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). His father's death had a significant influence on LaHaye, who was only nine years old at the time. He 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."[2]
LaHaye later said that, upon hearing those remarks, "all of a sudden, there was hope in my heart I'd see my father again."[2]
Then in 1981, he left the pulpit to concentrate his time on politics and writing.[12] That year, he helped found the Council for National Policy (CNP), a policy making think tank[13] in which membership is only available through invitation. ABC News called it "the most powerful conservative organization in America you've never heard of".[14]
In the 1980s he was criticized by the evangelical community for accepting money from Bo Hi Pak, a longtime Sun Myung Moon operative.[15] He was additionally criticized for joining Moon's Council for Religious Freedom, which was founded to protest Moon's 1984 imprisonment.[15] In 1996, LaHaye's wife spoke at an event sponsored by Moon.[15]
LaHaye is best known for the Left Behind series of apocalyptic fiction that depicts the Earth after the pretribulationrapture 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.[19]
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.[4] Seven titles in the adult series have reached No. 1 on the bestseller lists for The New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly.[20]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."[21] 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."[10]
LaHaye indicates that the idea for the series came to him one day circa 1994, while he was sitting on an airplane and observed a married pilot flirting with a flight attendant. He wondered what would befall the pilot if the Rapture happened at that moment.[3] The first book in the series opens with a similar scene. He 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 he had hoped for.[5]
Later activities
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,[22] which opened in January 2002 and was named after LaHaye. He also served as its president.
He provided funds for the LaHaye Ice Center on the campus of Liberty University, which opened in January 2006.[23]
LaHaye's book The Rapture was released on June 6, 2006, in order to capitalize on a 6-6-6 connection.[24][25]
In July 2016, the LaHayes celebrated their 69th wedding anniversary.[7][5] They had four children and nine grandchildren, and lived in the Los Angeles area.[4] The LaHayes owned a condo in Rancho Mirage, California.[28]
LaHaye died on July 25, 2016, in a hospital in San Diego, California, after suffering from a stroke, aged 90.[4][18] In addition to his wife, Beverly, he was survived by four children, nine grandchildren, 16 great grandchildren, a brother (Richard LaHaye), and a sister.[7][5] His 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.[29] LaHaye is interred at Miramar National Cemetery in San Diego, California.
In 1978 LaHaye published The Unhappy Gays, which was later retitled What Everyone Should Know About Homosexuality. The book called homosexuals "militant, organized" and "vile."[30]The Unhappy Gays also argues that homosexuals share 16 pernicious traits, including "incredible promiscuity", "deceit", "selfishness", "vulnerability to sadism-masochism", and "poor health and an early death."[31] He believed that homosexuality can be cured.[32][33] However, he said that such conversions are rare.[34]
Global conspiracies
LaHaye believed that the Illuminati is secretly engineering world affairs.[35] In Rapture Under Attack he 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.[36]
LaHaye held apocalyptic beliefs and asserted the end of the world was near. Other believers in dispensationalpremillennialism, who believe that the return of Jesus is imminent, criticize various aspects of his theology, saying he 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, his 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.[37][38]
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."[39] 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.[40] In The Rapture Exposed by Barbara Rossing, a number of criticisms are raised regarding the series, particularly its focus on violence.[39][41]
Anti-Catholic sentiments
LaHaye was a harsh critic of Roman Catholicism, which he called "a false religion".[4] In his 1973 book Revelation Illustrated and Made Plain, he 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.[4] It was these statements that were largely responsible for LaHaye's dismissal from Jack Kemp's 1988 presidential campaign.[42] It was later revealed that Scott Memorial Baptist Church, 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."[43]
