Book Review title


Left Behind? The Facts Behind the Fiction
by LeAnn Snow Flesher,
Judson Press, 2006, 163 pages, $14.00 (paperback),
ISBN-10: 0-8170-1490-X

We have had a number of articles in this journal discussing the impact of dispensational millennialism on apologetic issues. A large number of protestant denominations teach that the history of the earth is made up of roughly six 1,000-year dispensations, the last of which we are living in. According to this creed, our dispensation will end with the rapture, the seven-year tribulation, and the physical reign of Christ over the world from Jerusalem. The current interest in this approach to prophecy started with denominational preachers and scholars like John Walvoord, president of Dallas Theological Seminary, Charles Ryrie, Jerry Jenkins, and Tim LaHaye. Jenkins, LaHaye and other authors have written over 20 fictional books promoting this theological belief system. We have talked about the biblical errors in this denominational system (see “Destructive Dispensationalism” in November/December 2008), and we have also discussed how this creed has impacted apologetics. Young earth creationists and flood geology have been products of this belief system.

LeAnn Snow Flesher is a professor of Old Testament at American Baptist Seminary of the West in Berkeley, California. This book is a theological study of the “Left Behind” belief system. The book is divided into eight chapters: the first four chapters discuss the history of premillennial dispensationalism. The last four chapters involve biblical studies of Daniel and Revelation and how they should be interpreted. The author’s own views raise a few issues in the latter parts of the book where the implications for the Church are discussed. Overall however, the book does a good job of explaining and dissecting the dispensational millennial movement.

We recommend this book to a biblically literate reader who wants to understand the left behind movement and dispensational millennialism. Any biblical understandings outside of that narrow focus will not be found.
 

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