Funny yet thoughtful takedown of LeHaye & Jenkins, premillenial dispensationalism and an unexpected writing primer. I hope Clark compiles more blog posts into e-book form. I'd rather give my book money to him than to L&J. ( )

Fred Clark is a popular blogger, whose posts about religion and culture can be found online under The Slacktivist, but his main claim to fame is his systematic analysis of Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye's bestselling series of rapture fiction. While the authors of the Left Behind series have admitted that each book takes about 28 days to plan, write and edit, Clark has been writing about these books for a decade, and is nowhere close to finishing. In The Anti-Christ Handbook: The Horror and Hilarity of Left Behind, he has published his explanation of the first 200 pages of Left Behind, detailing why the book is both bad theology and bad literature. It's a class in eschatology and a writing workshop, simultaneously taught by a professor with a sense of humor. Whether you've read the books, or just seen them in plentiful stacks in every used bookstore, this is a valuable guide to their flaws and why it matters that the authors got so much so very wrong. ( )