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Will Catholics Be Left Behind: A Critique of the Rapture and Today's Prophecy Preachers (Modern Apologetics Library)
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Average Rating:  out of 22 Reviews
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Price: $16.95
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Sale: $9.85
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Manufacturer: Ignatius Press
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EAN (European Article Number): 9780898709506
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Author: Carl E. Olson
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Publisher: Ignatius Press
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Dewey Decimal Number: 236.9
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Publication Date: 2003-05
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Reading Level: 395
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Description: An exhaustive Catholic critique of premillennial dispensationalism, the "pretrib rapture," the Left Behind phenomenon, and Fundamentalist eschatology, written by a former Fundamentalist/dispensationalist. Examines the historical, biblical, and theological roots of the "left behind" theology and the belief in a rapture event separate from the Second Coming. Also contains chapters on the Book of Revelation, the millennial kingdom, and Catholic eschatology.
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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: Will Catholics be left behind? |
Date: 2008-12-12 |
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Details: I only have a couple of chapters at the beginning of the book read. I'm finding that the writing is not holding my attention. Too much emphasis on what the Fundamentalists denominations have to say about the Rapture and the Left Behind books, which I have read. I enjoyed the fiction of these books, knowing as I was reading that they were fiction. I would like to have it talk about what the Roman Catholic Church teaches on the Second Coming. Perhaps as I get further along in the book, the author will write on that topic. |
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Review Summary: Not Bad, But Flawed |
Date: 2008-08-28 |
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Details: This is a pretty good summary of Catholic views on eschatology and a critical response to dispensationalism. It's interesting that a Catholic apologist would only feel the need to present these issues as a response to the popularity of dispensationalism in America, focusing on "Left Behind." However, it is a little embarassing that in doing so Olson has to rely on so many Protestant authors to make his case. One example that really bothers me: instead of describing Luis de Alcsar's preterist treatise on Revelation from first hand acquaintance, he cites Steve Gregg's parallel commentary on Revelation. Is the problem that de Alcasar's book was written in Latin and has not been translated into English in a modern edition? That it has not is a sign of the Catholic Church's disinterest in the topic. That Olson has not read it is a sign that he doesn't know Latin or doesn't know it well enough to read de Alcasar's book, though of course he defends the Church's continued practice of using Latin as a church interlingua. Go figure.
Worse still is the "black hat/white hat" presentation of Protestants and Catholics. Martin Luther and John Nelson Darby are presented as rigid, egomaniacal ideologues. At least they didn't burn anyone at the stake for being a heretic, which is more than anyone can say for the Catholic Church. But could Olson make any effort to undertand the at least partially valid criticisms that motivated Darby? For example, he could have started with Darby's oft quoted statement that he left the Church of England because he did not find the primitive Christian faith of the New Testament in that institution. And that, at the end of the day, is the main motive behind all Protestant movements of reformation and renewal: when you read the New Testament, the Church that is described only looks vaguely like the Catholic Church or a mainline Protestant denomination. Olson is going to have to do a better job of explaining to people why we should think of the Catholic Church as anything other than just another modern denomination before we're going to accept the idea that the Church is the Kingdom of Heaven. The fact that there are at least 3 major divisions in Christianty (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant) puts the lie to the claim that the Church is the Kingdom.
Finally, there is no discussion of the vast literature of Catholic private prophecy, mostly the visions of saints and mystics and appartitions of Mary. While no faithful Catholic is required to believe any private prophecy, they may if it has received official sanction, and many do for the unapproved ones as well (such as Medjugorie and Bayside). These prophecies speak of a coming Minor Chastisement ending in Three Days of Darkness followed by an Age of Peace (the Age of Mary). One does not need to be a Jungian to see that these visions have exactly the same function within Catholicism that the dispensational focus on the signs of the End Times, the coming Rapture, the Great Tribulation and the Millenium do for "fundamentalist" Protestantism. They are ways for the faithful to deal with a world that often seems pointlessly evil and apostate. That most Catholics are completely ignorant of this strand of their tradition is more a testament to the extremely low standards of Catholic catechesis in recent decades, rather than a repudiation of these ideas by the Vatican. At least members of the independent Bible churches know what they believe. It is disingenuous to attack dispensationalism and warn Catholics against it when you can't even present the Catholic tradition for Catholics, who, as Olson admits, occassionally need to go to Protestant Bible studies because their parish doesn't offer one. |
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Review Summary: Excellent book |
Date: 2007-04-03 |
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Details: Carl Olson has become an important, and orthodox, Catholic voice addressing some of the great heresies of our age. This book is one of the best I have read by him.
I am a cradle Catholic, and never believed in the Rapture. However, I have been challenged by evangelicals I know, and even though I am very familiar with the bible, my evangelical friends would just scratch their heads when I went over the relevant verses with them and spoke about the dangers of anachronism. From their perspective, they just couldn't figure out why I refused to see something (the rapture) that was "clearly" in the bible.
However, pre, mid, and/or post-tribulation dispensationalism are NOT clearly in the bible, and this book does an excellent job outlining why. Furthermore, almost all the evangelical authors and preachers who believe in the rapturist system are frighteningly anti-Catholic and this book does a good job explaining why these people's false ideas need refuting. There is a section devoted to the most prominent exponents of rapturist theology that is very interesting.
There are some authors and preachers who are dispensationalists who are not anti-Catholic. (Jack Van Impe is one example). Olson is careful to be charitable and point out people's strengths. He does this with Pastor Van Impe whom I continue to enjoy on television on occasion, even if I disagree with him.
However, Olson is correct to address this issue, and address it strongly. The Left Behind series sells millions of copies, and the ideas contained within are seriously misguided, not to mention anti-Catholic and neo-Gnostic.
