{"id":2963,"date":"2009-07-14T10:23:02","date_gmt":"2009-07-14T10:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2009\/07\/jerry-jenkins-and-stephen-king.html"},"modified":"2009-07-14T10:23:02","modified_gmt":"2009-07-14T10:23:02","slug":"jerry-jenkins-and-stephen-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/07\/jerry-jenkins-and-stephen-king.html","title":{"rendered":"Jerry Jenkins and Stephen King: BFFs?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jerryjenkins.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jerry Jenkins<\/a> undoubtedly has a devoted fan base in Christian publishing and Stephen King is legend among horror novel devotees, but who would think these two would have much in common&#8211;much less have formed a friendship.<br \/>\nJust when I thought there was no interesting angle left to discuss on the Jerry &#8220;Left Behind&#8221; Jenkins empire, I stumble across a recent interview in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.childrencomefirst.com\/wdkjinterview.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Writer&#8217;s Digest<\/a> magazine which features both Jenkins and King. Seems that King called Jenkins one day out of the blue to ask him to help the family of a colleague. From there they discussed how they each had read the other&#8217;s work, and a mutual admiration, as well as an email friendship, was formed.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nIt seems Jenkins and King actually see some similarities in their writing, since both authors feel their work provides escape and both have to work at helping readers suspend disbelief, they both have &#8220;repeat&#8221; readers who are a fan base that they must satisfy, and both have definite opinions on the nature of good and evil.  King even opens a little about the fact that he does believe in a Higher Power, even if not necessarily the God of Jenkins&#8217; work.<br \/>\nThis is a pithy, intelligent piece that I like for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that though Jenkins is the butt of many jokes for his &#8220;Left Behind&#8221; novels, this interview reveals his sincerity to find common ground with the kings of pop culture and not just be the name behind a rather polarizing series of books.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.locatetv.com\/person\/stephen-king\/17184\" target=\"_top\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.locatetv.com\/person\/stephen-king\/17184\/584x85_belief.gif\" alt=\"Stephen King at LocateTV.com\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jerry Jenkins undoubtedly has a devoted fan base in Christian publishing and Stephen King is legend among horror novel devotees, but who would think these two would have much in common&#8211;much less have formed a friendship. Just when I thought there was no interesting angle left to discuss on the Jerry &#8220;Left Behind&#8221; Jenkins empire,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jerry Jenkins and Stephen King: BFFs?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/07\/jerry-jenkins-and-stephen-king.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jerry Jenkins and Stephen King: BFFs?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jerry Jenkins undoubtedly has a devoted fan base in Christian publishing and Stephen King is legend among horror novel devotees, but who would think these two would have much in common&#8211;much less have formed a friendship. Just when I thought there was no interesting angle left to discuss on the Jerry &#8220;Left Behind&#8221; Jenkins empire,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/07\/jerry-jenkins-and-stephen-king.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-14T10:23:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.locatetv.com\/person\/stephen-king\/17184\/584x85_belief.gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kris Rasmussen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jerry Jenkins and Stephen King: BFFs?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/07\/jerry-jenkins-and-stephen-king.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jerry Jenkins and Stephen King: BFFs?","og_description":"Jerry Jenkins undoubtedly has a devoted fan base in Christian publishing and Stephen King is legend among horror novel devotees, but who would think these two would have much in common&#8211;much less have formed a friendship. Just when I thought there was no interesting angle left to discuss on the Jerry &#8220;Left Behind&#8221; Jenkins empire,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/07\/jerry-jenkins-and-stephen-king.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2009-07-14T10:23:02+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.locatetv.com\/person\/stephen-king\/17184\/584x85_belief.gif"}],"author":"Kris Rasmussen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/07\/jerry-jenkins-and-stephen-king.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/07\/jerry-jenkins-and-stephen-king.html","name":"Jerry Jenkins and Stephen King: BFFs?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/07\/jerry-jenkins-and-stephen-king.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/07\/jerry-jenkins-and-stephen-king.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.locatetv.com\/person\/stephen-king\/17184\/584x85_belief.gif","datePublished":"2009-07-14T10:23:02+00:00","dateModified":"2009-07-14T10:23:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/667195b00ac2263e0f6700056170bbf8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/07\/jerry-jenkins-and-stephen-king.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/07\/jerry-jenkins-and-stephen-king.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/07\/jerry-jenkins-and-stephen-king.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.locatetv.com\/person\/stephen-king\/17184\/584x85_belief.gif","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.locatetv.com\/person\/stephen-king\/17184\/584x85_belief.gif"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2009\/07\/jerry-jenkins-and-stephen-king.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jerry Jenkins and Stephen King: BFFs?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/667195b00ac2263e0f6700056170bbf8","name":"Kris Rasmussen","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2e7\/2e7278d93dd11c6aad2c82da37f0d657x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2e7\/2e7278d93dd11c6aad2c82da37f0d657x96.jpg","caption":"Kris Rasmussen"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/krasmussen"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/108"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}