The novel is radically different from Evangelical Christian visions is that there is no Rapture and the only source of salvation, both societally and spiritually, is the Catholic Church, since the book is based on a Roman Catholic view of the Apocalypse, not an Evangelical one. Benson conceded other religions had parts of the truth, but he came to believe that only the Catholic Church had the full truth and the means of salvation. This coming to belief came from the author's conversion to Catholicism from the Protestant Church of England, wherein his father was the Archbishop of Canterbury.