Timothy Francis LaHaye (April 27, 1926 – July 25, 2016) was an American Baptist evangelical Christian minister and political activist who wrote more than 85 books, both non-fiction and fiction, including (with co-author Jerry B. Jenkins) the Left Behind series of novels depicting apocalypse events after a pre-tribulation rapture.

He was a founder of the Council for National Policy, a conservative Christian advocacy group. LaHaye opposed homosexuality, believing it to be immoral and unbiblical. He was a critic of Roman Catholicism, and a believer in conspiracy theories regarding the Illuminati. LaHaye has been called "one of the most influential evangelicals of the late twentieth century" and, along with his wife Beverly LaHaye, he helped shape the beliefs and organizations of the Christian right.

Born in Detroit, Michigan, he experienced the early death of his father, which he later cited as a formative spiritual moment. LaHaye served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II and later earned degrees from Bob Jones University and Western Seminary. He pastored congregations in South Carolina, Minnesota, and California, spending nearly 25 years at Scott Memorial Baptist Church in San Diego. He co-founded Christian Heritage College (now San Diego Christian College) and the Institute for Creation Research, and authored The Act of Marriage, a Christian guide promoting marital sexuality within a complementarian framework.

LaHaye was heavily involved in conservative political activism, founding groups such as Californians for Biblical Morality and the American Coalition for Traditional Values, and encouraging the creation of the Moral Majority. He supported several Republican presidential campaigns. His views included premillennial dispensationalism. He was recognized as one of the most influential evangelicals of his era, with numerous awards and tributes, including from Time Magazine and Liberty University.

Biography

Early life

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."<!-- Found reference from 2004, better to find original 2003 interview quoted -->

LaHaye later said that, upon hearing those remarks, "all of a sudden, there was hope in my heart I'd see my father again."

LaHaye enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in 1944, at the age of 18,

In 1976, the couple wrote The Act of Marriage, a Christian self-help sex manual. The book sought to depict enjoyment of sex within marriage as positive rather than sinful. It frames marital sex as an important part of a complementarian, divinely designed relationship – with men as aggressive, sexually voracious leaders whose submissive wives provide them with sexual satisfaction to boost their egos and thereby make them more confident leaders, as part of God's design for gender roles.

Political activism

LaHaye started numerous groups to promote his views, having become involved in politics at the Christian Voice during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

LaHaye was a member of and speaker for the John Birch Society (JBS), a conservative, anti-communist group; scholar Celestini Carmen argues that LaHaye used the JBS's culture war methods and rhetoric of "fear, apocalyptic thought and conspiracy" to forge the Moral Majority, with "fear, anger, and disgust as essential ingredients." His book Rapture Under Attack describes his time in the JBS and relationship to its leader, Robert W. Welch Jr.

Then in 1981, he left the pulpit to concentrate his time on politics and writing. That year, he helped found the Council for National Policy (CNP), a policy making think tank in which membership is only available through invitation. ABC News called it "the most powerful conservative organization in America you've never heard of".

In the 1980s he was criticized by the evangelical community for accepting money from Bo Hi Pak, a longtime Sun Myung Moon operative. He was additionally criticized for joining Moon's Council for Religious Freedom, which was founded to protest Moon's 1984 imprisonment. The center is dedicated to producing material that supports a dispensationalist, pre-tribulation interpretation of the Bible. and served as his spiritual advisor.

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." which opened in January 2002 and was named after LaHaye. He, alongside his wife, served as a member of Liberty's board of trustees.

He provided funds for the LaHaye Ice Center on the campus of Liberty University, which opened in January 2006.

LaHaye's book The Rapture was released on June 6, 2006, in order to capitalize on a 6-6-6 connection.

Personal life and death

Tim LaHaye married activist and fellow author Beverly Ratcliffe in 1947 while attending Bob Jones University.

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, he was survived by four children, nine grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren, a brother (Richard LaHaye), and a sister. 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. LaHaye is interred at Miramar National Cemetery in San Diego, California.

Views

Homosexuality

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." 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." He believed that homosexuality can be cured. However, he said that such conversions are rare.

Global conspiracies

LaHaye believed that the Illuminati is secretly engineering world affairs. In Rapture Under Attack he wrote:<blockquote>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.</blockquote>

The Illuminati is just one of many groups that he 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, Carnegie, Ford), the United Nations, "the left wing of the Democratic Party", Harvard, Yale "and 2,000 other colleges and universities."

Eschatology

While himself a premillennialist who asserted the end times were near and that the nation will be judged, LaHaye also adopted aspects of R. J. Rushdoony's postmillennialist movement, Christian reconstructionism. Despite varying beliefs on how the end times will occur, both groups share a "desire to reclaim the culture for Christ by reasserting patriarchal authority and waging battle against encroaching secular humanism, in all its guises."

