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Terror and its Representations

 | 
Larry Portis
, 
Joseph Zitomersky

Part II. Terror and cultural expression

With God on our Side: Dispensationalist Eschatology in Popular Culture

Anne Urbanowski

Texte intégral

  • 1 Craig Detweiler and Barry Taylor, A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Popular Culture, Grand Rapid (...)

1Orson Welles once said “I hate Television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating peanuts.” The contemporary addiction to television has been explained in terms of TV’s social role: “Television is a mirror, an extension of our hopes and dreams, desires and depravities.”1 In light of this definition, we may wonder what sorts of hopes, dreams, desires and depravities have come to dominate American society to such an extent that we might find them reflected in popular culture, and more specifically on television. Moreover, popular culture has been described as “an important entrée into the religious consciousness of ordinary people”; as religious fervour seems to have surged in the recent years in the United States, trying to identify identical patterns in popular culture may reveal the influence of dominant religious trends and phenomena as well as the function they perform in the larger American society.

2In attempting to understand these trends, it is necessary to examine the interlocking relationships between, on the one hand, an expanding theological movement known as “dispensationalism,” and widely disseminated forms of American popular culture, on the other. This, I hope, will constitute the first step in a larger project which will attempt to analyse more deeply what could be regarded as TV “texts” and how they, intentionally or unintentionally, bear the mark of larger religious trends, and more significantly how they may answer the American viewers’ actual needs in helping them to make sense of a world that increasingly seems both frightening and out of their grasp. Yet, at the same time, apocalyptic eschatology has been the common backdrop of a growing number of American TV productions whose overall atmosphere then also resonates with terrifying images and undertones.

  • 2 I refer to TV “shows,” “series” and “serials,” although the latter two are not really synonymous. A (...)

3I will attempt, therefore, to show how both seemingly irreconcilable purposes are finally achieved in some TV shows, as well as how and why very often the terrorizing aspect seems to outweigh the other.2

  • 3 A dualistic pattern of good versus evil, righteousness versus unrighteousness has been common to mo (...)

4It is highly necessary, at first, to focus on the origins and the main tenets of dispensationalism and more particularly to outline how a specific dualistic pattern has emerged from this theology.3 Then, as evangelicals in general have increasingly turned their attention to American secular culture, dispensationalism has also come to influence American popular culture forms, and surprisingly enough, TV serials. The two seemingly antithetical aspects of terror and the construction of workable social meanings which can be found in such recent TV productions will eventually be reconciled in the final analysis of the functions both of them perform for the American public.

The Origins of dispensationalism

  • 4 George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Pres (...)
  • 5 The Scofield Reference Bible is an annotated version of the King James Bible adding explanations, i (...)
  • 6 Ibid., p. 22-23 and 36. The Dallas Theological Seminary was founded in 1925 by Lewis Sperry Chafer, (...)

5Although earlier theologians had mentioned dispensational concepts, a full blown dispensationalist theology originated in England in the 1830s, with John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren, a devotional group created mainly as a critique of the Church of England.4 In the United States, dispensationalism was popularized by a Congregationalist minister, Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, who, in 1909, published The Scofield Reference Bible (SRB). The Bible, largely based on Darbyist dispensationalism in both structure and content, soon became the normative document for many evangelical Christians in North America.5 Thoroughly revised in 1967, The Scofield Bible is still used as “a foundational text” in many Bible Institutes, evangelical seminaries and Bible colleges throughout America, most prominent among them the Dallas Theological Seminary.6

  • 7 Quoted in Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 1, op. cit., p. 28 and 201.

6Dispensationalism is grounded on a literal interpretation of the Bible (which is derived from the belief that the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of the Bible makes it an errorless document). The biblical account of the history of mankind is, following this reading, divided into seven periods, known as dispensations (economies), defined in the SRB as “periods of time during which man is tested in respect of obedience to some specific revelation of the will of God,” in other words, “a distinguishable economy in the outworking of God’s purpose.”7

  • 8 For example, the end of the dispensation of civil government (Noah) in which man is given authority (...)

7In each of the seven dispensations, God introduces a new responsibility for human beings (as part of His progressive unfolding revelation) that, if they fail to accomplish it, triggers God’s judgement and the end of the dispensation.8

  • 9 “The Scofield Bible has brought apocalyptic into the heart of evangelicalism,” op. cit., Williams, (...)
  • 10 Ibid., p. 109-110.
  • 11 The term “rapture” comes from the latin raptus, meaning, “1: an expression or manifestation of ecst (...)

