SOURCE: Wikipedia, captured 2020-09-23
This page last modified: 2020-09-23 15:42:44 -0700 (PST)
Tim Francis LaHaye (April 27, 1926 – July 25, 2016) -- a Christian fundamentalist and strident homophobe -- was an American evangelical Protestant minister who wrote more than 85 books, both fiction and non-fiction, including the "Left Behind" series of apocalyptic fiction, which Tim LaHaye co-authored with Jerry B. Jenkins.
Timothy Francis LaHaye was born on April 27, 1926, in Detroit, Michigan to Frank LaHaye, a Ford auto worker who died in 1936 of a heart attack, and Margaret LaHaye (née Palmer). Tim LaHaye's father's death had a significant influence on LaHaye, who was only nine years old at the time. Tim LaHaye had been inconsolable until the minister at the funeral said, "This is not the end of Frank LaHaye; because he accepted Jesus Christ, the day will come when the Lord will shout from heaven and descend, and the dead in Christ will rise first and then we'll be caught up together to meet him in the air.
Tim LaHaye later said that, upon hearing those remarks, "all of a sudden, there was hope in my heart I'd see my father again."
Tim LaHaye enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in 1944, at the age of 18, after he finished night school. Tim LaHaye served in the European Theater of Operations as a machine gunner aboard a bomber. In 1950, LaHaye received a Bachelor of Arts from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. LaHaye held the Doctor of Ministry degree from Western Seminary and a Doctor of Literature from Liberty University. Tim LaHaye served as a pastor in Pumpkintown, South Carolina, and after that he pastored a congregation in Minneapolis until 1956. After that, the LaHaye family moved to San Diego, California, where Tim LaHaye served as pastor of the Scott Memorial Baptist Church (now called Grace Church San Diego) for nearly 25 years. In 1971, Tim LaHaye founded Christian Heritage College, now known as San Diego Christian College.
In 1972, Tim LaHaye helped establish the Institute for Creation Research at Christian Heritage College in El Cajon, California, along with Henry M. Morris.
The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is a Creationist apologetics institute in Dallas, Texas that specializes in media promotion of pseudoscientific creation science and interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a historical events. The ICR adopts the Bible as an inerrant and literal documentary of scientific and historical fact as well as religious and moral truths, and espouses a Young Earth creationist worldview. It rejects evolutionary biology, which it views as a corrupting moral and social influence and threat to religious belief. The ICR was formed by Henry M. Morris in 1972 following an organizational split with the Creation Science Research Center (CSRC).
The Institute for Creation Research's work in the field of creation science has been rejected by mainstream science, but has been significant in shaping creationist thought in the United States by introducing creation science through fundamentalist churches and religious schools, and by engaging in public debates against supporters of evolution. The ICR also offers unaccredited graduate level programs in Biblical Apologetics, including a minor in Creation Research. The ICR also operates the ICR Discovery Center for Science & Earth History museum in Dallas, Texas.
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Interestingly the Wikipedia page for the Institute for Creation Research makes no mention of Tim LaHaye, though the Wikipedia page for Tim LaHaye makes this association [above], and the Institute for Creation Research itself publishes the following page.
[2016-08-31] Tim LaHaye and the Institute for Creation Research | local copy (html, captured 2020-09-23). "... Dr. LaHaye was instrumental in the start of the Institute for Creation Research and served on its Board of Trustees for many years. In September 1970, Tim LaHaye invited Dr. Henry Morris, then head of an engineering department at Virginia Tech, to move to San Diego to help with the founding of Christian Heritage College (now San Diego Christian College). ICR was a division of the college for a decade before forming its own ministry of researching the science that supports the accuracy and authority of the Bible. ..."
Tim LaHaye started numerous groups to promote his views, having become involved in politics at the Christian Voice during the late 1970s and early 1980s. 1979, Tim LaHaye encouraged Jerry Falwell to found the Moral Majority and sat on its board of directors. LaHaye's wife, Beverly LaHaye, founded Concerned Women for America, a conservative Christian women's activist group.
Concerned Women for America (CWA) is a socially conservative, evangelical Christian non-profit women's activist group in the United States. Headquartered in Washington D.C., the CWA is involved in social and political movements, through which it aims to incorporate Christian ideology. The group is primarily led by women for women, but it welcomes men who support its beliefs and efforts.
The group was founded in San Diego, California in 1978 by Beverly LaHaye, whose husband Timothy LaHaye was an evangelical Christian minister and author of "Battle for the Mind," as well as coauthor of the "Left Behind" series.
The CWA identifies itself as an amalgam of "policy experts and ... activists" with an anti-feminist approach to politics.
