Soon: Chapter 36: Slinky Clothes
LAST CHAPTER ALERT
It’s Saturday morning, so presumably Paul had about three hours of sleep after his fountain romp before breakfast.
I wonder how he explained his soaked skivvies to Jae.
(This is assuming, of course, that they are sharing a bedroom. Which, if you remember, they haven’t done for well over a month.)
Tiny is planning a big party for that night. The raid on the Stinky Fish Christians is planned for the next day, so Tiny is calling it his “elegant prestrike dinner,” which I admit, made me laugh.
He has invited Juliet Peters, the movie star, which sounds an awful lot like Julia Roberts, but whatever. Tiny has been inspired by both Juliet and having all these NPO guys and gals as his guests, and is starting to plan a movie:
“I’m thinking of casting [Juliet Peters] as Chief Balaam in the movie. You know, beautiful blonde fights her way up the ranks of the NPO, finally gets her big break leading a crack strike force. I’m not sure about the love angle yet—maybe the handsome leader of the zealots, whom she takes prisoner. Maybe a jail-cell seduction…she comes in wearing a gold cat-suit and stiletto-heel boots to show she’s all woman doing a man’s job…”
Yeah, because it’s 1972. A GOLD CAT-SUIT, REALLY???
Okay, I admit I’m intrugued, Tiny. Go on.
“…but it’s a triangle. The real Mr. Right is the wise old agency chairman. He’s thirty-five years her senior, but he’s a tiger—a silver fox. Seasoned. Tough. Rich as King Midas.
“At the end the zealot turns out to be a brute. The silver fox saves the blonde, and she sees he’s so much stronger and better than the cute young muscle man.”
Yeah, I’m not feelin’ that, Tiny. But hey, this is why we brainstorm, to get rid of the bad ideas and on to the good…
“Or maybe it’s the other way around, and it’s really the old guy who’s evil.”
Ah, that’s more like it. And check it out, Bia could totally deconvert the Christian zealot! Propaganda and entertainment all in one tasty package?
Who are you going to cast as my doomed-but-sexy boyfriend, Larry Coker? I nominated Karl Urban, but I can be flexible on this.
Paul could barely hide his revulsion.
“I am so sickened by other people talking about their work! Potboiler action flicks make me want to VOMIT.”
Tiny is really sweet to Jae, and offers the couple (I use that term loosely) the use of a car and chauffeur to take them shopping for a slinky dress for Jae to wear to the party.
SHOCKINGLY, the idea of his wife trying on hot dresses does not interest Paul in the slightest.
Zoe: Too much foofaraw. If I’m gonna wear a dress I want something with some slink.
Wash: You want a slinky dress? I can buy you a slinky dress. Captain, can I have money for a slinky dress?
-Firefly, “Shindig”
Good couple, bad couple.
They go to Rodeo Drive, which was presumably destroyed in the tsunami, because in Atheistopia it is “a ten-story mall of exclusive stores for those who enjoyed actual shopping more than on-line virtual try-ons.”
Virtual try-ons??? That sounds AWESOME. Even in the last chapter, Jenkins cannot stop telling us about the greatness of this world.
Paul hasn’t seen his wife for weeks. You would think, New Christian Man that he is, that he would want to get right to work on “investing” in the relationship, as Straight said he should.
But no…
“Paul, I know how much you hate shopping…” [Jae said]
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
“So why don’t you have the chauffeur take you somewhere? This is my one big chance at Rodeo Drive, and I don’t want to worry that you’re miserable.”
By which Jae means, of course, “I don’t want you to make me miserable.”
Paul was a hairsbreadth away from taking her up on it, desperate to see what was going on at the port, when it struck him: This is a test. Maybe Jae was in cahoots with Ranold and maybe she wasn’t. But Ranold had arranged for the limo and driver right after stripping Paul of his agency car.
Huh? ONE PAGE AGO, Jenkins said it was Tiny who offered the limo.