8Moreover, Scofield’s reading of the Bible, which for example deeply influenced evangelist D.L. Moody, put the stress on apocalyptic eschatology and aimed at emphasizing one specific tenet of Darbyism: that of pre-tribulation church Rapture.9 Based both on Daniel 9 and Revelation, the dispensational interpretation posits that the millennial kingdom is to be preceded by a period characterized first by the appearance of an Antichrist (or a false prophet), the simultaneous emergence of a political leader (“the Beast” in Revelation) who will form a new Roman Empire (“Babylon”), the return of the Jews to Palestine, the conversion of some of them and their ensuing persecution, and finally by the return of Christ with his army of saints. They will ultimately defeat the Gentile world powers, the Beast and the false prophet at Armageddon, henceforth ushering in the millennial reign of Christ (at Jerusalem). According to normative dispensational eschatology, then, the penultimate battle between good and evil, the Great Tribulation, will be preceded by Christ appearing in the air, but only to the true Christians, the body of the true believers forming the “Church.”10 These true believers will be raptured from the earth in order to spare them the long period of suffering when good and evil forces are to fight for ultimate victory.11 The period is concluded by the Parousia (the Second Coming of Christ) and the beginning of the one thousand year reign of Christ on earth.

  • 12 George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, op. cit., p. 117-118. Williams, This World (...)
  • 13 Charles Ryrie describes dispensationalists as “conservative, evangelical Christians,” Ryrie, Dispen (...)
  • 14 Martin, With God on Our Side, op. cit., p. 189-206. Sara Diamond, Spiritual Warfare: The Politics o (...)

9At the turn of the century and in the early years of the twentieth century, dispensationalist thinking gained strength, mainly as a form of resistance to modernist (i.e. liberal) trends both in theology and society (as exemplified by Higher Criticism and the theory of evolution).12 The heyday of dispensationalist thought came in the years 1920-1925 and it then receded from the foreground following the Scopes Trial (as did what is usually referred to as “fundamentalism”).13 Dispensationalist theology did not disappear, however, as, it has been disseminated through Bible Schools and colleges, before it became a significant component of the Fundamentalist revival of the mid-1970s.14

The specific dualistic pattern emerging from dispensationalist thinking

  • 15 Michael Williams, This World is Not My Home, op. cit., p. 41-58.

10What has been particularly characteristic of dispensationalist thinking is that very early on, following Scofield and Chafer’s theology, it has proffered an apocalyptic and dualistic vision of the world (and of the human beings inhabiting it) as its core component: in the dispensational unfolding of events, the whole cosmos (the earth) comes to be dominated by Satan who, besides, is seen as having a firm grasp on the whole culture of humanity.15 Yet there is hope in the dispensationalist pattern, although it is to be restricted to true Christian believers. Only those whose souls have been saved will, owing to their “perfect position in Christ,” be spared the Tribulation and its associated pain and suffering. Hope therefore lies in the imminent Rapture of the truly saved who, at any moment, may be whisked away to heaven by Christ, while the unsaved will be left to fend for themselves—to combat the forces of evil, dying by the millions in the process. What is truly characteristic of dispensationalism is not so much the dualistic pattern (which has been a feature of evangelicalism in general) as the terror (for the unsaved) engendered by the belief in the imminent wrath of God which, at any time, is about to overwhelm humanity for failing the test of each dispensation.

  • 16 Although in the Bible unbelievers and sinners are repeatedly promised hell over heaven, dispensatio (...)
  • 17 Michael Williams, This World is Not My Home, op. cit., p. 70-76 and 177.

11Two major characteristics could thus be singled out in dispensationalist theology. First, a dominating apocalyptic eschatology: the world as we know it is to end at any time, whatever we might do to prevent it, and the end itself is to be brought about by a painful, chaotic, radical transformation. Secondly, what constitutes the focal point of dispensationalist theology is the prominent “us versus them” dichotomy, the true Christians versus the apostate, the unsaved, the lost.16 There is no soteriological purpose therefore, either in dispensational apocalyptic eschatology or in Christ’s second coming. The Christian is therefore a powerless pilgrim, waiting for the present dispensation to come to an end and hoping for his imminent Rapture out of the earthly dominion of Satan.17

  • 18 Historians have outlined the fact that this dichotomous approach, and the neat division of one’s wo (...)

12An inevitable consequence is that for over a century this dispensationalist, literal and compartmentalized reading of the Bible has fostered, for those who have subscribed to such a reading, a dualistic, plain, unambiguously Manichean, violent and terrifying view of both the world and human beings.18

Dispensationalism today

  • 19 Michael Luo and Laurie Goodstein, “Emphasis Shifts for New Breed of Evangelicals,” The New York Tim (...)
  • 20 Luo, “The World Prophecies, Doomsday,” op. cit.
  • 21 Ibid. and Melani McAlister “An Empire of their Own,” The Nation, September 22, 2003, www.thenation. (...)
  • 22 E. Jorstad, Popular Religion in America: The Evangelical Voice, Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Pr (...)
  • 23 E. Jorstad, Popular Religion in America, p. 43. Schaefer, op. cit., p. 82-105. McAlister, op. cit. (...)
  • 24 Several novels in the series entered the New York Times bestseller list. See
    www.leftbehind.com and (...)
  • 25 According to Tim Lahaye, one the authors of the Left Behind series, people’s lives have been radica (...)
  • 26 McAlister, op. cit.
  • 27 Williams, op. cit., p. 55.

