Left Behind: Apollyon Review–Part 2
For various reasons, I took a break from this blog. But now it’s time to get back to it!
On page 53-54, we find that the former-pope-turned-supreme pontiff of the Enigma Babylon One World Faith, now wears “a high, peaked cap” with an infinity symbol, and clownish robes full of colors, tassels, stripes, colored stones and astrological symbols.
Since he used to be the pope, and the Pope wears rich clerical robes and a high cap, what else can we see here but a blatant rip on papal garments? In his book Are We Living in the End Times, LaHaye makes it very clear that he considers Catholicism to be a false religion based on paganism.
So it hardly seems a straw man argument, or reading in things that are not there, to note that the new Supreme Pontiff of the false amalgamated religion looks like a clownish version of the Pope. For example:
If Babylon is the mother of all false religions and Jerusalem is the mother of true faith (since Jesus Christ was crucified, buried, and resurrected there), then Rome is the mother of an unholy mixture of the two (p. 172).
He goes on to describe how Rome, already Satan’s “spiritual headquarters,” was full of pagan temples. When Constantine converted (which LaHaye doubts is a true conversion), he gave the pagan temples over to the Christian leaders. This led to pagan statues being made into Christian statues, and
Gradually the pagan practices and teachings of Babylon began to worm their way into Christianity. These included prayers for the dead, making the sign of the cross, worship of saints and angels, instituting the mass, and worship of Mary–which in the church of Rome was followed by prayers directed to Mary, leading to the 1950 doctrine of her assumption into heaven and in 1965 to the proclamation that Mary was the “Mother of the Church.”
As pagan teachings increased, biblical authority decreased. Just over one hundred years after Constantine, the brilliant Augustine came along with his brand of Greek humanism and introduced “man’s wisdom” along with “God’s wisdom,” further paving the way for more pagan thought and practice.
Although he did not intend it, his spiritualizing of Scripture eventually removed the Bible as the sole source of authority for correct doctrine. At the same time, the Scriptures were kept locked up in monasteries and museums, leaving Christians defenseless against the invasion of pagan and humanistic thought and practice.
Consequently, the Dark Ages prevailed, and the Church of Rome became more pagan than Christian.
Had it not been for Wycliffe, Tyndale, and other valiant pre-Protestant heroes of the faith, Christianity would have been destroyed, and Satan’s Babylonian mysticism would have prevailed, effectively destroying true Christianity.
LaHaye then goes on to describe how terrible things were while “Babylonian mysticism controlled the church,” with massacres of born-again Christians, etc., things that make it, as he states on page 175,
difficult for many Christians to trust current efforts at reestablishing unity between Protestants and Catholics.
Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is the only dispenser of salvation, which can come only by personal faith in Him, never by works of righteousness. His work of redemption was finished for all time on the cross.
True Christians will never “unite” for the sake of religious unity with those who will not acknowledge the supremacy of Jesus Christ. We take Peter’s admonition very seriously: “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Who are those who do not acknowledge the supremacy of Jesus Christ? LaHaye clearly points the finger at the Catholics.
Where did he get that version of church history–Chick Tracts? And is he unaware of the existence of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which was one with the Roman Catholic Church for centuries before the Great Schism, and had/has many of the same practices as the Catholic Church?
Is he aware that the Eastern part of the Church did not go through the Dark Ages with the Western Church, did not “lock up” the Scriptures in monasteries, did not have the same Roman and legalistic bent as the Roman Church, yet somehow ended up with its own sign of the cross, prayers for the dead, mass (Divine Liturgy), and adoration (NOT “worship”) of Mary, the saints and angels?
The Orthodox Church does reject such things as purgatory and indulgences, and will not consider calling Mary “co-redemptrix” with Christ, but its practices and the Catholic Church’s stem from the same root and are very similar.
While the Orthodox disagree with some of Augustine’s writings, LaHaye’s critique of him is hardly true or fair–and doesn’t he know that the Protestant Reformers he praises, used Augustine’s teachings?
Doesn’t he know that the Early Church used the Septuagint, with its books of Maccabees, one of which speaks of prayers for the dead?
Oh, I guess he must have known something of Orthodoxy, after all. On page 177, he describes how the Rapture would strip all the churches–Catholic, Orthodox, liberal Protestant, Evangelical–
“of any true believers and would make religious unity without respect for doctrinal differences instantly possible. It was exactly this in our novel Tribulation Force that enabled the eventual leader of the one-world church”
to describe that all the religions are unified and no matter if you believe God is a person or concept, “God is in all and above all and around all. God is in us. God is us. We are God.”
So–right here he makes it perfectly clear what he meant in Tribulation Force, that all those who did not get raptured are against God, gullible, weak in faith and doctrine, and perfectly willing to unite with all other religions.
Considering how he has just blasted all the practices of the Catholic and Orthodox churches which differ from the Protestants, and extensively shown how the “born-again” Christians differ from the rank-and-file Catholic Christians, he paints a bleak picture of the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
Are most of them left behind because they follow these “pagan” practices? Since these “pagan” practices are part and parcel of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, does that mean that it’s nearly impossible for a Catholic or Orthodox believer to be a true Christian?
The Catholics who did get raptured–did they all reject the doctrines and practices of their church, making them bad Catholics but practically Protestants?
After reading in the latest Orthodox Observer about the Ecumenical Patriarch’s visit to the US–about his work for tolerance, peace and understanding between religions–I wonder if LaHaye would consider this godly man to be on the side of Antichrist, especially if he hears about the concept of theosis (easily misunderstood by those who don’t know Orthodox teachings).
On page 329, we read that “aids to worship” such as icons (used in Orthodoxy and Catholicism) are demanded by unredeemed man, who “resists worshiping God by faith.”
LaHaye ties in Gaia worship, feminist movements in liberal churches, and mother goddess worship with the Catholic Church, by saying that many in the Catholic church want the Pope to make “Mary worship” “official church doctrine” and proclaim Mary
“co-redemtrix with Jesus” and the fourth member of the godhead. In all likelihood, as soon as all born-again Christians are raptured, there will be no restraining influence to keep such perverse doctrine from being made official.
The next step, a very small one, would be for Gaia worshipers to become Mary worshipers. Perhaps that is why Babylon–the religious beast of Revelation 17 seen with a woman on its back–controls the Antichrist’s kingdom during the first half of the Tribulation.
Revelation Unveiled, another Catholic-bashing book by LaHaye, is not on Google Books. But you can find quotes from it here, in Carl E. Olson’s Will Catholics be “left behind”? starting on page 56.
For example, on page 60, we find a long quote in the footnotes, taken from page 269-270 of LaHaye’s book, describing his father’s conversion from Catholicism and how the Catholic Church had “clouded the way of truth with all their Babylonian pagan innovations brought up through the centuries.”
Read The Best-Selling Bigotry of Left Behind and No Rapture For Rome by Carl E. Olson for more quotes.
In case you think this is old news since LaHaye wrote Revelation Unveiled back in the 1970s, note that it is included in the Prophecy section on LaHaye’s website–showing that LaHaye must consider it still relevant.
If he disagreed with it, why would he still be selling it? Also, the site’s description of the book specifically states that it “lays the Scriptural foundation for the Left Behind series.”
So, when we read that the Supreme Pontiff has donned colorful and garish clerical robes and a high, pointy hat, how can we not read between the lines and see this as an attack on the Catholic Pope?