If the man behind the wheel wasn’t an operative assigned to check on him, Paul would be shocked.
Unless it was Jae checking on him. Or Ranold. Or Jae and Ranold. Or…
Again, paranoia = good. But not when he has always hated Jae and been suspicious of her every move and every word, despite her history of loyalty and truth-telling. (Unlike a certain Paul I could name…)
So, Paul sticks with Jae. This is another expression I am using very loosely, as Paul ditches her in the very first store to go and call Straight.
Straight led off with the good news. Someone in the salt mines knew Carl and Lois because of their letterpress-printed tracts and had been able to warn them away from Sapiens.
Yeah, again, not the most efficient communication system ever devised.
Paul learns of upcoming raid on L.A. Christians from Ranold -> Paul calls Straight in Chicago -> Straight contacts Detroit underground -> Christians in Detroit know Christians in L.A. -> Detroit Christians warn L.A. Christians
You know what might work better?
Paul learns of upcoming raid from Ranold -> Paul warns L.A. Christians
“Nothing is hopeless,” Straight said. “Last I heard, God was still on His throne.”
Tell that to Grace Dean, you smug ass.
But there’s good news on the Stinky Fish front—Carl and Lois have apparentl been using their downtime away from the docks to disseminate The Bold Manifesto to other Christians and to news outlets. Straight gives Paul the scoop, seeing as how Paul, the double agent, has no other direct access to other Christians:
“…the word is being spread. San Francisco and Washington are hopping, eager for God to avenge their martyrs.”
Okay. Not quite sure how dissicating L.A. will avenge murders across the country, but I guess it’s good to know that all of the other Christians are as bloodthirsty as Paul, Straight, and the Stinky Fish Christians.
Paul and Jae even see the manifesto on TV as they are shopping. It is largely perceived as a hoax or a big joke. Jae’s reaction seems typical:
“What in the world…?”
This should be even more evidence (as if we needed it) that the demand that the citizens of Atheistopia “rise up and force the powers that be to change their cruel and unjust laws” is patently ridiculous.
Oh, and pay attention to the timing here, my friends. It is Saturday, probably around the middle of the day.
Remember that. 😉
Posted on March 18, 2012, in Books, Soon. Bookmark the permalink. 44 Comments.
RubyTea
Heathen Critique 
When I read this novel, I remember it going from the live sushi to Tiny giving his movie idea. Jenkins truly stretched it out so far that my mind willfully jettisoned everything in between? I shouldn’t be surprised; I did something similar with the second Left Behind novel. Jenkins just has that anti-talent to make the events so forgettable.
Why does Jenkins love overcomplicating this shit? Srsly. That subplot with Paul playing the literal game of telephone with his Christian co-conspirators? WTF.
And for a guy who doesn’t mind banging every woman he comes across he’s suddenly very un-eager to take advantage of the scripturally very A-OK and very mandated ability to have his wife in bed for some guilt-free sex.
He’s lucky he’s in Atheistopia and not in some bizarro 1955, because his sudden lack of interest in his wife might get his boss wondering if he’s gay, and we know where that kind of thing went in those days (at the very least to losing your job, if not a whole lot more).
As it is, in Atheistopia, Ranold would probably figure Paul’s sex life is none of his business, and be a little more concerned about Paul’s religious life.
Apparently, in Jenkins-land, the ideal spy is a celibate male with delusions of grandeur and pretensions to being James Bond.
Seriously! Look at Buck Williams. As far as you can tell from the book series, he and Chloe basically boinked once that we know of, and the rest of the time he’s busy playacting the brave revolutionary by manifestly doing NOTHING of substance to help ANYONE. Oh, wait. He runs his own journalistic website.
WE GOT A BADASS OVER HERE GUYS.
More like another Author Self-Insert.
Hey, don’t complain — it’s still more progressive than the story we’re actually reading.
There is Retro, and there is Retro done BAD…
Wait, it just hit me.