13As evangelicalism has gained strength since the mid-1970s, so has dispensationalist theology. Although estimates vary, we may fairly assume that, at present, evangelicals amount to a little less than a third of the American population and that amongst them, about a third are truly dispensationalists.19 The influence of dispensationalist theology has been so prominent, however, that evangelical leaders now acknowledge that many evangelicals, while not in denominations or churches that strictly follow dispensationalist theology, have adopted some of its tenets—premillennialism and eschatological schemes in particular.20 What some identify as a “fascination in evangelical culture on the end of days” is far from being restricted to evangelical churches or megachurch rallies.21 Owing to a whole range of cultural products including books, CDs, movies, internet sites, videogames, what fifteen years ago Erling Jorstad labelled an “evangelical subculture” has now become a “dominant force in American life.”22 Indeed, contrary to mainline denominations, evangelicals (in general) have created numerous organisations in the larger secular culture in order to benefit from the “full impact of popular religion.”23 The epitome of this trend of evangelicals, and more particularly of evangelical dispensationalists, reaching out to millions of Americans in the realm of popular culture is the Left Behind book series. With sales now over 65 million, the 16 novel series depicts the lives of those “left behind” after the Rapture.24 They form the Tribulation Force in order to fight the overwhelming power of the anti-Christ, a world dictator, who has managed to impose one global government, one single currency and one universal religion on the whole world. Yet the Tribulation force garners support, winning converts throughout the world, preparing for Jesus’s Second Coming (which is achieved in the final novel). By far the most popular of all the popular culture items displaying dispensationalist theology, the Left Behind series (now a videogame) has demonstrated not only how evangelicals have been able to use popular culture channels to spread their own meanings but also how the specific theme of the saved versus the unsaved has been repeatedly stressed in this particular trend of popular culture.25 Again and again, in what has developed into a genuine “cultural milieu”26 sustained by many other books, movies and internet sites, the crucial event of the Rapture has been dramatised, emphasizing that determining moment when true Christians are to be singled out from the “corrupted mass,”27 when the elect are to be called out and spared God’s wrath. And there is no need for those by now utterly familiar with the biblical narrative of Revelation (which is at the core of dispensationalist theology) to be reminded how His wrath is to be meted out through cataclysms, calamities, suffering and deadly conflicts.

The impact of dispensationalism on American popular culture

  • 28 Jorstad, op. cit., p. 34-43 and 110; Marsden, op. cit., p. 243; McAlister, op. cit.
  • 29 Historians note the “ubiquity of prophecy belief in contemporary American society, where millions f (...)

14Two significant trends, therefore, have come to characterize the interlocking relationships of religion and culture in the United States. First, unlike their predecessors the new evangelical leaders have evinced a relentless determination to use popular culture channels to reach out to an ever growing number of Americans, well beyond their traditional— though expanding—target of conservative Christians.28 Secondly, and this is what appears to have been somewhat downplayed in various analyses, owing to that spectacular growth of what could be labelled an evangelical media industry, an undercurrent of dispensationalist ideas has come to influence American popular culture at large.29

  • 30 Expressions of popular religiosity, cf. C. Lippy. Being Religious, American Style, op. cit., p. 28- (...)
  • 31 John Fiske, Television Culture, London and New York, Routledge, 1999 [1987], p. 1.

15Although very often ridiculed and derided as low standard productions aimed at gullible masses, popular culture has always been the privileged locus where the major trends affecting the American society have found their most vibrant expression. Thus, just as historians have studied the seventeenth-century almanacs or the popular novels aimed at a female audience at the beginning of the twentieth century and how they both reflected the dominant forms of popular religiosity at that time, it is now worth studying one of the major channels of popular culture in contemporary America, that is to say television and how it has been affected by these growing religious influences.30 Television indeed, this “cultural agent,” this “provoker and circulator of meanings,” most notably through TV dramas, seems to have relied extensively on religious meanings.31 More specifically for the past few years American TV series seem to have integrated into their very scenarios the most prominent features of dispensational thinking. The world is indeed increasingly depicted as being divided into two clear-cut sides, the righteous (true Christians) and the unrighteous, the undeserving. Even more striking has been the clear tendency of many popular series to use the pattern of a group of individuals suddenly severed from their ordinary world and thrust into a new one where, not only do they have to face many terrifying and potentially deadly ordeals but also ultimately to make sense of their particular fate and of the new experience as a whole.

  • 32 A dead couple found in a cave is referred to as “our very own Adam and Eve” (episode 6); the game o (...)