Anti-Catholic sentiments

LaHaye was a harsh critic of Roman Catholicism, which he called "a false religion". 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."<!-- This is a quote from Bob Jones Jr. – was it published in Mission to Catholics' pamphlets? -->

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.

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, he 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." He also endorsed Catholic convert Newt Gingrich for president in 2012.

Tributes

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.

Works

LaHaye authored over 85 books in his lifetime.

  • Your Temperament Can Be Changed (1978)
  • Anger Is a Choice (1982, with Dr. Bob Phillips, Ph.D)
  • How to Manage Pressure Before Pressure Manages You (1983)
  • Increase Your Personality Power (1984)
  • Practical Answers to Common Questions about Sex in Marriage (1984)
  • The Coming Peace in the Middle East (1984)
  • Your Temperament: Discover Its Potential (1984)
  • What Lovemaking Means to a... series:
  • What Lovemaking Means to a Woman: Practical Advice to Married Women about Sex (1984)
  • What Lovemaking Means to a Man: Practical Advice to Married Men about Sex (1984)
  • Sex Education is for the Family (1985)
  • Why You Act the Way You Do (1987)
  • Finding the Will of God in a Crazy, Mixed-Up World (1989)
  • If Ministers Fall, Can They Be Restored? (1990)
  • Our Life Together (1990, with Richard Exley)
  • I Love You, But Why Are We So Different?: Making the Most of Personality Differences in Your Marriage (1991)
  • Raising Sexually Pure Kids: How to Prepare Your Children for The Act of Marriage (1993)
  • Smart Money (1994, with Jerry Tuma)
  • The Spirit-Filled Family: Expanded for the Challenges of Today (1995, with Beverly LaHaye)
  • Gathering Lilies from Among the Thorns: Finding the Mate God Has for You (1998, with Beverly LaHaye)
  • The Power of the Cross (1998)
  • The Act of Marriage After 40 (2000, with Beverly LaHaye, Mike Yorkey)
  • Soul Survivor series:
  • Mind Siege: The Battle for the Truth (2000, with David A. Noebel)
  • All the Rave (2002, with Bob DeMoss)
  • The Last Dance (2002, with Bob DeMoss)
  • Black Friday (2003, with Bob DeMoss)
  • Perhaps Today: Living Everyday in the Light of Christ's Return (2001, with Jerry B. Jenkins)
  • The Transparent Leader: Spiritual Secrets of Nineteen Successful Men (2001, with Dwight L. Johnson, Dean Nelson)
  • Heart Attacked: How to Keep and Guard Your Heart for God (2002, with Ed Hindson)
  • Seduction of the Heart (2002, with Ed Hindson)
  • Embracing Eternity: Living Each Day with a Heart Toward Heaven (2004, with Jerry B. Jenkins, Frank M. Martin)
  • Jesus and the Hope of His Coming (2004, with Jerry B. Jenkins)
  • Turn Your Life Around: Break Free from Your Past to a New and Better You (2006, with Tim Clinton)
  • The Essential Guide to Bible Prophecy: 13 Keys to Understanding the End Times (2012, with Ed Hindson)
  • A Quick Look at the Rapture and the Second Coming (2013)

:History:

  • Faith of Our Founding Fathers (1987)
  • Hitler, God & the Bible (2012, with Ray Comfort)

;Politics:

  • The Hidden Censors (1984)

;Religion:

  • Revelation Unveiled (1973)
  • Revelation: Illustrated and Made Plain (1973)
  • How to Study the Bible for Yourself (1976)
  • The Ark on Ararat (1976, with John D. Morris)
  • 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)
  • Who Will Face the Tribulation?: How to Prepare for the Rapture and Christ's Return (1992)
  • Understanding Bible Prophecy for Yourself (1992)
  • Jesus: Who Is He? (1996)
  • Understanding the Last Days (1998)
  • Bible Prophecy: What You Need to Know (1999)
  • Are We Living in the End Times? (1999, with Jerry B. Jenkins)
  • Tim LaHaye Prophecy Study Bible (2000)
  • The Complete Bible Prophecy Chart (2001, with Thomas Ice)
  • The Merciful God of Prophecy: His Loving Plan for You in the End Times (2002)
  • End Times Controversy: The Second Coming Under Attack (2003)
  • God Always Keeps His Promises (2003, with Jerry B. Jenkins)
  • The Promise of Heaven (2003, with Jerry B. Jenkins)
  • 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)

See also

  • Christian eschatology

References

  • Archived version of official website

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