This is a FIFTIES/SIXTIES image of The Future. Just like those plain solarbronze-box megastructures in all the rebuilt cities. That was the visual image of The Future in movies and pop culture of the Fifties and Sixties.
And Gold Cat-Suits would not be out of place in Cat-Women of Venus or similar B-movies of the period.
Like his target audience, Jenkins remains a day late and a dollar short.
Yeah. I can deal with books and movies using the 1950s and 1960s as the template for a future – it can be done very well. In fact the original script for Minority Report was built more on that concept than the shooting script, with characters explicitly saying that sort of thing.
“Look at us -it’s 2040 and we’ve wrapped ourselves up in the 1950’s like a big security blanket. Why? Because we want to feel like they felt. Safe.”
Jenkins, however, does not do it well. And really, his portrayal of a movie director seems so hammy and cliched I have to wonder if he’s ever met one outside of Cloud Ten.
More likely it’s we want to feel how we imagine they felt.
That was the McCarthy era and the start of the Cold War. Communists were lurking around every corner in the public perception and there was a sense that nuclear war could come at any time.
Somehow that gets left out of the Ideal Fifties. Nope, it’s all poodle skirts, drive-in movies, and Family Values (TM).
And the all-time peak of church attendance. Can’t forget that.
I’ve always had the same comeback to the RTCs going on about The Fifties as some sort of Godly Golden Age. (And I’m an aficionado of The Nifty Fifties.)
Their Fifites isn’t the REAL 1950s. It’s a Mythic Fifties according to Ozzie, Harriet, and Donna Reed.
McCarthyism was a bonus.
Headless Unicorn Guy: Pretty much. The craving of the 50’s is the lure of nostalgia, pining for some better “golden age.” This is all well and good when you use the Golden Age as a template to look forward and aspire to make your society better, to build upon the achievements of the past and in time surpass them. It’s quite another to sit around grousing about how “things were better BACK THEN.” And “BACK THEN” tends to never be remembered quite as it was.
Hey, I sometimes like me some 50’s style — Bettie Page, rar!; and for all their gas guzzlerness T-birds are some nice looking cars; and I wish the fedora was back in style — but the 50’s also had some really unpleasant things. Nuclear cold war, gender inequality, racism both blatant and subtle, McCarthyism — though as I noted, some of these people addicted to nostalgia think McCarthyism was a good thing.
Then again, it’s unpleasantly possible that these nostalgia addicts think that everything we think of as bad in the 50’s were also good things. That’s rather depressing.
That’s where I’m coming from, VMink. I’m just old enough to remember the tail end of the REAL 1950s; what I wish we’d kept from it was the can-do optimism and sense of style and decorum that got swept away (along with all the bad parts you and others have listed) in the sea change of The Sixties (TM). Which was actually the SECOND 1960s — the First 1960s was The New Frontier, where things were loosening up from the Fifties but had not yet gone crazy. (Before we threw away the Moon, planets, and stars to screw in the mud at Woodstock.)
And The Fifties were the way they were for a reason. After 20 years of Great Depression and World War, the USA had come out not only intact but stronger. As the only First World nation to survive without damage to its homeland (and a stronger infrastructure supplying the rest of the Allies), the USA had become the richest nation in the world, rebuilding Europe and Japan with its resources in an unequalled period of prosperity. And this prosperity was spread more widely than before — the typical white blue-collar or white-collar worker could now own his own house in the new postwar suburbs, commute to work in his own car, and travel on vacation. (This was quite an improvement on before.)
And with things going so good after 20 years of hell, It Was Miller Time. We’d pulled out of the Depression, we’d won the War, things were going good, time to kick back and enjoy. Even the now-derided conformity and “phoniness” of that period was a plus at the time — when things are finally going good, you don’t want anyone to rock the boat and maybe wreck it. You stomp on anybody who rocks the boat. Beware thou of the Mutant.
Point of order about getting out of WWII without damage to your homeland: Canada.
