Nicolas Cage stars in the up-dated Bible-themed Film
By Nigel Tomes, Feb. 2013
Star power has been added to the remake of the Christian-themed movie—Left Behind. Nicolas Cage, Ashley Tisdale and Chad Michael Murray have reportedly signed on to redo the action thriller based on biblical events surrounding the sudden disappearance via rapture of millions of Christian believers from the earth at Christ’s second coming.
Left Behind Plotline
The original plotline comes from the Left Behind franchise--a series of books written by Tim LaHaye & Jerry Jenkins (launched in 1995 by Tyndale House Publishers) which sold more than 65 million copies worldwide. The first novel, based on a biblical “pre-tribulation rapture” scenario, opens with an airborne 747 headed to London (UK) from Chicago (USA). The pilot is wiling away the tedium of a trans-Atlantic night flight, considering the implications of his wife’s recent “born again” experience. Suddenly, without warning, passengers mysteriously disappear from their seats in the 747, leaving behind their eye-glasses, false teeth and clothes. The Bible’s long-promised prophecy of the Rapture has happened! Terror and chaos spread through the plane and around the globe as millions of Christians go missing worldwide. Cars left driverless crashed, house fires were triggered by unattended stoves, etc. But that’s only the beginning; other unusual events began to unfold. A charismatic world-leader rises swiftly to global prominence, amassing power to himself; the Anti-Christ had arrived. For those who’ve been left behind, the “Great Tribulation” had just begun.
Big Budget Version
The original “Left Behind” movie (2000/1) starred Kirk Cameron as an investigative reporter who teams up with the newly ‘born-again’ 747 pilot to survive the tribulation and fight against the Anti-Christ. That low-budget film never went main-stream, but it was a popular video/DVD among evangelical Christians and Church groups.
Paul Lalonde, co-founder of Cloud Ten Pictures, which produced and distributed the first 3 "Left Behind" movies that went straight to video, said that, this time around, giving the film the blockbuster treatment—with a $15 million budget—many felt the original deserved.
"... I've spent 24 years producing Christian-themed TV, films and documentaries that were made specifically for a Christian audience. ‘Preaching to the choir,’ so to speak. It’s always been my goal to produce a big-budget version of 'Left Behind' that would appeal to a wider audience. The resources to do this exist now where they didn't back in 2000," Lalonde told CP in an email.
Added Star Power
The signing on of Nicolas Cage, Ashley Tisdale and Chad Michael Murray brings significant star power to the project. Cage won the 1996 Academy Award Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in Leaving Las Vegas.Ashley Tisdale rose to prominence in Disney’s High School Musical and used her vocal talents to record several albums. Cage and Tisdale will fill the roles of father and daughter who’ve lost their ‘born again’ wife/mother due to the Rapture. Chad Michael Murray (from One Tree Hill) will reportedly play the role of journalist Cameron “Buck” Williams in the thriller, taking over Kirk Cameron’s character in the original movie.
Christian Film or Apocalyptic Action Movie?
Unlike the Left Behind novel and its 2001 movie version, this latest adaptation begins hours after the rapture-- the spiriting away of Christians from the Earth. "It will not cover everything that the first book includes, but will be more specifically concentrated on those first few hours and the chaos of the world in the wake of millions of people vanishing with no explanation," according to the film’s producer. The first posters for the film depict a shocked and disheveled Nicolas Cage who’s just emerged from a downed plane in front of a burning city.
However, the omission of the actual rapture event lessens the Christian and Biblical content of the film, compared to its predecessor. It raises the issue whether this movie will remain a recognizable, Bible-themed film or will it be just another action movie set against a vaguely End-time, apocalyptic background?
Various Rapture Scenarios
The clearest reference to ‘the Rapture’ in the Bible is 1 Thess. 4:16-17, which says:
“The Lord himself will descend from heaven …And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” (1 Thess. 4:16-17)
According to this Bible passage, at the Lord’s return, the “dead Christians [will] rise from their graves to the realm of the living, and then the living [believers] and the dead [& resurrected believers] together are caught up from the earth into the air to meet Christ. The Greek [word used here] for “caught up” (harpazō, ‘to grab or seize suddenly, to snatch, take away’) gives a sense of being forcibly and suddenly lifted upward.” [ESV]
The Bible also predicts a multi-year period of “great tribulation;” Jesus foretold that “there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.” (Matt 24:21, see also Rev. 2:22 & 7:14). Bible scholars differ concerning the exact relationship between these events. Major views include:
· Pre-tribulation Rapture: Holds that all genuine born-again believers in Christ will be taken away from the Earth immediately prior to the multi-year “great tribulation.” This view, popular among Evangelical Christians, is depicted in the Left Behind books & movie.
· Post-tribulation Rapture: Maintains that the predicted Rapture event happens at the end (or after) the multi-year “great tribulation.” (2 Thess. 2:3, 7) This implies Christian believers will endure the great tribulation along with everyone else, prior to their rapture.
