Harold Camping Should Publicly Repent, Says Southern Baptist Leader

Christian Post ^ | 05/21/2011 | Michelle Vu

[SeekAndFind]

Harold Camping needs to publicly apologize for being wrong about his doomsday prediction and leading people astray, said a Southern Baptist leader.

The California radio broadcaster’s wrong prediction about the rapture and the end of the world reflected poorly on Christians, said Ed Stetzer, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s LifeWay Research and LifeWay’s missiologist in residence.

Stetzer issued a series of tweets about Camping’s eschatological prediction on Saturday, among which one noted that there was no earthquake in New Zealand after 6 p.m.

“Harold Camping, pls update www.family.radio.com w/your repentance statement & instructions to your now-broke followers,” Stetzer tweeted.

An hour later he tweeted again, “6pm here in Turkey. I’m standing at the Temple of Athena waiting for the Rapture. Nothing happened. ;-)”

For months, followers of the 89-year-old Camping, who previously wrongly predicted the rapture would occur in September 1994, have been warning that the rapture would occur on May 21, 2011. Supporters would hold placards on busy streets in major cities that read: “Judgment Day May 21, 2011.”

Family Radio, a non-profit Christian radio network headed by Camping, was the name seen on the placards, bus ads, billboards and in media coverage on the May 21 prediction.

But surprisingly, many within the California-based radio network do not believe that the first phase of the end of the world begins Saturday.

“I don’t believe in any of this stuff that’s going on, and I plan on being here next week,” a receptionist identified as Esther at the group’s headquarters in Oakland, Calif., told CNNMoney.

Esther said some of her co-workers who believe in Camping’s prediction had bought expensive cars or taken their families on vacation ahead of May 21.

In New York, follower Robert Fitzpatrick, 60, spent his entire $140,000 life savings on 1,000 subway-car placards and ads at bus stops warning about May 21. The ads read: “Global Earthquake: The Greatest Ever! Judgment Day May 21, 2011.”

Another Camping follower, 27-year-old Adrienne Martinez, was planning to go to medical school but decided not to after listening to Family Radio. Martinez and her husband, Joel, had lived in New York City but a year ago quit their jobs and moved to Orlando. They spent their time reading the Bible and distributing tracts, according to NPR. They have a two-year-old daughter and a second child due next month.

“We budgeted everything so that, on May 21, we won’t have anything left,” Adrienne said to NPR.

While some of Camping’s listeners are all-in when it comes to his rapture prediction, Family Radio’s Esther estimates that 80 percent of her co-workers don’t believe their own boss about May 21, according to CNNMoney.

The receptionist is still scheduling appointments for her co-workers after Saturday.

Family Radio has about 350 paid staff working to run 66 radio stations across the nation. The network’s financial documents, according to CNNMoney, shows that it received $80 million in contributions between 2005 and 2009. But Camping, according to documents, has not been paid a penny from the contributions. He has worked as a volunteer at Family Radio.

[achilles2000]

Stetzer ought to join Camping in repenting. In Stetzer’s case it ought to be for smuggling “Emergent Church” theology into the SBC.

[Cicero]

It doesn’t take a lot of courage to wait around until after the Rapture didn’t happen, and then attack Camping. Maybe he should have spoken out earlier.

[FlingWingFlyer]

If I was Camping, I’d tell them that I’ll apologize after Algore apologizes first. The only difference between the two is that Algore makes a hell of a lot more money with his “end of the world” fearmongering.

[Revolting cat!]

He’s gotta repent, says this Revvie, because I have my own perdiction!

[arderkrag]

Someone needs to do some digging and see if Cult Leader Harold Camping is a Democrat like Cult Leader Fred Phelps. If so, it would be proof that he did this to undermine the true Church.

[boatbums]

That $100 million sure could have fed a lot of hungry people but it was spent on advertising the ravings of a false prophet who had proven his false prophet status more than a few times. If there is any money left in that organization, it should be disbursed to all those that fell prey to his self-styled personal revelation APART from what Scripture clearly says. He at least owes them something. Hopefully, he now goes into retirement never to be heard from again.

[Misterioso]

Why would anyone want an apology from a lunatic?

[SeekAndFind]

RE: He’s gotta repent, says this Revvie, because I have my own perdiction!

Really? can you show us what this Revvie predicted?

