Could Harold Camping Be Sued?

Family Radio has solicited millions from donors over the years and reportedly spent over $100 million on advertising for the May 21 Judgment Day.

But now that the "guaranteed" rapture didn't happen, people are wondering: Can Harold Camping or Family Radio be sued? Did they do anything illegal in soliciting donations based on the rapture prediction? And do donors have legal ground to sue the discredited prophet?

Probably not, says an executive of Charity Navigator, which evaluates over 5,500 of America's largest charities. The charity evaluator rated Family Radio as a 4-star charity, the highest possible ranking.

Sandra Miniutti, vice president of Charity Navigator, told The Christian Post she doesn’t think that Family Radio committed any wrongdoing, from a financial standpoint.

"They believed that the rapture was going to happen. I don't think they did anything illegal," Miniutti said Tuesday.

She said Charity Navigator doesn't evaluate a non-profit's mission, only its financial performance in the spending on its program, administration, fundraising, and efficiency in fundraising.

"We rate charities based on their financial performance. We don't make subjective assessments on the value of their mission. We just look on their financial performance," said Miniutti.

Based on her knowledge so far, Family Radio has used its donations where it was intended, on billboards and on public relations campaigns advertising the May 21 Judgment Day.

The Christian Post learned that Harold Camping spent around $100 million to advertise his May 21 end times prediction, according to Matt Tuter, Family Radio’s international projects manager.

Tuter told The Christian Post that most of the money did not come from donations, but from the sale of property – more specifically, KFTL television and an FM station.

"My understanding is that they were soliciting money to help people understand the word of God," commented Miniutti. "They spent it on what they intended to spend it on."

"Donors would only have a recourse if the charity was soliciting for one thing but spent it on something else."

Tuter also told CP that most of the staff at Family Radio, including himself, are not followers of Camping and do not believe in his Judgment Day predictions.

Miniutti acknowledged, "It's unethical if people doing soliciting didn't believe that the rapture wasn't going to happen in the first place."

However, Miniutti pointed out that donors should also do their due diligence in checking out charities' overall health before giving money.

"We believe that donors should check three things: financial performance, the charity's transparency and what the charity's actual results are, whether it's lasting change in the world," she said.

Charity Navigator currently doesn't evaluate a charity's transparency or results but will in the near future, she added.

When Miniutti was asked whether "false advertising" of the rapture could provide legal grounds for a lawsuit against Family Radio, she said a lawyer would better answer that question.

But she did suggest that if Family Radio got away with Camping's 1994 Judgment Day prediction, there is no reason they couldn't do the same in 2011.

On Monday, in his first public address since the failed rapture, Camping touted Family Radio’s efficiency and honesty when it comes to money.

“We’re not in the business for money,” he said, stressing that he does not receive any compensation.

He said the contributions the organization receives are all directed toward one purpose: to get the Gospel out. “Every nickel has been spent as fairly as possible, as efficiently as possible,” he maintained.

Commenting on some of his followers and other listeners who spent their life savings to advertise Camping’s Judgment Day prediction or quit their jobs, he said the organization never advised them on financial matters and he refused to take any responsibility for their current situations.

http://aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=4645

An Open Letter to Harold Camping of Family Radio
05/23/2011 - James White

On Open Letter to Harold Camping of Family Radio

Dear Mr. Camping:

In July of 2009 you and I engaged in a debate on the Iron Sharpens Iron radio program concerning your teaching that the church age had ended and that Christ would return on May 21, 2011. I trust you recall our exchange. I am also aware that you have at least seen my book, Dangerous Airwaves: Harold Camping Refuted and Christ’s Church Defended. I have been seeking to warn people about your teachings, sir, for about a decade. I know others have been warning the church about you longer than I.

Mr. Camping I am writing to seek your repentance and the most God-glorifying outcome of the debacle of your failed May 21, 2011 prophecy/teaching. I am not writing to engage in debate with you. The time for debate ended on May 22, 2011. It is now time for you to repent and seek to undo the massive damage you have done, first and foremost, to the cause of Christ.

Let me first list the items you need to repent of, openly and publicly (for you are a public person, and your teachings were disseminated all around the world).

You need to repent of your abuse of the Bible, based upon claims of latter-day opening of understandings no one else has, allegedly, ever had, based upon the horrific misreading of the books of Revelation and Daniel. The Bible is not a code book, Mr. Camping, and it never has been. You have attacked the grammatical/historical means of honoring the intention and meaning of the original authors, and in so doing, have turned the Bible into your own private playground where you, and you alone, set the rules. You decided that certain numbers have certain meanings, and you alone decided which numbers could be added to others. You told your audiences that you were simply teaching the Bible, when you were doing nothing of the sort. Unless you honor the intention of the original authors, which means doing difficult exegetical work, studying languages and backgrounds, you have no business saying you are representing the Bible. This has been your primary error for decades on end, and I know I am not the first minister of the gospel to seek to correct you about this. Your utterly fallacious means of interpretation of the Bible has led to the mockery of the Christian faith all around the world, and you alone must repent for your willful rejection of the correction offered by many to you over the years.

You need to repent of your repeated date-setting, and your twisting of those Scriptures that plainly state that we do not now know, and will never know, the date of the coming of Christ, until it happens. You have been proven wrong multiple times now, and it is time for you to admit that you have been in error every single time you have argued that we can, in fact, know.

You must repent of your many unbiblical teachings, teachings which have grown out of your rebellion against Christ’s Church. First and foremost, you must repent of your attack upon the church. You must return to the church (I would suggest the local Christian Reformed Church from which you made your original defection) in repentance and seek to place yourself under their care, repenting for your schism. You must openly and publicly abjure your teaching that Satan rules in the churches, and that all ministers of the gospel since 1988 are, in fact, servants of Satan. You must call all listeners of Family Radio to return to their churches with repentant hearts. You must instruct them to seek to learn to read the Bible aright, to seek to interpret the Bible in light of its original meanings and intention, not as a secret, gnostic code-book.

You must likewise abjure and repent of the other false teachings you have been promulgating, including, but not limited to, such teachings as Jesus having died twice, your new annihilationism teaching, etc. You once held to mainly orthodox views, but, when you refused godly counsel and went out on your own, you planted the seeds of your own destruction, which have now sprouted, over night it seems, into the crop of condemnation you now rightly face.

You must likewise repent of the perversion of the gospel you have been teaching, wherein you have not only removed repentance and faith under the guise of “works” (neither are works, both are the gifts of God to His elect by His Spirit, but remain part and parcel of the gospel call), but you clearly, in these last days, added belief in your own May 21, 2011 teaching to the gospel itself, saying that those who did not believe this teaching would experience eternal torment. You have been preaching a false gospel, Mr. Camping, and you must repent for this.

The time for haggling and debating has passed, Mr. Camping. Your teaching has been disproven, and your only hope is to be found in complete repentance from your false teachings. I fear if you seek to rescue your reputation, you will end your life under the wrath of God. Your unwillingness to listen to counsel has already caused great damage to the cause of Christ. You have one final chance for redemption, sir. Do not remain stiff-necked. Repent and turn from your ways.

James White
Alpha and Omega Ministries

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