16Premiered in September 2004, the series “Lost” initiated the whole trend. It follows a group of survivors after a plane crash on a seemingly deserted island and depicts both their efforts at surviving in an environment fraught with hostile supernatural forces (among them a “beast” roaming the jungle the viewer is never allowed to see) and each character’s personal struggle with their inner conflicts, as this secluded place gives them an opportunity to assess their life. Replete with biblical imagery and allusions, “Lost” features all the characters of the dispensational tribulation period: the charismatic leader/saviour figure (Jack Shepard), the false prophet/world leader encapsulated into one single character appropriately named John Locke, the beast, and the mysterious “others,” opponents they will have to defeat in order to survive.32

  • 33 That this proceeds from a supernatural force is hinted at by one of the characters. In episode 7, S (...)
  • 34 “It doesn’t matter who we were, what we did before this, before the crash. Three days ago we all di (...)
  • 35 Gradually the group increasingly stands for righteous behaviour and morality. This is particularly (...)

17These survivors thus seem to have been “left behind” as, unlike many other passengers they have been allowed to survive.33 The major difference from a traditional dispensationalist scheme is that they have been stranded on a deserted island. Yet what is consistent with it is that each and every one of them is endowed with the power to start anew.34 The drug addict rock star is therefore capable of not only freeing himself from his addiction but also of rescuing the leader from almost certain death. The former convict becomes the settlement’s second in command providing guidance and help to the other survivors. The Iraqi soldier who had tortured prisoners during the Gulf War once again resorts to his former interrogation “techniques” and then immediately leaves the settlement because he thinks his behaviour has deprived him of the right to stay with them. Each one of them is allowed to recall their past faults, acknowledge their former sins and be back on a righteous course, the group consequently becoming the symbol of rejuvenated morality and faith.35

18As the series proceeds there is little ambiguity that they have been left behind precisely there to fight, first against some sort of supernatural force of evil (the beast which supposedly has killed preceding survivors from another settlement) and secondly to undertake a formidable task. The second season indeed reveals that the island was once the site a global scientific project whose numerous experiments aimed at preventing the ultimate extinction of humanity. This, it turns out, is the central mystery of the series, as the specific date of this extinction is to be revealed by an equation, and the viewer realizes its figures have appeared regularly ever since the very beginning of the show. Although dramatised—and to a certain extent romanticised—so as to reach as large an audience as possible, the whole series seems to draw heavily from dispensationalist apocalyptic themes that promptly make sense for an audience familiar with them. A formidable, radical event has already occurred, their world has been altered irrevocably, the Eschaton is close (the extinction of humanity), each and everyone of them (us) has to get prepared to fight the forces of evil, most appropriately through repentance and conversion.

  • 36 “The 4,400” started on the CBS in 2004, “Battlestar Galactica” was aired in the United States in 20 (...)

19What is particularly striking is that for approximately five to six years now many other TV shows (“Battlestar Galactica,” “The 4,400,” “Heroes,” “Jericho”36) have relied on the same pattern: a specific group is being separated from the rest of humanity (whereas at first there is nothing really special about them), these individuals are endowed with supernatural powers which, it turns out, are specifically designed to fight the forces of evil and prevent the destruction of the world. Dread about the sudden, chaotic and radical transformation of the world and deep anxiety at being part of the right group are common threads in all these series.

  • 37 Lippy, op. cit., p. 147; Fiske, op. cit., p. 41 and 64-97.
  • 38 Fiske, op. cit., p. 66.

20As popular novels have allowed access to the ideas and ways of thinking of ordinary people, television may also be construed as producing structured “texts” to be analysed as fulfilling essential functions for the viewer.37 For instance, in the nineteenth century readers could add their personal beliefs and meaning to popular novels dealing with faith and religion. In contemporary America popular TV serials have also become texts allowing, according to John Fiske, a “constant dialogue between text and the socially situated reader.”38 In that dialogue, the TV “reader” is therefore able to respond to proffered meanings and to mould his or her own; in that case the common pattern is that of the dichotomous division of social reality between the righteous and the unrighteous, a clear-cut vision which is no longer only based on personal qualities such as, for example, morality and bravery—as has been the case in cop shows for instance—but on the spiritual distinction between, on the one hand, the true, orthodox Christians and the unsaved, on the other. The representation of the world as a battleground between the forces of good and evil has been a long-standing characteristic of evangelicalism, temptation always lurking in the darkness to lure believers away from righteous Christianity. What appears as a strikingly new phenomenon, however, is the fact that this irreconcilable division of the world has become the one and only theme, the sole aspect of all these productions, a common theme which inevitably leads to the confrontation of these two sections of society.

  • 39 Williams, op. cit., p. 144 and 189-191.

21In dispensationalist theology, for those abiding to the true orthodox doctrine, the path to salvation (a prerequisite for the Rapture of the Church) is bound to be long and difficult because, as mere wanderers in a corrupted world, they are to “hold the fort” until Christ’s Second Coming.39 Yet, even more difficult, and almost always fatal, will be the journey of those who have either shied away from or have ignored the call of righteous Christianity (as evidenced by the numerous ordeals the main characters in “Lost” and in the Left Behind books have to undergo). Only cataclysms and divine wrath is in store for them, exactly as, following the dispensational reading of the Bible, in each dispensation God is to wreak his divine judgement on those who have failed in their stewardship (responsibility) of each specific period.