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Then in 1981, Tim LaHaye left the pulpit to concentrate his time on politics and writing. That year [1981], Tim LaHaye helped found the Council for National Policy (CNP) a policy making think tank in which membership is only available through invitation; it has been reported "the most powerful conservative organization in America you've never heard of."
In the 1980s Tim LaHaye was criticized by the evangelical community for accepting money from Bo Hi Pak, a longtime Sun Myung Moon operative. Tim LaHaye was additionally criticized for joining Moon's Council for Religious Freedom, which was founded to protest Moon's 1984 imprisonment. In 1996, LaHaye's wife spoke at an event sponsored by Moon.
In the 1980s, Tim LaHaye founded the American Coalition for Traditional Values, and the Coalition for Religious Freedom. Tim LaHaye founded the Pre-Tribulation Research Center along with Thomas Ice in 1998. The center is dedicated to producing material that supports a dispensationalist, pre-tribulation interpretation of the Bible. Tim LaHaye and his wife had connections to the John Birch Society, a conservative, anti-communist group.
The Coalition for Religious Freedom is a religious right organization founded by Tim LaHaye and Robert Grant to lobby against government regulation of religion. In the 1980s the organization concentrated its efforts on defending the Unification Church [leader: Sun Myung Moon].
Tim LaHaye also took more direct roles in presidential politics. Tim LaHaye supported Ronald Reagan's elections as United States president. Tim LaHaye was a co-chairman of Jack Kemp's 1988 presidential bid but was removed from the campaign after four days when his anti-Catholic views became known. LaHaye played a significant role in getting the religious right to support George W. Bush for the presidency in 2000. In 2007, Tim LaHaye endorsed Mike Huckabee during the primaries and served as his spiritual advisor.
Main article: Left Behind (series)
Tim LaHaye is best known for the Left Behind series of apocalyptic fiction that depicts the Earth after the pretribulation rapture which Premillennial Dispensationalists believe the Bible states, multiple times, will occur. The books were LaHaye's idea, though Jerry B. Jenkins, a former sportswriter with numerous other works of fiction to his name, wrote the books from LaHaye's notes. Jenkins has said, "I write the best I can. I know I'm never going to be revered as some classic writer. I don't claim to be C.S. Lewis. The literary-type writers, I admire them. I wish I was smart enough to write a book that's hard to read, you know?"
The series, which started in 1995 with the first novel, includes 12 titles in the adult series, as well as juvenile novels, audio books, devotionals, and graphic novels. The books have been very popular, with total sales surpassing 65 million copies as of July 2016. Seven titles in the adult series have reached No. 1 on the bestseller lists for The New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly. Jerry Falwell said about the first book in the series: "In terms of its impact on Christianity, it's probably greater than that of any other book in modern times, outside the Bible." The best-selling series has been compared to the equally popular works of Tom Clancy and Stephen King: "the plotting is brisk and the characterizations Manichean. People disappear and things blow up."
Tim LaHaye indicates that the idea for the series came to him one day circa 1994, while Tim LaHaye was sitting on an airplane and observed a married pilot flirting with a flight attendant. Tim LaHaye wondered what would befall the pilot if the Rapture happened at that moment. The first book in the series opens with a similar scene. Tim LaHaye sold the movie rights for the Left Behind series and later stated he regretted that decision, because the films turned out to be "church-basement videos," rather than "a big-budget blockbuster" that Tim LaHaye had hoped for.
In 2001, LaHaye co-hosted with Dave Breese the prophecy television program "The King Is Coming." In 2001, LaHaye gave $4.5 million to Liberty University to build a new student center and School of Prophecy, which opened in January 2002 and was named after LaHaye. Tim LaHaye also served as its president.
Tim LaHaye provided funds for the LaHaye Ice Center on the campus of Liberty University, which opened in January 2006.
Tim LaHaye's book "The Rapture" was released on June 6, 2006, in order to capitalize on a 6-6-6 connection.
Tim LaHaye married activist and fellow author Beverly Ratcliffe in 1947 while attending Bob Jones University.
In July 2016, the LaHayes celebrated their 69th wedding anniversary. They had four children and nine grandchildren, and lived in the Los Angeles area. The LaHayes owned a home in Rancho Mirage, California.
Tim LaHaye died on July 25, 2016, in a hospital in San Diego, California, after suffering from a stroke, aged 90. In addition to his wife, Beverly LaHaye, Tim LaHaye was survived by four children, nine grandchildren, 16 great grandchildren, a brother (Richard LaHaye), and a sister. Tim LaHaye's funeral service took place at Shadow Mountain Community Church on August 12, 2016, with David Jeremiah, who succeeded LaHaye as pastor at what was then Scott Memorial Baptist Church, led the service. LaHaye is interred at Miramar National Cemetery in San Diego, California.
