Posted on 08/27/2010 8:16:51 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Christian radio host Harold Camping says Jesus is coming back in nine months: May 21, 2011. Then the world will end, according to his calculations, on October 21, 2011. He's been announcing this on his Family Radio broadcasts for several years.
The good news is that we won't have to deal with that pesky 2012 Mayan calendar apocalypse.
The bad news is that people are taking Camping seriously.
The Colorado Springs Gazette tells of a woman there who paid $1,200 to buy advertising space for bus benches in the area to help get the message out.
Marie Exley is unemployed but feels it's important that people have time to prepare for Christ's imminent return...even though the prediction makes her sad.
From the article:
Exley has bittersweet feelings about Camping's prediction.
"There are things I felt I always wanted to do -- get married, have a kid, travel more," she said. "But it's not about what I want out of life. It's about what God wants."
Since apparently it's rapture week here at O Me of Little Faith...and since I got my start as a writer by making fun of End-Times mania, I guess I could spend the next few paragraphs waxing sarcastically about Camping and his failed end-of-the-world predictions and the dumb, complicated mathematical code he uses to arrive at them. After all, he's been playing up this 2011 date for several years, since Jesus failed to come back when Camping originally predicted it in 1994. (Camping says it's because he made a mathematical error with that date, but now he's corrected it. Score one for calculators.)
But today is one of those days when I just don't find any humor in this kind of thing. Today, Camping's brand of apocalypticism just makes me sad. His super-confident, trust-me-I'm-an-expert teaching causes people like Exley to spend money she doesn't have on useless advertising, and it makes her think that this is her last year on earth. It depresses her now, a little -- she's missing out on marriage and a family -- and it sets her up for disappointment later, when Jesus doesn't come back next May.
I'm already disappointed and sad at this kind of reaction, because not only does it play on people's fears, but it manipulates them because of their hope.
Camping himself has little to lose. He's an old man. If he's right about Christ's return, he's already lived a full life and he'll be hailed as a prophet. Camping, FTW! But if he's wrong -- which he WILL be -- well, he'll get through it just like he did in 1994. He'll blame the math or something and eventually retire. The sooner, the better. He'll survive.
But people like Exley have much more to lose. They'll spend this next year in limbo. Why get a job if Jesus is coming back in May? Why plan for the future? Why save anything for retirement, or fall in love, or start a family if the world's about to fall into chaos? She'll suspend her life until May 21, 2011, and when Jesus fails to adhere to Camping's timetable, she'll have to start over...spiritually, emotionally, and culturally. She'll look like an idiot. She'll have wasted a good chunk of money. She'll have put her hope in something and see it fall to pieces.
Camping's faith will survive the failed prediction, just like it did in 1994. But what about Exley's faith? What will happen to the faith of his thousands of listeners who have invested their hope (and money) into this scenario?
We can laugh all we want at the stupidity of End-Times date-setters who are wrong. They've been wrong for two thousand years, and they'll be wrong in the future.
But it's hard to laugh at the gullible people who believe them. If you want to be mean, you can call them mindless sheep. But don't forget that they're also a kind of victim: Victims of hope, victims of religious fervor, and victims of certainty.
Why wait? Let’s get to it now. Islam has taken over all the TV networks, Hollywood and the U.S. govt.
Meanwhile drooling idiots who watch TV now support Islam with their viewership and monthly cable/sat TV bills and support our own Allah with his 9 iron.
Bring it on God.
Hopefully, it will be sooner. Christians pray every day, “Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.”
He’s about 1000 times more animated in that photo than he is on TV. I think he gets taxidermied each time before he goes on the air. He’s the best!
You can make it happen for yourself at any time.
it’s not like it’s the end of the world and all... oh wait... nevermind.
everyday i awake expecting the end... does that mean it will not happen... no... it’ll come sometime... but not this week.
teeman
OK, where is the bookie covering the bets on this??
Temporal lobe epilepsy sometimes gives people this kind of delusion.
I listen to Harold Camping’s “Family Radio” for the music. In an age when electric guitar players are driving organists out of churches and choirs are being replaced by “praise bands,” I am grateful for a radio program that emphasizes traditional hymns and gospel songs.
He forgot to add in the fudge factor of 1000 years of Christ’s direct reign upon the Earth as predicted from the book of Revelation when calculating his end of Earth date of 10/21/11.(sarcasm on)
this guy is an idiot
Yah'shua offered himself as our Pesach Lamb on Passover, Harold Camping seems extremely ignorant of the Holy Word of G-d.
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
Yah'shua died for all sin on the day the leaven is removed on hagMatzoh,
Yah'shua rose from the dead on the feast of First Fruits and
sent the Ruach Ha Kodesh to breath on His apostles on the Feast of Weeks.
The fall feasts begin with a forty day period of 'Teshuvah ', which means "to repent or return"
It begins in the sixth month of the Religious Calendar, and concludes on
the tenth day of the seventh month, which is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
Each morning for thirty days in the synagogue following the morning prayers, a trumpet (shofar) is blown
This leaves Yom Teruah ("the day of the awakening blast") also known as Rosh Hashanah
the feast of Trumpets with it's final trump
Ten days later Yom Kippur the day the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies, Cleansing of the people's sins,
Succoth, the day when we enter our temporary dwellings
and the final gathering after the seven days of the feast of Booths.
It is curious that of all these feasts the only one for which
the hour and day are not known is YomTeruah when the final trump is blown
But He also gave us signs to watch for so that, when the time nears, we will sense its imminence.
Mat 25:13 -- Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.
Wait, so I have to buy my wife a Mother’s Day present, but she doesn’t have to buy me a Father’s Day gift?! That ain’t right!
The legislature of Connecticut was then in session at Hartford. A very general opinion prevailed, that the day of judgment was at hand. A proposal to adjourn the Council was under consideration.
When the opinion of Colonel Davenport was asked, he answered, "I am against an adjournment. The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment: if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought."
For those who have been raised on the Scofield, Moody, Dallas Seminary dispensatonalism, it’s easy to fall prey to this kind of calculation.
I didn’t think anyone could beat Louie Farrakhan’s knack for math, but this guy Camping may change my mind.
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