  • 40 According to Claude Lévi-Strauss, binary oppositions and contradictions in culture are central to m (...)

22Overall, then, there seems to have been a shift in emphasis in American popular culture from binary oppositions of good and evil (detective stories, cop shows) aimed at negotiating the anxiety raised by new social phenomena and the contradictions appearing in culture to the creation of televised texts re-articulating these binary oppositions, yet now almost systematically dramatising endtime scenarios and pertaining much more to fear and to the implacable punishment of the infidels.40

  • 41 John Wiley Nelson, “The Apocalyptic Vision in American Popular Culture,” in Lois Parkinson Samora, (...)
  • 42 It is no coincidence of course that this new cultural trend corresponds to the surge of religious f (...)

23Concern for apocalyptic eschatology in American popular culture is certainly not a new phenomenon and many novels, movies and TV series have testified to this consistent trend.41 What has come, however, to characterize a growing number of TV productions is this terrifying representation of society as being neatly divided into two opposite and diametrically opposed sides (the saved versus the unsaved, those who have been raptured and those who have not). Religion and morality are intimately intertwined when the time comes to choose the right side, as both salvation and survival are at stake in that momentous decision.42

  • 43 During the first season “Lost” ratings hit record highs with over 20 million viewers. Although they (...)
  • 44 For the role of 1950s shows, see George Lipsitz, Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popu (...)

24How can we account then for the spectacular success and popularity of these shows? Why would such a large audience tune in each week to be scared into imminent eschaton and annihilation of their mundane albeit familiar reality?43 Apart from the snug thrill that these shows undoubtedly provide to the many viewers enjoying sci-fi series, it can fairly be assumed that such TV texts also now perform the role popular novels and devotional magazines did in previous decades. Highly illustrative of the growing privatisation of religion in America, they are indeed conducive to a form of personal religiosity as defined by historian Charles Lippy. They encompass two of its core characteristics: an emphasis on the supernatural and, above all, they are cultural products through which individuals can re-articulate their own beliefs, add new ones and ultimately make sense of an empirical reality which, for a larger number of Americans, they seem at a loss how to control. As in the 1950s TV sitcoms and popular shows helped the recent city dwellers make sense of an urban life governed by industrial work, individualism and new and necessary house appliances, the current American series offer viewers an opportunity to re-interpret formal beliefs and adapt them so that they provide order and meaning to their own, actual existence.44

25The stress laid on the supernatural forces that could intervene in history through the most ordinary matters, which was characteristic of popular millennialism in antebellum America, or the access to the sacred offered by late nineteenth century evangelical revivalism, also allowed believers, if not to control empirical reality, at least to be able to deal with it.

  • 45 Lippy, op. cit., p. 3.

26New forms of popular culture now allow American believers to make sense of their own personal experience and help give coherence to a life increasingly challenged by new social forces.45 Among the numerous “readings” offered by these productions is that of faith, true faith providing the inner strength necessary to triumph over all sorts of ordeals.

  • 46 Nelson, op. cit., p. 156.
  • 47 Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America. New York, Dial, 1970, p. 4, quoted (...)

27John Wiley Nelson reminds us that “popular culture most often reaffirms the values and opinions already held by its participants.”46 In order to be effective popular culture has therefore to fulfil expectations, creating “the pleasant shock of recognition of the known.”47

28For religious Americans (and even more for the growing number of evangelical Americans) these shows send indirect signals that validate their personally held belief that, despite the growing secularization of society and the corruption of culture, the supernatural forces they believe in will one day intervene to save them and fulfil all their expectations, bringing emotional security in the process. They also mirror the larger processes at work in American society (such as the surge of evangelicalism in recent years and a growing interest in religion and spirituality in general) and the anxiety aroused by them.

29As more and more Americans are involved in some sort of religious practice, and a growing number of them belong to evangelical churches or denominations abiding by some or all of the dispensationalist tenets, it is an inevitable consequence that the larger American culture has come to draw on these concerns to appeal to a large audience. In a world fraught with new and ever-evolving threats (either technological or environmental) these open texts undeniably allow many religious viewers to coalesce personal—sometimes formal—religious beliefs and meanings into narratives in which these beliefs are alluded to and in which the right group (those who have been converted) is ultimately successful, triumphing against all odds over the corrupting forces of evil. In “Lost,” each survivor is allowed to repent from his or her sins and the whole group is therefore able to survive (and might, in the end, defeat the “others”). In “The 4,400” and “Heroes,” difference in the form of extraordinary powers is finally mastered and made sense of; it will meet the need of the larger community. In “Heroes,” for example, it is stated at the very outset of the series that the extraordinary powers are granted to the characters so that they can “save the world.”

