By now you probably know that Harold Camping, the eighty nine year old voice of the 150 unit Family Radio network, has assured us that the Rapture is going to occur on May 21, 2011 and the world will be completely destroyed October 21, 2011. Outrageous as this seems, it isn’t his first foray into such prophetic boasts. Previously Mr. Camping told us that on May 21, 1988 the church age closed and a 23 year Great Tribulation began. His boundless audacity further asserted that, “Satan has been employed by God to officially rule all of the churches."
I’m sure you’re pleased to know that, "The Holy Spirit has abandoned all churches (and) those still following any church on May 21, 2011 are not saved." Camping seems to operate on a “not-invented-here” mentality which rejects two millennia of orthodox Christian teaching as well as contemporary theologians who seek to warn and admonish him preferring instead his “I-alone-have-figured-this-out-and-am-right” views of all things ecclesiological and eschatological.
Even casual Bible students quickly detect the errors of his highly systematized analysis of Jewish festivals and their bearing on the timing of the Lord’s return. Less informed persons probably would want to know that Camping predicted in 1992 that Christ would return between September 15 and 27, 1994. Since you are reading this right now, Camping was in error. Commenting to Christianity Today on September 28, 1994 he conceded, “Obviously this has not happened, so that was inaccurate.”
Inaccurate? Certainly there is a richer word in the King’s English for prompting thousands to reorder their lives (not to mention sending Family Radio mounds of money) all in pursuit of one man’s fancies! It pains me to consider which is worse: the audacity of this radio preacher or the gullibility of his listeners. I guess starving people will always devour stale bread!
Sadder still is the realization that Camping has company across the centuries. From the second century Montanists to the nineteenth century Millerites and more some have strongly implied a date for the return of Christ while others brazenly broadcasted one. In more recent years, the late NASA engineer Edgar C. Whisenant penned the catchy title 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988 flatly announcing, "Only if the Bible is in error am I wrong; and I say that to every preacher in town." I muse that he might not be as dogmatic in heaven just now.
In 1997 a lady sat in my office petrified she had missed her entrée into the celestial after thirty nine Nike clad followers were found in a California home dead of suicide induced when they thought the brightness of the Hale-Bopp Comet suggested to them they would reach an alien spacecraft following the storied comet. The craziness never seems to end does it?
Jesus may return for His people before I finish typing this or you finish reading it! Very well! It’s His return, not mine. I’m on the Welcoming Committee not the Arrangements Committee! Even so, come Lord Jesus!
It’s On My Mind/From My Heart.
