al media to a full-page newspaper ad to signs in remote corn fields… the prediction of 89 year-old radio preacher Harold Camping got out. In church yesterday, the pastor started off with, “First of all, I just want to say that today is May 22.” There was dumb silence until we realized what he meant.A few thoughts on Judgment.
Although few people took the prediction seriously, it did create fear. The time mentioned was so specific and assertive. Until 6 pm on the 21st it was not certain what would happen. While watching one sporting event, the announcer said, “I plan on being here at the ballpark tomorrow.” And then, almost under his breath he said, “I hope,” as if there was doubt. There was. That was the fear of uncertainty that many felt.
Second, most Christians I talked to held to the Scriptural teaching that “Heaven and earth will pass away ... No one knows about that day or hour not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”1 So those I spoke to had serious doubts.
Third, Camping’s prediction makes Christians in general look like idiots. He was convinced he had some inside information from God. He was wrong. It was not God, but his own sense of importance or desire for the limelight or whatever. One Alameda Pastor commented, “He is self-deluded.”2 This episod
e reinforced the stereotype that Christians are extreme. I am amazed that God continuously allows His name to be drug through the mud – by us!Fourth, I hope that Camping will now stop predicting the end of the world. It is true that we see signs of the end, such as wars and earthquakes, as Jesus said. Most Christians believe that. But since Camping also predicted the end in September of 1994, it would be refreshing if he would just stop. Will his ego or his entrenched theological beliefs allow him to? Hope so.
Finally, it’s not altogether bad that, as Christians, we should live in the light of the certainty that the final day will come. Christ will return. This life will end. World census information from 2008 indicates that 155,000 people3 (roughly the size of Salem, Oregon), die every day. For 155,000 people it was the end of the world on May 21.
But I am glad to be here still, and that this world is still intact. There is much good to be done. Things like the horrible tornado in Joplin make us aware that we have a world to love. No time to make end-of-the-world predictions!
1 - Matthew 24:35-36, New American Standard Bible
2 - “Despite Careful Calculations the World Does Not End,” Jesse McKinley, New York Times, May 21, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/us/22doomsday.html?_r=1
3 - “How Many People Die a Day,” Shane Birley, January 23, 2008 http://www.shanesworld.ca/how-many-people-die-day
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