30While there is undoubtedly a positive aspect in the apocalyptic eschatological schemes (the world is to be destroyed yet there is possibility for hope in the Rapture, repentance, or in divine force sent to combat satanic forces—after all broadcasters want viewers to keep on watching), there is no escape, however, from the almost ontological division of the world and human society or from the terror entailed by not belonging to the right side.

31There is no middle ground, then, in either evangelical dispensational theology or in the vision of society put forward by this type of American popular culture: you are either with us or against us. As the political realm has been increasingly affected by such a Manichean comprehension of the world, so has American popular religiosity and culture at large. Whether the end is near or not has not yet been settled, what is certain, though, and what is common to all these eschatological schemes, is that even before the end comes you ought to be amongst the righteous if you want to have any chance of success and survival in contemporary America.

Notes

1 Craig Detweiler and Barry Taylor, A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Popular Culture, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Academic, 2003, p. 185

2 I refer to TV “shows,” “series” and “serials,” although the latter two are not really synonymous. A series “has the same characters in each episode but each episode has a different story which is concluded [...]. Serials, on the other hand, have the same characters, but have continuous storylines, normally more than one, that continue from episode to episode.” John Fiske, Television Culture. London and New York, Routledge, 1999 [1987], p. 150. The “series” dealt with here are therefore “serials”; yet the term is barely used in the United States where the most widespread term at present is that of “show.”

3 A dualistic pattern of good versus evil, righteousness versus unrighteousness has been common to most forms of evangelicalism in general. What is characteristic of dispensationalism is that this dualistic vision has come to dominate every aspect of the theology, being used as the only formula to interpret future events, most notably those in relation to end times and pre-tribulation church rapture. Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism, Chicago, Moody Press, 1995 [1966]. Michael Williams, This World is Not My Home: The Origins and Development of Dispensationalism, Fearn, Scotland, Mentor, 2003; Randall Balmer, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2006 [1989], p. 134-139.

4 George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2006, [1980], p. 46; Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism. op. cit., p. 67-68 ff.

5 The Scofield Reference Bible is an annotated version of the King James Bible adding explanations, interpretations and comments by Scofield himself. Historians have noted that the two sources are so intimately mixed that it is difficult to distinguish the one from the other. Williams, This World is Not My Home, op. cit., p. 19 and 31.

6 Ibid., p. 22-23 and 36. The Dallas Theological Seminary was founded in 1925 by Lewis Sperry Chafer, Scofield’s protégé. For contemporary illustrations of the use of the SRB, see Randall Balmer, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, op. cit., p. 31-47. E. Sandeen called the SRB: “the most influential single publication in millenarian and Fundamentalist historiography,” quoted in C. Lippy, Being Religious, American Style: A History of Popular Religiosity in the United States. Westport, Connecticut, Praeger, 1994, p. 134. It is estimated that the SRB has sold 11 million copies so far. Ibid.

7 Quoted in Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 1, op. cit., p. 28 and 201.

8 For example, the end of the dispensation of civil government (Noah) in which man is given authority to govern others and has to scatter and fill the earth, is brought about by the judgement wrought on the Tower of Babel and the confusion of languages. Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism, op. cit., p. 53.

9 “The Scofield Bible has brought apocalyptic into the heart of evangelicalism,” op. cit., Williams, This World is Not My Home, op. cit., p. 21.

10 Ibid., p. 109-110.

11 The term “rapture” comes from the latin raptus, meaning, “1: an expression or manifestation of ecstasy or passion”; “2: a state or experience of being carried away by overwhelming emotion, b: a mystical experience in which the spirit is exalted to a knowledge of divine things” and “3: often capitalized: the final assumption of Christians into heaven during the end-time according to Christian theology.” Merriam Webster Dictionary. The only biblical reference to such event is 1 Thes. 4: 17, whereas dispensationalists also see references to the Rapture in Mathew 24.

12 George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, op. cit., p. 117-118. Williams, This World is Not My Home, op cit. See also James Davidson Hunter, Evangelism: The Coming Generation, Chicago, the University of Chicago Press, 1987.

13 Charles Ryrie describes dispensationalists as “conservative, evangelical Christians,” Ryrie, Dispensationalism, op. cit., p. 12. Some of them are part of denominations that are not dispensationalist per se. This is the case, for example, of the Southern Baptist Convention (the largest Protestant denomination in the US). Others are part of dispensationalist churches, such as the Assemblies of God (Pentecostal). Nancy A. Schaefer, “Y2K as an Endtime Sign: Apocalypticism in America at the fin-de-millennium,” The Journal of Popular Culture 38 (1), p. 82-105, William Martin, With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America, New York, Broadway Books, 1996, p. 36. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, op. cit., p. 46-67, 125-129 and 164-165.