*hums ‘O Canada’*
🙂
@RubyTea and HUG:
See, this is what i find fascinating about views of the 1950s and 1960s.
Back when I was a kid growing up in the 1980s, everybody dumped all over the fifties and sixties and laughed at the dumb looking bell-bottoms and the stodginess of the era, and shook their heads at the way an idiot like McCarthy could scare an entire country into looking for Communists everywhere you turned.
But then I started reading books by people like Linda McQuaig and James Laxer and Lester Thurow, and I discovered another side to the 1950s and 1960s, the “Miller Time” HUG talks about: the years and years of unprecedented economic expansion, a time when it didn’t seem like every few years you’d run a good risk of losing everything you had because the damn economy wenrt into the crapper again. I’ve lived through – let’s see, 1982, 1991, 2001 (near miss, but the SGS proves it), and now 2009. That’s four recessions in 20 years. Three of those four were pretty freakin’ bad recessions, because Canada’s unemployment rate is usually higher than the US’s. I’m lucky I was still in school or had plans to, in some form, for these.
But you go back and you look at the small recession of 1959, pretty much the only one of the period, and that was nothing. Small potatoes.
A very different time, in some respects. Like HUG, I think it would have been nice to keep some of that.
Gaaah. Also, gaaah.
No, no, of course Paul isn’t gay – that would be a sin. Now sure, he spends a lot of time with a guy who came to visit him in hospital, hasn’t been sexually interested in women at all, and sneaks away from his wife to make covert phone calls to that guy – but it’s all right, he’s just working to destroy the society he lives in. That’s all right then.
It’s BROMANCE, not TEH GAY.
Bros and Hos and all that.
Last time they checked, the stinky fishermen weren’t home. You’re hoping they’ll be stupid enough to come back to their hiding hole despite two of their members being compromised and killed (well, only one but the atheistapo doesn’t know that). Given that, the last thing you’d want is to give a pre-raid party with a bunch of gossipy celebrities who are probably being permanently followed by tabloid reporters.
That description of the movie is actually worth a few chuckles. Too bad that Jenkins has repeatedly written the exact same story, with tall handsome men who could have sex with every attractive woman they meet, but stop doing so once they convert, and all women are either beautifull and on his side or stocky with sensible shoes and worthy of all the humiliation Paul will inflict upon them before god gets his turn. I think the only not-ugly villain is Nicky, and that’s because he’s supposed to be supernaturally attractive.
This is my one big chance at Rodeo Drive, and I don’t want to worry that you’re miserable.
That’s the difference between Jae and Paul in one neat sentence. Also, Paul, has it occured to you if you don’t trust your driver, that you can do something that’s both not-shopping and not-exposing-yourself-for-the-traitor-you-are. Impressive that Jenkins goes out of his way to show he isn’t going with his wife on something she likes because he’s trying to ‘invest’ in their relationship but because he suspects she’s a filthy traiterous harlot who wants nothing less than his downfall.
“Last I heard, God was still on His throne.” When did he ever hear that? He read it in his Bible what gods presumed status was thousands of years ago, but I he hasn’t witnessed any miracles.
But don’t you remember? There was a fire! In an oil field, of all places! IT’S A MIRACLE FROM GOD I TELL YOU!!1!
(Granted, Straight didn’t witness that Miracle™ himself.)
That said, didn’t some dude get turned into silver?
I should have specified: Yes, there have been miracles but all witnessed by Paul. As far as I know, Straight didn’t see any of them. He knows Paul got on a plane and the next time he saw him his eyes were healed and Paul claimed it was because of a miracle. But that could just as easily have been Paul trying to infiltrate the zealots on Atheistapo orders, having his eyes fixed in a different clinic and going to Straight and telling him it was a miracle healing so Straight thinks he’s really converted and favored by god.
