Posted on 04/24/2011 1:50:08 PM PDT by Gamecock
If you were to drive the freeways of southern California, you would see from time to time billboards proclaiming the Judgment Day on May 21, 2011 and declaring that the Bible guarantees it. Presumably these billboards may be seen in many other parts of the country as well. Who is responsible for these signs and what do they really mean theologically?
The signs have been placed by Harold Camping and his followers to warn people that the end is at hand. To understand these signs we must know something of the history as well as the theology of Harold Camping. I am in a somewhat distinctive position to write on this subject since I first met Camping in the late 1950s. I learned a great deal from him then, and so I find what follows a very sad story. I pray for him that the Lord will deliver him from the serious errors into which he has fallen.
Christian Reformed
While a high school student in Alameda, California, I began to attend the Alameda Christian Reformed Church. It was there that I was converted through the influence of a number of people in the congregation, including Harold Camping. At that time he was an elder in the congregation and taught the Bible lessons for the high school youth group. He was a conservative, traditional adherent of the Christian Reformed Church and would remain so for many years.
In those days the Christian Reformed Church was a strongly ethnic denomination and the congregation in Alameda was almost entirely Dutch in background. The CRC was also still strictly Reformed, interpreting the Bible in light of the church’s confessional standards: the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort. Camping strongly embraced and taught the doctrine and piety of the CRC in which he had been raised.
The Christian Reformed Church, like all Presbyterian and Reformed churches, also stressed the importance of a carefully and thoroughly educated ministry. The church certainly taught the Reformation doctrine that the Scripture is clear in its teaching of the message of salvation. At the same time it also recognized that the Lord had given his church pastors to open the Word of God and preserve the church in the truth (Ephesians 4:4-14). The faithful preaching of these pastors was a means of grace by which the saints were built up. For this vital calling, ministers were educated to read the Bible in Greek and Hebrew, to understand how to read the various genres in the Bible, and how to interpret each part of the Bible in light of the whole. The best handling of the Scriptures required excellent education.
Engineer
Camping was a bright and studious man who had been educated as an engineer. In the 1950s he owned a very successful construction company which built churches as well as other significant buildings. This educational background is critical to understanding Camping. His education was not in the liberal arts or theology. He had not been prepared to read literature or ancient texts. He knew no Greek or Hebrew. He was not formally introduced to the study of theology. His reading of the Bible, as it evolved over the decades, reflected his training in engineering. He reads the Bible like a mathematical or scientific textbook.
Entrepreneur
Camping developed, as a good businessman, his construction company and then sold it. With the money he began to build the Christian radio network called Family Radio. This network was very much his own property and his skill developed Family Radio into a group of stations spread throughout the country. Family Radio appealed to many Christians through its programming of Christian music, Bible reading, Bible lessons and messages from various pastors and conference speakers. The teaching was basically Reformed and Camping sought to have as many recordings of Reformed speakers as possible.
Camping himself had a regular program of his own called “Open Forum.” During this program he invited people to call in with questions about the Bible and theology. He promoted a Reformed approach to the Bible and especially confronted and refuted dispensational, Pentecostal, and Arminian theologies. He had a broad and detailed knowledge of the Bible which he used to very good effect in answering questions. He was at one time a most effective and influential promoter of Reformed theology and won many listeners to the Reformed cause.
Autodidact
After Camping began to work full-time with Family Radio, he spent much time studying the Bible. His knowledge of Bible verses is impressive indeed. But his study of the Bible was undertaken in isolation from other Christians and theologians. He adopted a proud individualism. He did not really learn from Bible scholars. He studied the Bible in isolation from the church and the consensus of the faithful. As a result his understanding of the Bible became more and more idiosyncratic. No one could help, direct, or restrain him. He was really an autodidact, that is, someone who teaches himself. He never really submitted his ideas to be challenged and improved by others. He was truly his only teacher. He has repeatedly said that he would be glad to change his views if he is shown that he is wrong from the Bible. But this humble statement covers a very arrogant attitude, because no one can ever show him that he is wrong. He alone really understands the Bible.