14 Martin, With God on Our Side, op. cit., p. 189-206. Sara Diamond, Spiritual Warfare: The Politics of the Christian Right, Boston, South End Press, 1989. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, op. cit., p. 237-244.

15 Michael Williams, This World is Not My Home, op. cit., p. 41-58.

16 Although in the Bible unbelievers and sinners are repeatedly promised hell over heaven, dispensationalist theology seems to have made it its core component, which undeniably derives from the emphasis put on the Rapture of the church which is construed as the body of true believers.

17 Michael Williams, This World is Not My Home, op. cit., p. 70-76 and 177.

18 Historians have outlined the fact that this dichotomous approach, and the neat division of one’s worldview between the natural and the supernatural realm, has been deeply rooted in the revivalist tradition itself, and in Calvinist Protestantism in general. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, op. cit., p. 211, Michael Williams, This World is Not My Home, op. cit., p. 178. Charles Lippy also identifies it as a core component of popular religiosity. Cf. Charles H. Lippy, Being Religious, American Style: A History of Popular Religiosity in the United States. Westport, Connecticut, Praeger, 1994.

19 Michael Luo and Laurie Goodstein, “Emphasis Shifts for New Breed of Evangelicals,” The New York Times, May 21, 2007, www.nytimes.com. Jeffrey Goldberg, “Some of Their Best Friends are Jews,” The New York Times, March 16, 1997, www.nytimes.com. Broadly speaking, evangelicals may be defined as descendants of Protestant reformation, though not all evangelicals are Protestant. They are deeply committed to evangelism and believe that the right doctrine comes from the canon of Scripture alone (sola scriptura); their common beliefs also include the divine nature of Jesus Christ, substitutionary atonement at the crucifixion, the lordship of the Holy Spirit. All stress the necessity for personal conversion. Evangelicals, however, should not be systematically identified as fundamentalists as some are fundamentalists, while some evangelicals are not. Dispensationalists, on the other hand, are usually regarded as fundamentalists, since they stress the inerrancy of the Bible, advocate separation from worldly matters and the impure in general and are pre-millennialist.
At present the National Association of Evangelicals claims 60 affiliated denominations including about 45,000 churches. www.nae.net. Douglas A. Sweeney, The American Evangelical Story: A History of the Movement, Grand Rapids, Baker Academic, 2005 [1973], p. 18 and 25. G. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, op. cit., 117. William Martin, With God on Our Side, op. cit., p. 36.
Michael Luo, “The World Prophecies, Doomsday,” The New York Times, October 16, 2005, www.nytimes.com.

20 Luo, “The World Prophecies, Doomsday,” op. cit.

21 Ibid. and Melani McAlister “An Empire of their Own,” The Nation, September 22, 2003, www.thenation.com/doc/20030922/mcalister.

22 E. Jorstad, Popular Religion in America: The Evangelical Voice, Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1993, p. 38. He nevertheless acknowledges that that evangelical subculture now “[stood] as a major landmark on the American religious map” and that since the 1980s it has been exploiting all the major channels of popular culture to spread its own meanings and influence in the American society. “Dominant Force,” The Nation, September 22, 2003.

23 E. Jorstad, Popular Religion in America, p. 43. Schaefer, op. cit., p. 82-105. McAlister, op. cit. The success of evangelical movies directed by Donald W. Thompson is a case in point. See Balmer, op. cit., pp. 48-70.

24 Several novels in the series entered the New York Times bestseller list. See
www.leftbehind.com and Luo, op. cit. and Dinitia Smtih, “Apocalyptic Potboiler Is Publisher’s Dream,” The New York Times, June 8, 2000. www.nytimes.com.

25 According to Tim Lahaye, one the authors of the Left Behind series, people’s lives have been radically changed by the books, they have been transformed “from hell to heaven, from lost to them,” www.leftbehind.com.

26 McAlister, op. cit.

27 Williams, op. cit., p. 55.

28 Jorstad, op. cit., p. 34-43 and 110; Marsden, op. cit., p. 243; McAlister, op. cit.

29 Historians note the “ubiquity of prophecy belief in contemporary American society, where millions from various walks of life and socioeconomic levels subscribe to the notion that scripture holds apocalyptic prophecies about the end of the world.” Schaefer, “Y2K as an Endtime Sign, op. cit., p. 10. A century-long diffusion of dispensationalist ideas may have greatly contributed to such a phenomenon.

30 Expressions of popular religiosity, cf. C. Lippy. Being Religious, American Style, op. cit., p. 28-29 and 147-15. “TV is the most conservative and comfortable form of popular culture:” Detweiler and Taylor, A Matrix of Meanings, op. cit., p. 191.