· Pre-Wrath or Mid-tribulation Rapture: Expects the Rapture event to occur part way through the tribulation period. The Pre-Wrath view holds that during the initial part of the tribulation, the Anti-Christ will persecute Christian believers and Jews. The later part of the tribulation is God’s judgment (wrath) against the rebellious human race. Christians are promised deliverance from the latter (but not the former), because “Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10; see also 5:9).
· Misunderstood Metaphor: Lastly some Bible scholars, who accept Jesus’ promised Second Coming to this Earth, feel the concept of “rapture” has arisen from a misunderstanding of a metaphor used by Paul. For e.g. N. T. Wright says, “Paul’s mixed metaphors of trumpets blowing and the living being snatched into heaven to meet the Lord [i.e. rapture] are not to be understood as literal truth, as the Left Behind series suggests, but as a vivid and biblically allusive description of the great transformation of the present world of which he speaks elsewhere.” [N. T. Wright, Farewell to the Rapture, Bible Review, Aug. 2001.]
Gospel Opportunity
Clearly the Rapture and related end-time events are issues concerning about which sincere Christian scholars may disagree. Nevertheless it’s a subject which warrants serious Bible study. Moreover the fact that yet another version of the Left Behind movie is in the making means these issues will again be subjects of popular discussion. It should also provide opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus Christ-- a topic on which all Christians agree.
Based on reports from:
Variety.com; CP: Christian Post; Stoney Lake Entertainment; Left Behind.
/ What's this? Just a spellbinding think piece I collided with during a computer session. Is anyone shocked by it? Alan]
ReplyDeleteMargaret Macdonald's Rapture Chart !
"church" RAPTURE "church"
(present age) (tribulation)
In early 1830 Margaret was the very first one to see a pre-Antichrist (pretrib) rapture in the Bible - and John Walvoord and Hal Lindsey lend support for this claim!
Walvoord's "Rapture Question" (1979) says her view resembles the "partial-rapture view" and Lindsey's "The Rapture" (1983) admits that "she definitely teaches a partial rapture."
But there's more. Lindsey (p. 26) says that partial rapturists see only "spiritual" Christians in the rapture and "unspiritual" ones left behind to endure Antichrist's trial. And Walvoord (p. 97) calls partial rapturists "pretribulationists"!
Margaret's pretrib view was a partial rapture form of it since only those "filled with the Spirit" would be raptured before the revealing of the Antichrist. A few critics, who've been repeating more than researching, have noted "Church" in the tribulation section of her account. Since they haven't known that all partial rapturists see "Church" on earth after their pretrib rapture (see above chart), they've wrongly assumed that Margaret was a posttrib!
In Sep. 1830 Edward Irving's journal "The Morning Watch" (hereafter: TMW) was the first to publicly reflect her novel view when it saw spiritual "Philadelphia" raptured before "the great tribulation" and unspiritual "Laodicea" left on earth.
In Dec. 1830 John Darby (the so-called "father of dispensationalism" even though he wasn't first on any crucial aspect of it!) was still defending the historic posttrib rapture view in the "Christian Herald."
Pretrib didn't spring from a "church/Israel" dichotomy, as many have assumed, but sprang from a "church/church" one, as we've seen, and was based only on symbols!
But innate anti-Jewishness soon appeared. (As noted, TMW in Sep. 1830 saw only less worthy church members left behind.) In Sep. 1832 TMW said that less worthy church members and "Jews" would be left behind. But by Mar. 1833 TMW was sure that only "Jews" would face the Antichrist!
As late as 1837 the non-dichotomous Darby saw the church "going in with Him to the marriage, to wit, with Jerusalem and the Jews." And he didn't clearly teach pretrib until 1839. His basis then was the Rev. 12:5 "man child...caught up" symbol he'd "borrowed" (without giving credit) from Irving who had been the first to use it for the same purpose in 1831!
For related articles Google "X-Raying Margaret," "Edward Irving is Unnerving," "Pretrib Rapture's Missing Lines," "The Unoriginal John Darby," "Deceiving and Being Deceived" by D.M., "Pretrib Rapture Pride," "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" and "Scholars Weigh My Research." The most documented and accurate book on pretrib rapture history is "The Rapture Plot" (see Armageddon Books online) - a 300-pager that has hundreds of disarming facts (like the ones above) not found in any other source.
The above comment is the lame information that most uneducated people post regarding the rapture and the history of it. There are numerous other documents dating back to the 7th century discussing, preaching, and proving there is truly a rapture of the church. People who wish to discredit the rapture of the Church are not following scripture regarding the coming of Christ. They always try to place themselves in the light of pointing out that those "caught up" think they are better than all other Christians. So much hatred among believers, that Christ himself will prove once and for all when he returns how it will happen.
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