Left Behind

Left Behind is a novel by Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins.

The book deals with the Rapture occurring near the start of the book (all Christians being taken away into heaven by Jesus in a moment of time) and then goes into the impact on those who are left behind trying to find out what has happened, what will happen next, and what they can do as seen through the eyes of a few people who eventually come together to form a small group and prepare themselves for the coming Tribulation and the rise of the Anti-Christ.

Surprisingly for Christian works, the book struck a chord with the Christian community and reached many non-Christians as well as it sold over 15,000,000 copies. Although originally planned to be a three book series, it was expanded to a twelve book series culminating with the return of Christ and became one of the most well bought series produced. The entire series sold over 63 million books.

As is common with Christian works that become successful, it was given poor reviews by many critics for its Christian specific themes instead of being more generic and all inclusive, a standard that is seldom applied to non-Christian works.