Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days

This section of the novel opens with another important chapter to the book’s evangelical message as Rayford describes his faith to Chloe, Hattie, and Buck. The authors employ dramatic irony in this chapter to build narrative tension, and this pattern becomes clear when Rayford is disheartened and believes that his message is failing to reach Chloe or Buck, though in reality, both are close to full belief and are deeply affected by Rayford’s speech. The disconnect between the reader’s insight into how the speech affects Buck and how Rayford perceives his own efficacy produces suspense about when Rayford will learn that he has in fact had an important impact on his companions. Additionally, because the apocalyptic premise of the story places considerable emphasis upon the status of each individual’s beliefs, their personal conversion journeys comprise a central aspect of the novel’s action.

The fact that Buck’s progress toward faith comes alongside his increasing skepticism for Carpathia is also important. The authors complicate the theme of The Balance Between Skepticism and Faith by suggesting that doubt is important to ensure that people place their faith in the right things (in this context, placing faith in Jesus rather than in the Antichrist). While Buck’s conversion imminently precedes the key meeting with Carpathia, he emphasizes that his decision is genuine rather than motivated solely by fear of Carpathia’s potential hypnotizing influence.

Similar to Rayford’s conversion experience, the authors use Buck’s internal conflict to directly address assumptions about Evangelical Christianity. For example, Buck interprets the phrase “born-again” as being “akin to ‘ultraright-winger’ or ‘fundamentalist.’ Now, if he chose to take a step he had never dreamed of taking [. . .] he would also [be obligated to] educat[e] the world on what that confusing little term really meant” (396). The placement of the phrase “educating the world” alongside what the passage insinuates are reductive viewpoints on Christianity suggests the authors’ broader goal. Just as with Rayford’s internal monologue before his conversion, Buck’s views are used to highlight and attempt to undercut preconceived notions that the reader may hold about Evangelical Christianity. In the context of the novel, the reference to political conservatism highlights the importance of 20th-century American Evangelical Christianity.

The climactic moments in this section of the novel are Buck’s conversion and the meeting with Carpathia that immediately follows it, in which the newly appointed UN Secretary General kills two former collaborators and convinces everyone in the room that they saw something different. Despite the extensive foreshadowing about Carpathia’s identity as the Antichrist, the murders are abrupt because they are the first overtly evil action that Carpathia takes. The theme of Corruption and Instability in a Post-Crisis World therefore becomes a prominent theme throughout this section of the novel, and Carpathia makes direct reference to the opportunity created by the state of the world when he declares, “The global village has become united, and we face the greatest task and the greatest opportunity ever bestowed upon humankind” (448). The fact that this grand speech immediately precedes the murders makes it a significant final point of suggested diplomacy before Carpathia begins exerting overt control. The choice of the word “opportunity” also suggests the opportunism that characterizes the exertion of power amidst the post-rapture world represented in the novel.

Left Behind concludes with the four central characters deciding to form the “Tribulation Force” to fight against the Antichrist. The suggestion of the tribulations ahead foreshadows and builds suspense for the following books in the series. It also alludes to the community formed among those left behind who have decided to become Christians.