Harold Camping, whose been allowed to keep his Open Forum slot on Family Radio despite his false prediction, was confronted Tuesday by a former follower who pressed the radio preacher to admit that he was a false prophet.
An unidentified caller rang into Oakland, Calif.-based Family Radio’s “Open Forum” program and shared that he had spent thousands of dollars on billboards, mail-outs, and tracts to warn about the May 21 Rapture, as predicted by Camping.
“I’m not mad at you, or I don’t blame you. I did it of my own free will and it’s not your fault. I’m not calling to complain about that,” clarified the self-described “May 21ster.”
“But I will say that me, you, all May 21sters are false prophets because we said that the Rapture would occur on that day and it didn’t. So I can’t understand why you are still on the radio talking about all this stuff because at this point nobody can believe anything you or I say,” said the caller, who was interrupted by Camping at that point.
Camping is president and co-founder of Family Radio, a Christian radio network with some 66 stations in the United States. He had wrongly predicted that the Rapture and worldwide earthquakes would take place on May 21 at 6 p.m. local time. When his prediction failed to take place, he came out and claimed that Judgment Day did come on May 21 – it just came spiritually instead of physically. Then he set a new date for the Rapture and the End of the World, Oct. 21, 2011.
People who believed in Camping have lost their entire life’s savings, some quit their jobs, and in a few extreme cases – there were several people who attempted suicide before or after the May 21 date because of his prediction.
Camping, 89, has made two previously wrong end of the world predictions besides the one on May 21, 2011, one in 1988 and the other in 1994.
Personally, I like Harold Camping. I know a lot of Christians hate what he has done. And surely, predicting the time of the Rapture is silly, not to mentioned stupid. But Camping is doing something really good. By his false predictions, he is creating in the world a lot of “mockers,” who are saying, “Where is the promise of Jesus’ coming?”
Listen to how Peter describes the last days: Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4 They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation” (2 Pet. 3:3-4).
Peter spells it out specifically, that in the later days, there will be mockers who will make fun of the Lord’s second coming because of the so-called promises and predictions that they read or hear about. Harold Camping is producing more mockers! Glory Hallelujah! The people of the world are saying, “There goes those fanatical Christians again predicting the end of the world by a certain date and time.” Then when it does not happen, the world laughs because once again the cry wolf was in error.
Now I know that he is not helping our image, but folks, let’s be honest about that, I think we have already screwed that up to some degree, don’t you think? Now folks, listen, if our image as Christians can topple over one silly old man predicting the future and getting it wrong, then it means we did not have a very good image to begin with.
Harold Camping is an idiot, plain and simple. But what about the professing Christians who sold their homes, lost their life’s saving, quit their jobs and put up billboard signs all over the place and while handing out fliers? It seems to me the church needs some pruning. If Harold Camping can be used by God to prune the church from its own cell group of idiots, I think that’s a good thing!
I see Harold Camping as a blessing. Because when I teach about the Second Coming of Jesus, you know that I am going to carefully choose my words well and say things with prayerful consideration. I think this will not only be true of me, but countless of other preachers as well. Harold Camping’s blunder will make the rest of us into better communicators of God’s Word. And no, we will not take the easy way out and avoid the subject of the Rapture. But we will dive into it deeply allowing the Scriptures to do the explaining, while at the same time removing our flesh from the passages.
Thank you, Harold Camping. No, you are not a “saint,” instead you are an “ain’t.” That is, a Christian you ain’t!
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