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. His successor, Pope Peter II, becomes Pontifex Maximus of Enigma Babylon One World Faith, an amalgamation of all remaining world faiths and religions.[44]
Other Catholic writers have said that while the books aren't "anti-Catholic per se", they reflect LaHaye's other writings on the subject.[45]
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.[21][39]
Life in the Afterlife: What Really Happens After Death? (1980)
The Battle for the Mind/Family series:
The Battle for the Mind (1980)
The Battle for the Family (1981)
The Battle for the Public Schools (1982)
The Race for the 21st Century (1986)
No Fear of the Storm: Why Christians Will Escape All the Tribulation, AKA Rapture Under Attack: Will Christians Escape the Tribulation?, AKA The Rapture: Who Will Face the Tribulation? (1992)
These Will Not Be Left Behind: Incredible Stories of Lives Transformed After Reading the Left Behind Novels (2003, with Jerry B. Jenkins)
A Kid's Guide to Understanding the End Times (2004, with Jerry B. Jenkins, Chris Fabry)
Jesus Is Coming Soon!: A Kid's Guide to Bible Prophecy and the End Times (2004, with Jerry B. Jenkins)
Why Believe in Jesus? (2004)
The Authorized Left Behind Handbook (2005, with Jerry B. Jenkins, Sandi L. Swanson)
The Best Christmas Gift (2005, with Greg Dinallo, Gregory S. Dinallo)
A Party of Two: The Dating, Marriage, and Family Guide, AKA Party of Two: Lessons for Staying in Step in Dating, Marriage, and Family Life (2006, with Beverly LaHaye)
The Popular Bible Prophecy Workbook: An Interactive Guide to Understanding the End Times (2006, with Ed Hindson)
Global Warning: Are We on the Brink of World War III? (2007, with Ed Hindson)
The Popular Bible Prophecy Commentary: Understanding the Meaning of Every Prophetic Passage (2007, with Ed Hindson)
Jesus: Why the World Is Still Fascinated by Him (2009)
The Book of Revelation Made Clear: A Down-to-Earth Guide to Understanding the Most Mysterious Book of the Bible (2014, with Timothy E. Parker)
Target Israel: Caught in the Crosshairs of the End Times (2015, with Ed Hindson)
Bible Prophecy for Everyone: What You Need to Know About the End Times (2016)
Who Will Face the Tribulation?: How to Prepare for the Rapture and Christ's Return (2016)
^Chafets, Zev (December 12, 2007). "The Huckabee Factor". The New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on February 8, 2017. Retrieved February 23, 2017.
^"Dr. Tim LaHaye biodata". LeftBehind.com. Tyndale House Publishers. 2008. Author's photo. Archived from the original on September 14, 2013. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
^Cloud, John; Sachs, Andrea (July 1, 2002). "Meet The Prophet: How an evangelist and conservative activist turned prophecy into a fiction juggernaut". Time Magazine. p. 50. Their condo in Rancho Mirage, Calif., is at one of the less impressive country clubs, and LaHaye recently gave a seminar in Wichita, Kans., in a sports-coat/paisley-tie/blue-leather-loafer combo that looked as if it could not have been purchased after 1985.
^Caramagno, Thomas C. (2002). Irreconcilable Differences? Intellectual Stalemate in the Gay Rights Debate. Westport: Praeger/Greenwood. p. 159. ISBN9780275977115.
^McGuire, Paul; Anderson, Troy (2015). The Babylon Code: Solving the Bible's Greatest End-Times Mystery. Nashville: Faith Words. Introduction. ISBN9781455589432.
^Quoted in Versluis, Arthur (2006). The New Inquisitions: Heretic Hunting and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Totalitarianism. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 121. ISBN9780195306378.
^Eskridge, Larry (Winter 2001). "And, the Most Influential American Evangelical of the Last 25 Years Is...". The Evangelical Studies Bulletin. 17 (4). Wheaton College: Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals. quoted in "Tim & Beverly LaHaye: General Teachings/Activities". Biblical Discernment Ministries. Archived from the original on December 18, 2007. Retrieved December 14, 2007.
^"General FAQ". Left Behind. Tyndale House Publishers. 2009. Archived from the original on June 12, 2011. Retrieved June 16, 2011. 'God looks on the heart,' related Jerry B. Jenkins. 'He was a believer first, and thus, always.'
^ abcSine, Tom (September–October 2001). "Who is Tim LaHaye?". Sojourners. Retrieved March 12, 2024.
^ Stephens, Randall J.; Giberson, Karl (2011). The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 166. ISBN9780674062672.
^ Hindson, Ed; Mitchell, Dan (2013). "LaHaye, Tim (1926– )". The Popular Encyclopedia of Church History. Eugene, Ore.: Harvest House Publishers. p. 211.
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