This is a great book that is well worth the read. |
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Review Summary: A Good Read For Serious Catholics |
Date: 2006-05-23 |
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Details: WOW - what an AWESOME book! It's very well written, and is backed by concrete facts and sound Catholic teaching. It is a little bit of a heavy read, so it may be a bit much for someone who is new to the faith and/or religious terminology - at least, it was for me... However, as a new Catholic (ex-Baptist), this book really helped to straighten out a lot of confusion I'd always had on the subject matter. I ABSORBED what I read on the pages, and could not put the book down! Everywhere I went, I took it as reading material, until I was finally done with it. If you're someone who is better read in Catholic books than I am, then reading this will be a real treat. |
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Review Summary: Leaving "Left Behind" Behind |
Date: 2006-05-16 |
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Details: The unprecedented popularity of the Left Behind series of books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins presents a dilemma for Catholic apologists and others from historic forms of Christianity. While not objecting to a well spun adventure yarn, the books present as fact the relatively novel ideas of dispensationalism which arose in the most sectarian and anti-Catholic regions of Protestant thought. When one combines the fact that the historic churches and the churches of the Reformation have not always made clear their eschatological views and the contemporary culture's obsession with conspiriacy theories and fortune telling of all sorts , it is a recipe in which the sensationalistic elements of dispensational thought can strike a chord with a wide audience - including a Catholic one.
Carl E. Olson, as a former adherent of the dispensationalist view, understands its appeal to those seeking simplisitic answers to difficult questions. He also understands that, unlike other branches of Christianity where a large amount of freedom is left for individuals to interpret details, dispensationalism cannot survive without every "i" dotted and every "t" crossed. For it is not merely an eschatological system but an overarching hermeneutic that governs the interpretation of every facet of Scripture. Thus any crack in the system sends the whole facade tumbling down and must be opposed vigorously by its followers.
In Will Catholics Be Left Behind?, Olson exposes the many cracks in the dispensationalist system to the light of day and leaves it in utter ruins. This is not merely a point of intellectual interest for Olson; as a convert to Catholicism, he knows the hostility to Catholicism inherent in the system and the complete incompatibility of the dispensationalist vision with Catholic doctrine. He contrasts the malformed understanding of Scripture and the Church at its very heart and contrasts this with the rich and firmly rooted understanding of these and other topics that underpins historical Christianity. The result is the complete vanquishing of his dispensationalist opponents as their logical inconsistency, historical ignorance, and parochial outlook is bared for all to see.
The book itself is divided into two parts. The first outlines the beliefs and development of the dispensationalist doctrine. At this point, Olson points out only the most obvious of problems and responds with the basics of the historic Christian view as a counterweight. In his presentation of the origins of the dispensationalist system, he wisely avoids the peripheral issue of who came first with the doctrine. Dispensationalists often argue that John Nelson Darby, frequently creditied with dispensationalism's founding in 1830, had predecessors in the 1600s and 1700s. Yet whether the system was created in the 17th, 18th, or 19th centuries is irrelevant - it had at most a handful of followers prior to Darby and it was a novelty in comparison to the whole of Christian history.
The second part of the book is a complete deconstruction of the dispensationalist system. Most telling is when, applying a theme developed by historians of American Protestantism such as George Marsden and Mark Noll, Olson demonstrates the reliance of dispensationalists on a now outmoded understanding of science and classification pioneered by Francis Bacon. This fixation with an ideal of the scientific method most popular in Anglo-American intellectual circles prior to the 20th century does much to explain the complete misreading of the symbolism and poetic imagery common in the apocalyptic writings of Holy Scripture. It also does much to explain why dispensationalism never arose prior to the modern period and only in the English speaking world. In the end, fundamentalism in general and dispensationalism in particular are as modernist in nature as the liberalism they oppose.
In successive chapters, Olson exposes the complete artificiality of the dispensationalist invention of Church-Israel and Kingdom of Heaven-Kingdom of God barriers, the inconsistency in application and historical groundlessness of their so-called "literal" method of interpretation, and the total absence of both Scriptural and historical justification of the dispensationalist doctrine of the pretribulational rapture. The latter in particular is an extraordinary example of careful exegesis as each of the dispensationalists' pet passages to justify their rapture doctrine are placed back in context and shown to either be about the Second Coming of Christ or not relevant to end times issues at all. It becomes clear that without the system assumed a priori, no one would ever come to such a conclusion. The pretibulational rapture was constructed to overcome a problem of consistency and then passages of Scripture were misapplied to justify its invention after the fact. When all is said and done, Olson has completely unraveled the dispensationalist fantasy and left it in ashes.
Olson then closes with the Catholic vision of the endtimes. This may disappoint some because it is not overly concerned with military hardware but with spiritual armor; it is concerned less with escaping danger than with martyrdom; it concerns itself less with what Satan will do as with what Christ has already done. It is a vision of glory that all beleivers in Christ will share - presented in eternity as the marraige supper of the Lamb and foreshadowed in time by the Holy Eucharist. For those who worship following the historic liturgical pattern of the Church, they need not fret over when Christ will come to take them away for He has never left them.
The challenges presented by such popular works as the Left Behind series has caused more historically rooted Christians to finally wake up to the doctrinal aberrations inherent in the dispensationalist system. This has necessitated a careful study of eschatology and a thorough presentation of their own tradition's views in a form accessible to the layman. For Catholics, it will be hard to top Will Catholics Be Left Behind? - in this book, Carl E. Olson has written an essential work of apologetics not just for Catholics, but for all Christians so they now can leave Left Behind behind.
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