Tribulation Force by Tim Lahye and Jerry B. Jenkins

Tribulation Force, the second novel of the Left Behind Series, is written by Tim Lahye and Jerry B. Jenkins. It is a fiction book with 452 pages. The Left Behind series takes place in the near future, and is based on a small branch of the Christian faith. The story is based on an event called the Rapture which came from an interpretation of the Book of Revelation. The Rapture is basically God taking all the true believers, the true Christians away from the Earth. After they are gone, the people who are left behind will face a lot of suffering on Earth. The series is about the adventures of four people: Rayford Steele, Buck Williams, Bruce Barns, and Chloe Steele during the time of and after the Rapture, until God returns and gives the people one last chance. The series also talks about the Antichrist, who is a young Romanian politician in the story. He is supposed to promise world peace and then bring destruction.

The reason I chose this book to do my book report because although I go to a Christian school, I do not actually know that much about Christianity. I know that it is about Jesus, love and compassion, but that is just what I would call a casual Christian. What I want to know about is real Christianity, because Christianity compared to the other religions seems to less religious, because it has less rituals and worship. Christian festivals have become holidays that everyone celebrates, and I think that it has lost its true meaning. Going to church on Sundays became a social thing as well. So I want to learn more about the real Christianity and compare it to the Christianity we see today. The second reason I chose this book is because I have read the first book in the series, and I found it interesting and well written.

I like this book because it explores the minds of people when they are interacting with other people. Many times people think of things that they don’t say out loud, and it is very interesting to see how the main characters in the book is supposed to be model Christians but they are not 100% honest as well. From this I learned that Christianity is not just about a good person, because before I thought of Christianity as more of a moral code than a religion. I now think that Christianity is more about having faith and trusting God, not changing yourself into something that you are not to please God.

The event this book talks about, the Rapture, is supposed to be from the Book of Revelations, which is the last book of the Bible. I doubt if the Bible really speaks of something like the Rapture, because it is too dramatic and is not very convincing. Maybe in the Bible it is supposed to be a metaphor, not to be taken literally. I think it actually meant that people who believed in God would be able to be happy and not suffer, and be taken into the God’s hands metaphorically. I think Tribulation Force is based on a literal interpretation of the Bible, which is something I don’t like about this book.

In this book, there was one part when Buck Williams, one of the main characters and a famous journalist, needs to have a lunch meeting with Nicolae, the young Romanian politician who is supposed to be the Antichrist. At that point of the story, Nicolae has already become the head of the UN, and is quite powerful, but he does not know that Buck is a believer of Christ after the Rapture. Buck chose to meet Nicolae, even when he was afraid that Nicolae could read his mind. Nicolae offered him the job of the publisher of all of the newspaper companies, because Nicolae is going to buy them all with the UN money. Buck is tempted to accept the offer, but he knew