Chloe: "I will not allow Kenny or me to fall into their hands."  

Tsion: "And how will you ensure this?"

Chloe: "I would rather we were dead."

Tsion: "You would kill yourself."

Chloe: "I would. And I would commit infanticide." Indwelling p 57

"Rayford was heartsick that Chloe was so determined to kill Kenny rather than see him fall into the hands of the enemy.  And yet as a father, he could identify with her passion.  It terrified him that she had thought it through to the point where she had an injection prepared."  Indwelling p 312  These are the thoughts the authors chose to have Rayford have about Chloe's premeditated murder plans for Kenny.  Why did they not have Rayford heartsick that she would not trust in God to protect Kenny, assuming they were walking in obedience to his commands?  We know the Trib Force did not walk in obedience to God's commands, and so her confidence of God's protection was severely lacking.  Why did the writers not have Rayford terrified that Chloe was putting herself on the broad road of destruction by contemplating murder?  Why did they not have him confront Chloe and tell her that murderers shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone?  (See Rev. 21:8)

Chloe committed the terrible sin of planning to kill her son and herself rather than pray unceasingly and trust God for his protection. This is outrageous and a horrible example for anyone reading the books--either the lost or the Christian. The unbeliever is seeing yet another example of "Christians" in the Trib Force sinning as a lifestyle in order to survive during the tribulation, and the Christian is seeing this presented as a possible solution if times become intolerably dangerous during the times of chaos ahead.  

The authors' depiction of Chloe making provision for this heinous sin of preparing the syringe bottle with the lethal injection ahead of time and placing it under her mattress so she could get to it at a moment's notice and of Rayford's empathic understanding of her feelings of passion toward protecting Kenny by murdering him are bad enough.  But the most glaring doctrinal problem with this fictional situation is that the authors did not have Tsion, the spiritual leader and mentor of the group, rebuke her actions as sin that will condemn her to hell if she goes through with it!  There was no mention of Tsion taking the lethal injection and disposing of it when Chloe left the safe house either, which is what any Christian, mentor or not, would have done in good conscience, considering her determination to actually commit murder.

Tsion tried to talk Chloe out of murdering Kenny and herself by using psychological tactics rather than scriptural admonitions:

"Then it follows that Cameron would be justified in killing himself."

She bit her lip and shook her head.  "The world needs him."

"The world needs you, Chloe.  Think of the co-op, the international--"

"I can't think anymore," she said.  "I want done with this! I want it over!  I don't know what we were thinking, bringing a child into this world. . . "

Tsion continued with his emotional (but not scriptural) pleas:  "That child has brought so much joy to this house--" Tsion began.

Chloe responded: "--That I could not do him the disservice of letting him fall into GC hands."

Tsion sat back, glancing at the TV.  "So the GC comes, you kill the baby, kill yourself, Cameron and your father kill themselves. . . where does it end?"

You get the gist of this.  There is not one word from Tsion, the biblical giant, and spiritual mentor of the Tribulation Force, about what the Holy Bible says about murder and about how close Chloe is coming to departing from the faith!  Tsion never sternly rebuked and warned Chloe that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him, and that if she murders Kenny or murders herself she will have her part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone!  This place is for the unbelieving and the murderers, which Chloe was on the verge of falling away into becoming both of these!

Tsion did refuse to murder the boy and promised Chloe he would protect Kenny to his fullest capability, and  he also told her, "God is with us." (Indwelling p.308)  But Tsion never warned her of the eternal consequences of murdering her child and herself.  What the authors had Rayford and Tsion not say to Chloe speaks more loudly than what they had them actually say to her.  Chloe is a fictional character and thus her soul is not real and she is not harmed by not being told that she was on the verge of departing from the faith.  

The reader, however, is real and may have never read the Bible and is getting the notion that killing one's child to keep him from Antichrist's people is something that a Christian might be able to resort to doing.  After all, nobody condemned Chloe's action as a hell-sending one.  And nobody can pluck you out of the Father's hand; even if you kill your own children or yourself, right?  You are more than conqueror through him that loved you even while you are being overcome by sin, correct?  Bible-believing Christians know this is false, but why is this falsehood of "any sin goes because nobody can pluck you out of the Father's hand" in the Left Behind series?  Is this a true depiction of Christianity?  No, it is not.  It is a "holding the truth in unrighteousness" kind of Christianity that is of the apostate kind.

The fictional scenario of a Christian planning the murder of her own child and herself (for a very good reason of course), is devilish. Isn't that the reasoning behind abortions? The circumstances warrant it?

This is also teaching that God cannot be trusted to protect his own children during the period of time known as the Tribulation, and that God's people must resort to the desperate measures of those without hope and lost in this world.

The example this is setting and the thoughts this is implanting in the minds of millions are frightening. If the authors wanted to place this scenario into the storyline to make the characters believable, why not use this as a sound doctrinal learning opportunity for the reader?  Why didn't they have Tsion tell Chloe the truth about how her actions would damn her own soul?  Why wasn't this treated as a real crisis of faith on Chloe's part?  It was pretty much dismissed and we did not hear about it later except for Leah to ask if she had learned how to make the solution from her medical books. 

This situation was never resolved biblically in the story and so the reader is definitely left with the lie in his mind that a true Christian should not kill his child or himself because it would upset other people, but not because he would forfeit his own soul.  Therefore, if you can get past the fact that other people would be very upset, you can kill your children and/or yourself to escape Antichrist's regime.  You will not go to hell, and therefore can be a Christian and a murderer (and self-murderer) because nobody can pluck you out of the Father's hand.  This is the actual message in the "Chloe planning to kill Kenny" scenario and it is a soul-damming one.

return to: Exposing False Doctrines in the Left Behind Series