See also: Homosexuality and Christianity. and The Bible and homosexuality
In 1978 Tim LaHaye published "The Unhappy Gays," which was later retitled "What Everyone Should Know About Homosexuality." The book called homosexuals "militant, organized" and "vile." "The Unhappy Gays" also argues that gays share 16 pernicious traits, including "incredible promiscuity," "deceit," "selfishness," "vulnerability to sadism-masochism," and "poor health and an early death." Tim LaHaye believed that homosexuality can be cured. However, Tim LaHaye said that such conversions are rare.
Tim LaHaye believed that the Illuminati is secretly engineering world affairs. "In Rapture Under Attack," Tim LaHaye wrote:
I myself have been a forty-five year student of the satanically-inspired, centuries-old conspiracy to use government, education, and media to destroy every vestige of Christianity within our society and establish a new world order. Having read at least fifty books on the Illuminati, I am convinced that it exists and can be blamed for many of man's inhumane actions against his fellow man during the past two hundred years.
The Illuminati is just one of many groups that Tim LaHaye believed are working to "turn America into an amoral, humanist country, ripe for merger into a one-world socialist state." Other secret societies and liberal groups working to destroy "every vestige of Christianity," according to LaHaye, include: the Trilateral Commission, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, "the major TV networks, high-profile newspapers and newsmagazines," the State Department, major foundations (Rockefeller Foundation, Carnegie Foundation, Ford Foundation), the United Nations, "the left wing of the Democratic Party," Harvard, Yale "and 2,000 other colleges and universities."
Tim LaHaye held apocalyptic beliefs and asserted the end of the world was near. Other believers in dispensational premillennialism, who believe that the return of Jesus is imminent, criticize various aspects of his theology, saying Tim LaHaye has "some real problems with his prophetical teachings in the 'Left Behind' series." It is noted that "in books 8 & 9, LaHaye and Jenkins teach that non-willing recipients of the mark of the beast can still be saved." However, in The Mark, "the Chang scenario" is developed, whereby a character receives both the mark of the beast and the sealing of the Lord. In "Desecration," this dual-marking was justified in the storyline." This has led some readers to wonder "how a Christian can have the mark of the beast and still be saved" and has been asked many times by perplexed readers on the "Left Behind" messageboard. Attempts to address this question have appeared on the FAQ page at LeftBehind.com.
Many mainstream Christians and certain other evangelicals had broader disagreements with the series as a whole, pointing out that "most biblical scholars largely reject the eschatological assumptions of this kind of pop end-times literature." Others say that LaHaye portrays the Book of Revelation with a selective literalism, choosing to take some things literally (such as the violence) and others as metaphor (the Beast) as it suits his point of view. In The Rapture Exposed by Barbara Rossing, a number of criticisms are raised regarding the series, particularly its focus on violence.
Tim LaHaye was a harsh critic of Roman Catholicism, which he called "a false religion." In his 1973 book "Revelation Illustrated and Made Plain," Tim LaHaye stated that the Catholic Church "is more dangerous than no religion because she substitutes religion for truth" and "is also dangerous because some of her doctrines are pseudo-Christian." Elsewhere the same book compared Catholic ceremonies to pagan rituals. It was these statements that were largely responsible for LaHaye's dismissal from Jack Kemp's presidential campaign. It was later revealed that the San Diego church that LaHaye had pastored throughout the 1970s had sponsored an anti-Catholic group called "Mission to Catholics;" one of their pamphlets asserted that Pope Paul VI was the "archpriest of Satan, a deceiver, and an antichrist, who has, like Judas, gone to his own place."
The issue of anti-Catholicism also comes up in regard to the "Left Behind" series. While the fictional Pope John XXIV was raptured, he is described as having "stirred up controversy in the church with a new doctrine that seemed to coincide more with the 'heresy' of Martin Luther than with the historic orthodoxy they were used to," and this is implied as the reason he was raptured. Pope John XXIV's successor, Pope Peter II becomes Pontifex Maximus of Enigma Babylon One World Faith, an amalgamation of all remaining world faiths and religions.
In Book 9 of the series, The Desecration, Carpathia, the villain, specifically refutes all happenings at Jesus' crucifixion that are part of the Catholic stations of the Cross but not in the canonical gospels, further undercutting the Catholic traditions. Other Catholic writers have said that while the books aren't "anti-Catholic per se" they reflect LaHaye's other writings on the subject.
Despite his anti-Catholic views, Tim LaHaye praised traditionalist Catholic director Mel Gibson's 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, saying that "Everyone should see this movie. It could be Hollywood's finest achievement to date." Tim LaHaye also endorsed Catholic convert Newt Gingrich for president in 2012.
Time Magazine named LaHaye one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America, and in the summer of 2001, the Evangelical Studies Bulletin named him the most influential Christian leader of the preceding quarter century.
Tim LaHaye authored over 85 books in his lifetime.
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