Of course, in this story, it is obviously true. God is still on his throne, has always been on his throne and will be on his throne forever. It just irks me that he’s both so utterly convinced that he this is a proven fact, and that god sitting on his throne equals their plan being a guaranteed success, in spite of decades of suffering by the zealots while Atheistopia flourished around them. So Straight makes this claim on no evidence and despite decades of experience to the contrary. And of course Jenkins feels the same about the real world. He’s got no proof either, and plenty of example to the contrary, but still it’s obvious that god is still on his throne so vote for Sanatorum now! (Actually, do L&J like Sanatorum with sensible ideas about contraception being a vile sin only neccesary for sluts and universities being tools of satan? Or is he an eeeevil work-righteous Catholic?
Wait, Paul’s supposed to be such a chick magnet that they just fling themselves on him, and it just wouldn’t be polite to say no, right? And yet, after MONTHS of “deprivation” (during the time he was blind, and since his conversion), his wife comes back to him, and the story doesn’t bother to tell us whether they slept in the same room? Because we’re supposed to ignore the fact that, given this guy’s history and attitude, he probably expects his wife to serve it up, apparently eagerly, on demand?
Why, exactly, does Tiny know anything about this raid? Is operational security such an unknown idea in Atheistopia?
Paul no longer wants sex, except for makin’ babies.
No Christian would ever listen to a non-Christian – it might sully their purity – so the raid is announced in advance so that people can come and watch…
You know, if they really wanted to show depravity, anti-religious attacks, and generally show Atheistopia as a horrible place filled with horrible people – they could take this a few ways:
a) have raids on religious enclaves be a form of reality television, with people competing for the chance to take part in the next raid, and then cameras follow the raid like that “Steven Seagal Lawman” show…
b) have rich people flat out be able to buy tickets to participate in the next raid, much like you can buy a ride on a Russian space rocket. For a certain fee, you not only get to go along, but you also get a private party, before or after the raid, with the “celebrity” raid-leaders… Again, the raid and the party are filmed and televised as reality television for the enjoyment of the masses.
etc.
But no, instead we get raids on people who *are* in fact attempting to harm the people of L.A., by a group of people who seem to be competent only at killing the occasional Christian (with one exception where they took out a church-full), who don’t even get the concept of operational security.
Hell, given how popular COPS has been, they could even just have TV Teams following the Atheistapo as they raid suspected religious enclaves and trash the place on national television. Jenkins could have had a lot of mileage out of that; Paul coudl be this national hero type whose face has been on countless episodes, to the point where religious believers being raided would shit bricks at seeing him.
On the flip side would be an army of thousands of ordinary people who do nothing but seek out religious believers, engendering such a sense of paranoia as to their effectiveness in infiltrating any organization ever.
Now THAT’S a feared secret police with a public face and a secret face.
And Atheistapo fanboys taking spontaneous action on their own — the “Let Bubba Do It” school of plausible deniability. Maybe even sponsored or helped under-the-table, just like the American Patriotic League (Woodrow Wilson’s goon squad) during World War One. Or the Patriotic Societies of Fascist Japan, who always seemed to assassinate “traitors” who got on the Army’s bad side.
Heck, if Jenkins wanted to engage in some high-grade projection — excuse me, TELL IT LIKE IT IS *snerk* he would have the Atheistapo televise all these raids, with them using not laser rifles but some whizzbang nonlethals (that are of course occasionally tragically lethal) and show the Christians being arrested and gently taken off to reeducation camps — I mean, hospitals by men in white coats. There they are brainwashed — I mean, carefully and gently and lovingly disabused of their foolish, silly, *hurtful* religious beliefs. Every so often, one gets released, and becomes a staunch supporter of such gentle but firm kindness.
(Of course, the success stories are the outliers. After a year or so the Atheistapo gives up and just napalm-barrels anyone who hasn’t made the cut.)
