It’s an eternal fear that Christians should have. Not fear of execution or even torture, but fear of forfeiting their salvation to avoid such things.
They get you on the ‘eternal fear’ too. It was the
Left Behind series, a novelization of the Pre-Millenial view of the End Times, and it hits you with a one-two punch.
One: if you want to avoid Tribulation, become a Believer now and you will be raptured to Heaven prior to this terrible period (BTW- if I remember right, it depicts the current Pope, who is unnamed, getting ‘raptured’ and being replaced by Peter II who later become head of the One World Religion, which is more akin to a New Agism/Universalim and NOT Roman Catholicism and never called such; Roman Catholics I think come off pretty good in the series).
Two: if you want to avoid Hell, you had better be Saved before you die, which could occur at anytime, including during the Rapture itself (suddenly unmanned cars crash and kill people, etc.).
When I read the first book at age 18, as part of a high school language arts elective [this was in a non-religious school BTW], I suddenly felt the need to read the rest of books and, eventually, I realized that, if this stuff is true, since I was not a Believer, I’d be going to Hell. It scared me, I watched several televangelists (it was really the only access to Christianity I had since I was afraid of how my father and the rest of the family [my mother is passed away] would respond to my interest in Christianity so for awhile I was almost a Crypto-Christian) and eventually prayed the ‘Salvation prayer’ (many time over whenever I watched those shows again).
Mixed with my OCD, this fear-based faith (and for the first several months I wasn’t going to Church or even reading the Bible and I wasn’t baptized until about a year later…good ole Crypto-Christianity) caused, and in some ways continues to cause, me to be most unfruitful, easily manipulated (many people love to add things onto Salvation…) and just constantly scared: before baptism, I was worried that I wasn’t Saved; after baptism, I was afraid I wasn’t baptized properly (always worried that a part of me was not immersed) and baptized for the wrong reasons (fear and thinking it would Save me); I was always afraid that since I didn’t tell my father quickly about my faith (I eventually told him and he knew I was a Believer already) and, even now, have yet to tell other family members about it, that I was going to be ‘denied by Christ for denying Him’; anytime I sinned (or though I sinned), I was afraid I lost my Salvation; anytime I prayed (especially for forgiveness or the Salvation prayer itself) I worried that I was making vain repetition or praying without faith; I got sucked into bad theology; I had periods of great emotional distress and was worried that I was failing to follow God’s will and thus lost my Salvation.
Although I have experienced (and, in some ways, continue to experience) issues from fear-based faith, it is a mixed bag. I was talking to someone and they asked me if I believed, and I responded that I thought so (if I didn’t believe in Jesus, I wouldn’t fear that He’d one day send me to Hell) and I, intellectually at least (if it had gotten through to my emotions, i wouldn’t always be in the throes of fear), understood that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I had said I had prayed the Salvation prayer many times and, as best I could tell, I believed it and I had been baptized. The guy I was talking to responded about how if I believed, then I was Saved and even though I had a lot of issues and fear, I still believed. Something about it being better to get to Heaven in third-class (not talking about rewards in Heaven, but more about the discomfort and issues I face) then to go to Hell in first-class.
I will say one thing though, fear doesn’t usually stop a person from sinning (I know this from personal experience), but merely causes them to get very scared afterwards, worry about their Salvation and, instead of asking God for forgiveness [either directly or indirectly] (from the point-of-view of a theology that would say that sin, even willful sin, does not cause loss of Salvation, forgiveness is basically restoration of fellowship with God and cleansing the person’s conscience and/or soul in some way so that the negative and harmful effects of sin on a person’s relationship with God and other people is reduced/reversed), to just get scared and try to come up with some odd way of ‘making up’ for the sin (either in addition to, or instead of, confessing to God). For instance, for me, depending on the sin, the way to make-up for it (in addition to confession to God) was, if it was a sin I was embarassed about, confession to another person (i.e. my father or some random Christian, even if the sin did not involve them at all).
