Hi, this is with friends like these. I'm Alison Herara, the producer of the show. Anna is

off this week. She's singing carols and making cookies. So I get to introduce this

encore episode about the left behind books and movies. That Christian series that's

supposed to show you the end times. This episode sounds like most of our episodes. But

behind the scenes, it was a lot of work. I had to watch the entire left behind remake,

starring Nicholas Cage. Well, I didn't have to watch it, but I did because it's one of

those movies that's so bad. You can't quite believe it's that bad. So you just keep watching

it, making sure it's bad. It's really bad. You'll hear a snippet of it that is also bad.

Anna's discussion is with Amy Johnson Freakholm, author of Rapture Culture, left behind in

Evangelical America. Oh, and Merry Christmas or whatever.

I need to tell her the truth. And I need her to know that this wasn't her mother's fault

so many. Every time I remiture God, I walked away.

Amy, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Tell me, tell me, how would

you describe these books to someone who had never heard of them?

Yes. So there is a Christian worldview that isn't a part of all Christianity, but a

very particular sub-pulture that believes that there will be an event called the Rapture

in which Jesus will return very suddenly to earth and take with him all of the true believers

and leave behind everybody else. And then everybody else will face a period of tribulation that

will last seven years before there is then a return of Christ to earth and a battle between

Christ and Satan, which will then result in the end of the world. So the left behind

series was a fictional take on this period from the Rapture to the end of the world. And

it was written by Tim Lehe, who was very famous in the Christian evangelical world for

...