The raid leaders are celebrities, people going out to administer some tough love on the people whose mindsets started the Third World War. Put some sort of multidirectional camera rig on the raid leaders, That would be a good name for the virtua-series, too: Tough Love, this week! the San Francisco raid, starring Paul Stepola! (And every so often put in a stunt guy, and stage a raid on a fake Christian hideout where all the ‘cultists’ are actually jumped-up actors. “This is the episode where the zealot knocks Paul to the ground and starts pounding on his head!” “I love that episode. Paul is such a jackass.” “Pity it’s all shot from his point of view, so it looks like the zealot is pounding YOU head in….”
Seriously, Jenkins could have taken almost any other route to describe Atheistopia and how it controls people and tries to eliminate religion and it could have been better than what he ended up with.
who don’t even get the concept of operational security.
I get the impression that Jenkins didn’t want to show the Atheistapo as being genuinely effective. There’s that same attempt to “Keystone Kops” the NPO that he did with Nicolae Carpathia, to make them seem ineffective because ultimately GOTT IST MIT UNS! and anyone who tries to go against God is just going to make a fool of themselves.
It could be entertaining, if the humor is done with a light touch and there was some thought put into the capers… and if any of the main characters were at all interesting or sympathetic. As it is, Buck is an arrogant prick, Rayford is an even bigger arrogant prick, and Stepola is a f***ing monster.
That says AUTHOR SELF-INSERT right there.
LAST CHAPTER ALERT
The Nightmare is nearing its end…
This should be even more evidence (as if we needed it) that the demand that the citizens of Atheistopia “rise up and force the powers that be to change their cruel and unjust laws” is patently ridiculous.
I’m still looking in the Book of Acts and the Epistles to find any similar manifesto delivered to the Roman Empire.
Oh, and pay attention to the timing here, my friends. It is Saturday, probably around the middle of the day.
Other than a REALLY slow news day, what’s the significance? Sabbath? Day before Sunday (when any climactic miracle would be scheduled by God)?
Virtual try-ons??? That sounds AWESOME. Even in the last chapter, Jenkins cannot stop telling us about the greatness of this world.
After 36 long chapters, Jenkins is still unclear on the whole concept of “Dystopia”…
Don’t we already *have* virtual try-ons, though?
http://www.ukhairdressers.com/wardrobe2/index.asp has a “virtual try on” where you load up a picture of your face, with your hair pulled back, and “try on” different hairstyles. They’ve also got a mannequin image you can dress in different outfits and wigs.
Lane Bryant lets you pull up a virtual image that’s in your size and body shape, and try their clothes on it.
And then – Not virtual, but last time I was in LensCrafters, I heard them telling someone that they could take your picture with the frames on (cameras built into computer system), then let you take a look with your old glasses on, so you could actually see what you look like with the glasses you’re considering. Best idea ever, or BEST. IDEA. EVER?
Hrrmmm… If Jenkins was any good, he’d have told us how the years of oppression have changed the typical worship behaviors of … well, at least one of the current groups of Christians.
If it were today’s world – I know my Catholic neighbors usually go to mass (and presumably pray officially, as opposed to all the other times they do it unofficially) on Saturday evening. Saturday-worshippers (as I used to be) are probably already out of church, but may be having a fellowship lunch, and possibly planning on engaging in some afternoon Bible study, some sort of mission service, or maybe just a nap. Sunday, one assumes the majority of Christians (those that haven’t already done it), will be having the “official” worship and prayer.
I’m thinking Jenkins probably does think this timing matters, because he probably does think that having a group of people, in a room, engaging in a prayer led by someone, have a more powerful effect on his deity than a just as many (or many more people) desperately begging for the exact same thing from wherever they happen to be, whenever it occurs to them to pray.
(Or maybe I’m WAY overthinking this, and it’s just that we’re going to find out that all the water dried up, or the pipes got clogged, or whatever will happen to dry up the water *just happened* at the precise moment the manifesto hit the airwaves. Not the moment anybody decided to ask for it, or the moment tons of people prayed for it, but the moment the manifesto ran on tv. Because even The Big Guy In The Sky is all about the ratings.)
He should have read In the Presence of Mine Enemies in which Turtledove shows how the religious observances of Jewish hideouts in the German Reich has changed due to the need to hide away. And these people are constantly worried that they might be discovered, too!