These guys showed up here in Durham (NC) a few months ago, I guess on their The World’s About To End Tour 2011. Five identical new-looking class C motorhomes, each professionally screen-painted with blaring slogans about the end of the world on 5/21/2011 and the URL to Family Radio’s website. That’s a pretty good chunk of change.
I went to their website and tried to understand how he’s coming up with the date. I gave up when I started getting a headache. It’s all numerology and weird interpretations of various numbers of things and days in the Bible, I couldn’t follow it at all.
}:-)4
I do remember Harold Camping on WFME when I lived in New Jersey. It was in the mid or latr 80’s when he went on the shackey tangent. No more people were going to be saved, so there is no point in spreading the Gospel further. Everyone should just hunker down, keep everyone from backsliding, and reduce contact with outsiders. This is what I called at the time “hidey hole bomb shelter Christianity”, and looking back now this also resembles some cult behavior.
As for the picture at the top of this thread, Harold Camping smiling? The rate he was going, I wondered if he knew the Joy of the Lord (as in the song “The Joy of the Lord is My Strength). Some of my Pentacostal friends prayed that he would be really filled with the Holy Spirit and start speaking in toungues.
Harold Camping is a false prophet. He is violating Matthew 24:36, “No man knoweth the day nor the hour...” His actions in repeated date-setting demonstrate his own self-centered theological preoccupations rather than in the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ....
yep.
“No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father”
I remember Harold Camping from 1959 when he taught the book of Romans on Sunday evenings in the small East Bay CRC mission church my family attended. I’ve always had very fond memories of those times, and have sorrowed at the very wrong trajectory he’s taken in the last 35 or 40 years.
You know, folks are always asking “Are you ready for the rapture.” There is even a “raptureready” web site. Like, there’s a dress code or special equipment or something.
I figure, you can’t get any more “rapture ready” than being saved. Other than that, it’s all out of my hands, and even being saved was out of my hands.
My question for the rapturists is, “Are you ready to NOT be raptured?” I mean, chances are overwhelming that any given day will NOT be the rapture. So, are you ready to go back to that job you hate, or pay the bills, or clean that garage, or face the in-laws one more time, or otherwise do something more constructive than looking up in the sky? Because in all probability that is what will be happening the next day.
So, be “rapture ready” if you will, but I also being “not rapture ready.” Because the “not rapture” is almost certain to come tomorrow.
One of the year's top five posts!
“but I also being” = “but I also recommend being”. Grrrr.
Anyway, speaking of Clouds, I wonder how old David is doing?
Well, that, and having your rapture balloons inflated.
While I'm eating birthday cake, he'll be eating humble pie.
Naaah. He'll be busy recalibrating the model. There's already an out -- "It begins May 21".
There's more than just "beginning" on May 21st on his web site. FamilyRadio.com We saw some of his billboards driving on I65 through Indiana last week. I looked his web site to find out what was going to happen on May 21st. Supposedly May 21, 2011 is when Christ returns. There will be huge earthquakes and all the graves will be opened up and so on and so on. My wifes birthday is on May 20th so we are going to party like there's no tomorrow. ;)
my husband knew somebody who believed it and sold everything... his house and all... nothing anybody said to him would change his mind... hubby doesn't know what ended up happening to the guy... we got married around that time, and hubby moved to my town and lost touch...
I used to love the music from WFME, that is how I initally began listening.
He sounded so learned. But I knew there was something wrong. I do remember him saying that Christians should only give money to ministries that spread God’s word - not feed people - and then he’d next say no one else could be saved.
I’m trying to remember but even beyond Calvinism (you know, you are chosen and that’s it) he was saying no one else could be saved after a certain date. Like heaven was full or something. And I knew that wasn’t right, of course.
His staff was probably going berserk. He seemed to have an elitism; I’ve studied this so long and know so much so I am right and everyone else is wrong. He was just about the most bullheaded person I’d ever heard on Christian radio.
When I became a Calvinist he was one of the few at that time that taught reformed doctrine.. over the years he has slipped into an abyss of heresy . It is sad to see..
His teaching that anyone in a church is lost is so non scriptural that we need to be concerned for his eternity .
Ping
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