442 - The Terminal Generation

The Terminal Generation
By Hal Lindsey
With C. C. Carlson. Old Tappan, N. J., Fleming H. Revell,1976.192pp. $6.95.

As Hal Lindsey would say in one of his characteristic bursts of eighth grade eloquence, the apocalypse is real heavy today. Twentieth Century-Fox has treated the American public's blood lust to The Omen, a grisly film (and later a paperback) about a devil child born with 666 as a birthmark at the base of his skull. His wealthy father and mother die, victims of his satanic power, and he is left to use their fortune in assembling the power of the great dictator who will come before the end of the world. It's good to see the Bible making a comeback in Hollywood, but where is Cecil B. DeMille when we need him most?

443 - The Terminal Generation

If your tastes don't run to exegesis of Daniel and Revelation, there are several different versions of cultural apocalypse from which to choose: aerosol cans destroying the ozone layer of the earth's atmosphere, the polar ice cap melting, nuclear bombs or power plants generating radiation, poor nations attacking rich nations in a final global war, final destruction through massive starvation.

Enter Hal Lindsey, one of the primary proponents of the end of the world "according to God's plan." With relentless and depressing regularity, Lindsey has given us The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth (1972), There's a New World Coming (1973), The Liberation of Planet Earth (1974), and now The Terminal Generation. Seldom has a "prophet" been accorded such honor, or rather sales, in his own land. Bantam Books estimates that'more than two million copies of The Late Great Planet Earth are now in print, and The Terminal Generation sold 100,000 copies during its first three months. Before his conversion, Lindsey was a boozing, Mississippi River boat captain, and he knows how to play his cards.

In a pique brought on by the election campaign and the World Series, I subjected myself to the entire Lindsey corpus, and several features emerged. Lindsey's ardor for the apocalypse has cooled somewhat under the weight of his popularity and royalties. With the exception of some scattered passages and the last chapter, The Terminal Generation is essentially pastoral in tone and character, designed to communicate the hope given by Christ through conversion. Lindsey's rapture, pre-tribulationist theories are tacked on at the end as "the ultimate hope": "I believe the Bible teaches that just preceding the last seven years of history before Jesus Christ returns to this earth He is going to mysteriously and secretly snatch out all those who believe in Him personally." In contrast to his earlier books, he is now more concerned with individual salvation and morality. The Terminal Generation represents an extended verbatim, covering reports on how Lindsey brought comfort and hope to individuals filled with cynicism and despair. Like Oral Roberts, Lindsey is going respectable, and while this may broaden his support, his new book lacks the zest and kooky charm of The Late Great Planet Earth.

But several themes in Lindsey's writing remain unchanged. He is an uncompromising biblical literalist, or claims he is, schooled in Darby, Scofield dispensationalism and premillennialism. "The most extraordinary and unique claim of the Bible about itself is that although human beings were used to write it, the words are exactly the ones that God wanted to say" (his italics). He is also vigorously anti-intellectual. The Terminal Generation contains a plethora of gratuitous and inane judgments about the state of the arts and education. Lindsey agonizes over "the practical fallout of philosophical thought bombs," by which he means virtually every major western thinker since the eighteenth century-Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Darwin, Freud, Lenin, et al. Colleges and universities are hotbeds of their ideas, which Lindsey

444 - The Terminal Generation

has labelled "the deep things of Satan." Higher criticism continues to be an agency of the devil, and "so-called liberal churchmen" are discredited because "their preaching lacks real life-changing power." And yet, Lindsey can quote scientific evidence without fear or accuracy to substantiate his biblical interpretations, as in his reference to Einstein's theory of relativity supporting the idea of special creation. He can also back away from biblical literalism to make more sense of his vision of divinely-directed, geo-political cataclysm in the Middle East. The locusts of Revelation, he explains in There's a New World Coming, "might symbolize an advanced kind of helicopter."

Politically, Lindsey has constructed a bizarre alliance between evangelicals and Jews to preserve the existence of the state of Israel until Armageddon. This will be the final struggle between "The Future Fuehrer" (leader of the Common Market countries-the revived Holy Roman Empire) and Russia, China, and an Arab-African coalition. Since the fate of Israel is the core to Lindsey's interpretation, the responsibility of evangelicals and the United States remains the continued military and economic support of Israel. All this is a bit surprising and puzzling in the light of studies that demonstrate antisemitism to be highest in evangelical groups. But Jews will probably take little comfort from this, for Lindsey is also adamant that the end of the world will be preceded by mass conversion of Jews to Christianity.

Lindsey is hopelessly wrong as a biblical exegete, but the popularity of his books reflects the fact that biblical literalism is perhaps the most widespread attitude throughout American Protestantism, a discouraging indication of the churches' efforts at education. Similarly, Lindsey has unquestionably tapped the pervasive apocalyptic mood in American society. The realization is growing that we are living in a world of limits, not an open future. Unfortunately, neither Lindsey's strained attempts at biblical interpretation nor his socio-political analysis will help people to understand their world and act in faith and responsibility. Lindsey and his readers might ponder the calm wisdom of I Peter 4:7: "The end of all things is at hand; therefore keep sane and sober for your prayers."

John M. Mulder
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey