I’ve met Mr. Camping on many occasions. A tall, gaunt, and austere gentleman, he. He comes across as a serious man but has a habit making such foolish predictions, as he did with his book, 1994?.
FWIW Family Stations does some quality broadcast work and has been my companion during some of the darkest and loneliest periods of my life. It’s a rare example of relative purity in a world filled with lasciviousness and scorn.
Except that I believe laymen can study with Holy Spirit’s aid and come up with insights and Biblical truths Semitary scholars and students miss.
AoG - Assembly of God? My in-laws are AoG - conservative, homeschooling, working-class rural people. Very godly people. We get along well and I love them dearly though we don't agree on everything. AoG are pretty broad in their beliefs if I'm not mistaken.
As far as Camping castigating them, that may be a part of his appeal with them, oddly enough, as he clearly sees himself as a John the Baptist figurehead.
Laymen AND seminary graduates are all to study the same bible, and, AS A COMMUNITY (called "the Church") as set up in the New Testament, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, arrive at the correct interpretations of biblical passages. Everyone, pastors, elders, seminarians, laymen etc., must be under some authority and accountability...as this guards us from going off alone on some tangent...following some deceiving spirit we THINK is holy, when it is not....
Isn't is fascinating that before the late date setting, Camping had disowned the Church(es) saying their time was now past? This already is disobedience to the bible, and the Holy Spirit who inspired it.
The trouble with Mr. Camping is that since he is not, and hasn't been, under proper Church authority (only under the authority of Family Radio's board...) he's become eccentric in his bible interpretations, convinced that he alone is right--and all other (strong, orthodox, evangelical) biblical expositors are wrong. To Camping, to disagree with Camping is to disagree with the bible, and God Himself...
I remember how offensive his dogmatism--and confusion of his eccentric interpretations with God's truth--was way back in the '70s and '80s.
More than once I recall someone would call in and say, "My mother died and was a Roman Catholic, did she go to Heaven?" Camping answered: "No, they don't accept Jesus as their personal Savior, so I'm sorry, she's in Hell! Next caller please...."
He's a very sad case. What is sadder are all the families that will be suffering in late May (assuming the Lord tarries...), due to the foolishness of Camping's followers.