Hal Lindsey, RIP

Thoughts on his mixed legacy

Hal Lindsey died earlier this week, the week before Advent, which I find fitting. He had just turned 95 — had he lived much longer, maybe he would have been here for the Second Coming . . . or the Rapture if his eschatology was correct.

No, I am not going to mock him as many have. He got a lot of things wrong, but he also got people’s attention in positive ways. He got them thinking and talking about The End. No telling how many he goaded into preparing for The End through faith in Christ.

And the man wrote thirty-six books by one count. I can’t even imagine writing that many. I’ve written . . . two, one of which I’d rather burn than distribute. So I have to respect an author that prolific unless he wrote total garbage, which he did not.

Of course, his most influential book was his first in 1970, The Late Great Planet Earth. And it was influential. Pop eschatology including discussions of the Rapture and fascination with Revelation was the air many American evangelicals breathed in the Seventies, including us teenagers at my Dallas Presbyterian church. Lindsey and his Late Great Planet Earth played a significant role in creating that atmosphere.

But was that helpful to our growth? Was it edifying? It certainly got us talking of eschatology (even if that word was not familiar to us) and gave us that much more incentive to dig into our Bibles. But it also led us to poor priorities in our study of prophesy, especially of the Revelation to St. John. Teens (and probably most people for that matter) already focus a bit much on the spectacular and on predictions and wondering if this and that today or in the near future is a fulfillment of prophesy rather than on prophesy’s weightier teachings. Hal Lindsey certainly reinforced that unhelpful focus. It certainly did for me and many of my friends. I had to become an Anglican and study more church history before I read Revelation with new eyes and saw the more important things I had skimmed over as a young Christian. (I hope to write on some of those during Advent… and eventually write a relevant third book.)

Yet he was helpful to no telling how many. Bill Muehlenberg is among them. While hitchhiking as a young man, a truck driver gave him a copy of Late Great Planet Earth. And God used that to bring Muehlenberg to commit to The Faith:

This was a book on biblical prophecy, stating that with the formation of the nation of Israel the prophetic clock was seriously ticking, and Jesus would soon be returning. Boy, that sure got my attention. It made me aware of the urgency of the hour, and the necessity to make sure I was right with God…

So during this period I prayed a prayer of commitment to Christ. I told him that I did not know if I was a Christian or not. If I was, I wanted to do a hardcore recommitment of my life to him. If I was not, I wanted to get saved then and there.

And unlike many other certain but errant prognosticators through the centuries, Lindsey discouraged foolish responses and gave good counsel:

We should plan our lives as though we will be here our full life expectancy, but live as though Christ may come today. We shouldn’t drop out of school or worthwhile community activities, or stop working, or rush marriage, or any such thing unless Christ clearly leads us to do. However, we should make the most of our time that is not taken up with the essentials.

So although Lindsey had his errors that are typical of some more zealous Dispensationalists, he did not lead people into foolish responses to supposed impending apocalyptic events as did Harold Camping before his repentance, William Miller and other leaders in The Great Disappointment, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Fifth Monarchists, and too many more in history. At worse, Lindsey led people to obsess too much about dates, supposed fulfillments and the like. But he also led many to faith and to take more seriously that Jesus is coming and will bring this age to an end.

So I think I can say about Hal Lindsey what I oft quip about Dispensationalists in general: he was not as right as he thought he was, but he was more right than everybody else thought he was.

And is that not a bad epitaph?

May Hal Lindsey rest in peace . . . and maybe have a good laugh over his zealous and well-meaning errors.