So, yesterday the “A Thief In The Night” episode of @CRightcast dropped. It’s one that folks have been asking about for months — in addition to its role as one first Rapture Horror films, it’s an iconic example of Fundamentalist “scare evangelism.”
https://rightcast.substack.com/p/episode-09
Our last several episodes have focused on explaining the theological and ideological context for “Rapture Movies” and “End Times Prophecy” stories like A Thief In The Night and Left Behind, but they’re only one half of the story.
While A Thief In The Night was filmed by B-Movie veterans, it wasn’t intended as entertainment. It was shown in churches and treated as a tool for evangelism: A terrifying “wake up call” for anyone who didn’t take Dispensationalist warnings about the end of the world seriously.
(The irony, of course, is that producing fiction about a future in which you are proved correct does not prove that you’re correct in the here and now, but that rabbit-trail about the rhetorical power of post-dated fiction is for another day…)
A Thief In The Night works hard to establish an emotional connection between “ignoring fundamentalists” and “being isolated, terrified, and full of regret.” Secular scofflaws recall their parents’ ignored warnings, and liberal clergy weep when they realize they’re left behind…
That dynamic serves two purposes. The first is what @SlacktivistFred called out in his old breakdown of the Left Behind books as a kind of “ideology porn.”
In ideology porn, the already-convinced reader is treated to indulgent, over-the-top scenes of unbelievers wracked with horror and regret. “We should have listened,” they say to each other. And by implication, they say to the reader: “We should have listened TO YOU!”
The second purpose, though, is to shake the friendly-but-unconvinced consumer. “You think you’re okay — but so did these characters! And now they’re in the shit.” This maneuver isn’t the same as addressing the reasons someone is unconvinced, though. It’s just a threat.
And that gets to one of the many issues A Thief In The Night reveals: The “End Times” horrors driving the story are a way to force snap decisions, to strong-arm the uncertain and scare them into accepting ideas that would be less compelling in a low-pressure environment.
If it were simply a horror movie, that would be an aesthetic detail. But as a tool for indoctrination and evangelism, it’s deeply problematic.