31 John Fiske, Television Culture, London and New York, Routledge, 1999 [1987], p. 1.

32 A dead couple found in a cave is referred to as “our very own Adam and Eve” (episode 6); the game of backgammon is said to be 5,000 years old, “older than Jesus Christ” (episode 2); and there are many instances when God seems to intervene directly in the plot, through supernatural and natural phenomena, either because He is called for or as a consequence of blasphemous phrases. In episode 7 Charlie, who is growing angry at the way the other survivors treat him, cries out “I’m a bloody rock god!” during an argument with Jack in the cave which immediately crashes down on both of them.
Episode 7 ( “The Moth”) stands as a perfect illustration of how the temptation of worldliness (the life of a rock star) leads a devout Catholic to become an insensitive, selfish drug addict.
Jack Shepard very early on assumes the role of the leader/saviour. He is a doctor (a surgeon we later learn) and he saves several lives in the first episode. Although he is reluctant at first to act as the leader of the settlement, mainly because he has not realized the survivors need someone to tell them what to do and how to organize, he finally agrees to take on that role—whereas this may be, at first, contested by other survivors. In episode 5, Boone asks him: “Who appointed you as our saviour? Who gave you the right?” In episode 9 Jack acknowledges he has not been sleeping for several days because he wants “everybody to be safe.”
John Locke’s ambiguous role, which may represent both a positive force (he saves other characters, hunts to provide food for the others) and a mysterious, possibly ominous one is best exemplified by the numerous situations in which he seems to have some foreknowledge of events: he knows about a little boy’s supernatural powers, he knows exactly when it is about to rain, he knows about the “others” and he knows about the hatch (the door to one of the underground scientific bases).

33 That this proceeds from a supernatural force is hinted at by one of the characters. In episode 7, Sayid asks Kate if she has any idea of how they have managed to survive. She suggests luck, yet Sayid immediately rules that out: “No one’s that lucky. We shouldn’t have survived.”

34 “It doesn’t matter who we were, what we did before this, before the crash. Three days ago we all died [...] we should all be allowed to start over.” Jack, episode 3.

35 Gradually the group increasingly stands for righteous behaviour and morality. This is particularly obvious with the character of Sayid who, after having left the settlement because he started torturing Sawyer, is captured by Rousseau and himself becomes the tortured victim (episode 9). Instead of rebeling and resorting to violence as he used to when he was an Iraqi Republican Guard, he offers to fix Rousseau’s music box. This sort of “turn the other cheek” attitude (which is in marked contrast with his former life), is outlined by Rousseau herself, who wonders at the fact that she has struck and electrically shocked him and he has offered to fix her music box. “I want to know why,” she says.

36 “The 4,400” started on the CBS in 2004, “Battlestar Galactica” was aired in the United States in 2005 on the Sci-Fi channel and “Heroes” in September 2006 on NBC.

37 Lippy, op. cit., p. 147; Fiske, op. cit., p. 41 and 64-97.

38 Fiske, op. cit., p. 66.

39 Williams, op. cit., p. 144 and 189-191.

40 According to Claude Lévi-Strauss, binary oppositions and contradictions in culture are central to myths and their social functions. See Fiske, op. cit., p. 131-133.

41 John Wiley Nelson, “The Apocalyptic Vision in American Popular Culture,” in Lois Parkinson Samora, ed., The Apocalyptic Vision in America: Interdisciplinary Essays on Myths and Culture, Bowling Green, Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1982, p. 154-182.

42 It is no coincidence of course that this new cultural trend corresponds to the surge of religious fervour in the United States and in particular to the growing strength of evangelical churches. Their very first motive is indeed to spread the gospel, to bear witness to those whose souls are in danger of falling prey to the teachings of false prophets (or of all other faiths). For a concrete example of evangelicals witnessing to endangered souls in California, see Balmer, op. cit., p. 26-29.

43 During the first season “Lost” ratings hit record highs with over 20 million viewers. Although they have declined recently, the third-season premiere drew an impressive 18.8 million and the series is still the 10th most watched prime-time show of the 2006- 2007 season. The series also won the 2005 Emmy award for best drama. Natalie Finn, “ABC’s Lost Ratings,” 15 February 2007, www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=88330ce1-5714-40ad-b454-a6f48e1e6eea.
Lynn Elber, “Will ‘Lost’ Ratings Plunge Doom Series?” ABC news, 2007,
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=2882578.

44 For the role of 1950s shows, see George Lipsitz, Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1990.

45 Lippy, op. cit., p. 3.

46 Nelson, op. cit., p. 156.

47 Russel Nye, The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America. New York, Dial, 1970, p. 4, quoted in Nelson, op. cit., p. 156.

Auteur

Associate professor at the University of Paul-Valéry, Montpellier 3. Her research focuses on African American history and culture, American popular culture, as well as on the concepts of race, class and racial identity. Her publications include “Swimming against the Tide: Conflicting Visions within the African American Community,” in Roy Goldblatt, Jopi Nyman and John A. Stotesbury, eds., Close encounters of an Other Kind. New Perspectives on Race, Ethnicity and American Studies, Studies in Literature and Culture 13, University of Joensuu, 2005, p. 103-110.

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