[aruanan]

Harold Camping Should Publicly Repent, Says Southern Baptist Leader

He should have been loudly calling for this from the first moment Camping opened his mouth. Jesus said no man knows the day or hour, not even Jesus himself. Harold Camping says he knows the day and the hour. Hmmm, do we even have to wait until that day and hour pass to call him out?

[Jonty30]

Esther said some of her co-workers who believe in Camping’s prediction had bought expensive cars

---

So, one of the final acts of some were to essentially steal from their fellow man?

If the Rapture had happened, somebody would have had some explaining to do.

[SeekAndFind]

I know of many Christian Leaders who have told him to cease and desist.

The first are the Elders of the Church that stripped Harold Camping of his teaching ministry — The Alameda Community Church.

Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries has called out camping almost every month. He even debated Camping publicly on this. See here :

http://aomin.org/

Hank Hanegraaf of the Christian Research Institute and The Bible Answer Man has been telling me to stop since as far as I can remember.

Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason Ministries have done the same in his radio program.

These are the first people who I can think of.

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, have refuted Harold Camping for years. See here for example :

http://www.alliancenet.org/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID307086_CHID560462_CIID1526032,00.html

R.C. Sproul Jr of Ligonier Ministries has called Harold Camping a false prophet writing a series of articles on this. See here :

http://www.ligonier.org/blog/harold-camping-false-prophet/

I’m sure one can find MANY OTHERS.

The problem with Harold Camping is not that there are no Christian Leaders who have asked him to stop this prediction business. His problem is HE STUBBORNLY REFUSES TO LISTEN!!

[aruanan]

The problem with Harold Camping is not that there are no Christian Leaders who have asked him to stop this prediction business. His problem is HE STUBBORNLY REFUSES TO LISTEN!!

Well, good for them. He reminds me of those referred to by some apostle or other as having stopped their ears to persist in their errors, or something like that.

[SERKIT]

Repent because he got the date wrong, wrong in the fact that “like a thief in the night” rarely has a published schedule, or wrong by being ingrained is such hubris that he knows more than God himself?

[Moorings]

Only the Father knows the day and the hour. Anybody who claims to know when this is going to happen, is misleading folks.

[April Lexington]

Maybe we are just in overtime!

[Salvation]

Is everyone still here? Well, what do you know! We all could have told you that!

[Salvation]

I am currently reading this book. A much different story than Camping's

BTW, this book was written in 1881; you wouldn't believe how accurate it is!

 

Reading this book was one of the greatest graces of my life!"
— St. Thérèse of Lisieux

In the late nineteenth century, Father Charles Arminjon, a priest from the mountains of southeastern France, assembled his flock in the town cathedral to preach a series of conferences to help them turn their thoughts away from this life’s mean material affairs—and toward the next life’s glorious spiritual reward. His wise and uncompromising words deepened in them the spirit of recollection that all Christians must have: the abiding conviction that heavenly aims, not temporal enthusiasms, must guide everything we think, say, and do.

When Father Arminjon’s conferences were later published in a book, many others were able to reap the same benefit—including fourteen-year-old Thérèse Martin, then on the cusp of entering the Carmelite convent in Lisieux. Reading it, she says, “plunged my soul into a happiness not of this earth.” Young Thérèse, filled with a sense of “what God reserves for those who love him, and seeing that the eternal rewards had no proportion to the light sacrifices of life,” copied out numerous passages and memorized them, “repeating unceasingly the words of love burning in my heart.”

Now the very book that so inspired the Little Flower is available for the first time in English.

Let the pages of The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life fill you with the same burning words of love, with the same ardent desire to know God above all created things, that St. Thérèse gained from them. Let them also enrich your understanding of certain teachings of the Faith that can often seem so mysterious, even frightening:

• The signs that will precede the world’s end
• The coming of the Antichrist, and how to recognize him
• The Judgment and where it may send us: heaven, hell, and purgatory
• Biblical end-times prophecy: how to read it and not be deceived

  Jesus commands us to be ever-watchful for his return, and ever-mindful that we have no lasting city on earth. The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life is an invaluable aid to inculcating in your spirit that heavenly orientation, without which true human happiness cannot be found—in this world or the next.

[HereInTheHeartland]

“I’m confused as to how this became such a widespread trope to begin with”

The Internet.
Every fool with a wacked out idea has a way to spread their garbage.

Similar to how Obama was elected.