I have a RL anecdote about Turtledove’s In the Presence of Mine Enemies, and it involves Jenkins-level cluelessness:
This happened sometime between 2005 and 2007, at LosCon. Harry Turtledove was GoH that year, so all the dealers in the dealers’ room were stocking his books. I picked up a copy of ItPoMe and went up to the con suite to read it. (I’m a natural-talent speedreader.) As I’m going through the book, there’s this loud political “discussion” going on across the con suite — some kid (definitely under 30) was ranting about how Bush was Hitler, the Republicans were Nazis and they’d turned Amerika into Nazi Germany we’re being persecuted just like the Jews bla bla bla. This while I’m reading an alternate-history written by a history professor set in the very world Hitler und Goebbels AG tried to bring about. Let’s just say it was surreal. And clueless.
I swear, first thing I thought of when I read Tiny’s movie idea was RuPaul’s Starrbooty movies. Starrbooty is the only secret agent I can think of who could pull off a gold catsuit, though I can’t remember if she ever wore one.
Come to think of it, I hope Athiestopia has at least one drag queen or trans secret agent series somewhere in their filmography.
…WAIT
Just remembered: This role has already been played. Sort of. http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51C45ASNXPL.jpg
Cillian Murphy is the best thing ever.
Diana Rigg could, and probably has, pulled off a gold catsuit.
Will this do?
“Mrs. Peel: we’re needed.”
… You know a lot of this book would make way more sense, or at least be legitimately amusing if it took place in the surreality of a 60’s spy show. Hell this whole L.A. fiasco would fit in perfectly to an episode of The Prisoner.
I’m just not sure if Paul would be #6 or #2 in this situation.
True. However, this is RTC History Written in Advance (Rapture tie-in), so everything must be presented Dead Serious. IMPORTANT MESSAGE just like Waterworld and the announced remake of Plan Nine from Outer Space. Dead Serious, Important Message Sociopolitical (or Christianese) Commentary on What’s REALLY Going On.
“This should be even more evidence (as if we needed it) that the demand that the citizens of Atheistopia “rise up and force the powers that be to change their cruel and unjust laws” is patently ridiculous.”
Given that the entire “Left Behind” series is basically an outlet for LaHaye and Jenkins (and all of their faithful readers) to gloat about how the ebil nonbelievers who didn’t listen to their warnings to get right with God and convert to obedient little robot followers will get all the suffering that they so justly deserve for ignoring them, I’m thinking Jenkins deliberately put that demand in precisely so that all of Atheistopia *would* find it ridiculous and ignore it, so when God’s will ultimately shows itself and the Christians are proved right and start making the atheists suffer, there’ll be a way for the projected emotions of “I told you, I warned you and you didn’t listen, so now you deserve whatever you’re getting!” to make sense. After all, the Atheistopians can’t regret not listening to the underground Christians if the Christians haven’t given the Atheistopians anything to listen *to,* and those “tract pamphlets” we heard about earlier, besides potentially not reaching the majority of the Atheistopians, don’t seem to really emphasize the dire consequences of not accepting Jeebus.
The logical answer to this, I think, is “yes, you said these things, but the guy standing next to you said we should grind up everyone with an E in his name to be food for Great Cthulhu, and you have never done anything to suggest your theology should be taken more seriously than his”. RTCs never accept that they might not be immediately convincing – so anyone who’s not immediately convinced must be The Enemy.
There’s also how they’ve been so absorbed in a culture where doubting the existence of hell is grounds for being send there, they probably think they’re really giving you ‘good news’ when they tell you that if you admit you’re worthless, beg for forgiveness and live your life to some very strict rules you can escape eternal torment. While to outsiders, they come across as your stereotypical “Nice place, shame if something happens to it”-gangsters who expect you to consider it ‘good news’ that they give you a chance to pay protection money to avoid having your shopped trashed.