocalyptic strand of prophecy. One thing that amazes me, however, is the ease with which we in the late twentieth/early twenty-first centuries co-opt someone else's prophecy and start preparing for our own destruction.

*How to read the Bible*
There are many different ways to read the Bible. In fact, there is disagreement in religious communities today about how to read the Bible, drawing from the more liberal interpreters on the one hand, and the more fundamentalist/literalist interpreters (and let us not forget that to take things literally is a choice of interpretation) on the other, with a myriad of views falling outside of these two primary camps. Lindsay is part of the fundamentalist camp - which perhaps makes it all the more amazing the often extreme non-literal interpretations attached to the various prophecies. Those who are so insistent on a word-for-word literal rendering of the beginning of the Bible are the first to attach the most non-literal interpretations to the last book of the New Testament (I have yet to meet anyone, fundamentalist or not, who literally expects a seven-headed monster with ten horns to arise from the sea). The principles by which some things can be treated as symbolic and other things must be taken literally are never made clear.

Lindsay's interpretations do not come solely from the Revelation to John, but draw from prophecies collected through the entire biblical text. Daniel figures prominently, as do other prophets major and 'minor' from the Hebrew scriptures. Lindsay also finds end-time prophecies in Genesis, Chronicles, and the gospels.

With this material, Lindsay constructed a scenario worthy of any apocalyptic novel, but did not see his product as fiction; nor did the tens of millions who flocked to bookstores to purchase this. Perhaps the most crucial element, one repeated frequently by Lindsay, was the restoration of Israel. Lindsay pinned much on this fact and his reading that the end times, the rapture, and the second coming would take place 'within a generation' of this event. He even went so far as to say the crucial date should be 1988. And the year is now...?

Lindsay put many things together in his synthesis. For example, the monster of Daniel was the European Community, which at the time had ten nations, seven major and three minor. This was the ten-nation confederacy needed for the antichrist. The European Community today has twice that number of nations and continues to grow, and is highly unlikely to produce an antichrist figure; indeed, one wonders why the more obvious choice of the Arab nations (most of whom also occupy former Roman territories) were not chosen; politics today would look to them (from Morocco to Turkey there are ten nations, seven major) who are increasingly popularly characterised as anti-Christian.

*What about Prophecy?*
There is a difference between prophecy and fortune-telling or future-telling, and Lindsay's text never makes this crucial distinction. Prophecy is, quite simply, truth-telling. To be prophetic is not to predict the future, but to call attention to the issues of the day and what needs to be reformed. One of the important things to realise, if you will forgive my awkward language, is that prophecy need not come true to be true. The Bible testifies to this - Jonah's prophecy toward Nineveh was true, even though the destruction he foretold did not happen; Jonah was unhappy about this, but the fact that the compilers of the Bible chose to include a story of 'failed' prophecy shows both that God has the infinite capacity for mercy, and can decide differently, but also that any particular interpretation we put on prophecies might not be the proper ones.

The Bible itself says we will not know the end times - how could this book unlock those mysteries? Wouldn't that prove at least part of the Bible false? Another truth we overlook is that end-time prophecies have been coming true all along - Nostradamus is perhaps a good counterweight here, seeing not one but many antichrists in history; perhaps bar-codes are the mark of the beast for our present day, just as the blemishes of bubonic plague were the mark of the beast for another age; perhaps the great fire followed by the great plague in London in 1665/1666 (ominous numbers echoed in other prophetic texts) were the fulfillment of death and fire prophecies for those times. Christians have been living in the end of times since the beginning.

Lindsay's text is flawed but interesting, but perhaps even more interesting is the reaction of people to it. Faith should be more based on love and God's goodness, not fear of destruction. I have little doubt that Lindsay's purpose was pastoral concern - as my friend Ron Allen (a New Testament scholar) once said, the Revelation to John is one of the more pastoral works in the Bible - it is concerned that people be ready, be prepared, and this was probably Lindsay's primary intention as well. However, we still wait, and watch. Stay tuned...

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