I have to admit, there are times when I have turned to friends and family, and in my best smug, condescending tone, uttered those words:
"I told you so."
Like the first time I watched a certain reality TV show, in order to see what all the excitement was about among some of my female friends and, dare I say, colleagues. After about 15 minutes of "Jon and Kate Plus 8," I confidently stated, "This is a train wreck just waiting to happen. This will not end well, and I feel really sorry for the kids."
Well ...
"I told you so."
However, I am not going to do that this time. On Saturday night, or Sunday morning, on the other side of May 21, I will not smugly remind folks that I knew Harold Camping was wrong. I will not reiterate that, while Christians should live every day in anticipation that we have little time to show God's love and grace to the world, Jesus made clear that we will not know the time or date of his return. Harold Camping seems to be more sick and deluded than evil, but he is definitely wrong.
This is a train wreck just waiting to happen. Thousands of folks are dramatically changing their lives (not necessarily a bad thing), selling their stuff (again, not necessarily a bad thing), because they believe that they are going up in the sky to meet Jesus on Saturday, May 21. Some (not all), seem to not be all that concerned that their neighbors, colleagues and friends will not be joining them.
Worst of all, when we wake up on Sunday morning, the world will be just like it was 24 hours before, except a whole lot more folks will have yet another reason to write off anything we say about God, love and grace, all because a civil engineer thought he had figured out a secret code in Scripture.
He didn't, because it isn't there.
But it will be up to us to pick up the pieces.
And I feel really sorry for the kids of the adults who bought into this. If they didn't already think so, now they will be sure the God their parents said they were following is not real, and everyone who says otherwise is a fool or a liar.
I promise not to say, "I told you so," because we have better things to do. We have already wasted too much time on this.
Mike, I DARE you to do a prank to your wife that I am contemplating:
ReplyDelete1. Wake up early and silently on Saturday morning. 2. Remove your pajamas and wedding ring and place them in the bed in a "sleeping position"
3. Go somewhere for breakfast and leave your cell phone at the house
-Dean
Dean, I'm an excellent marital counselor. Keep my number handy.
ReplyDeleteHaving a Family Radio Affiliate in my back yard I can tell you this much, the thousands of people is actually more like hundreds, and the average listener is 65+, so children may not be the biggest problem.
ReplyDeleteMost Family Radio listeners tune in for the biblical teaching programs (not hosted by camping) and the Hymn Style music (I believe they still have a turntable in their studios, you can hear record clips and pops on a lot of the music).
The bigger issue with Family Radio is the world impact. Like many Missionary's Camping is much more well known outside of America, where his teachings are shared on Shortwave as well as translated in to 20+ Languages.
Too often it is the children of fundamentalist evangelicals who suffer the most. As Tyler Durden said in Fight Club "Our fathers are our image of God". Children want to please their father by doing whatever they're told about their heavenly father. As in the film, Jesus Camp, it's clear that Christians can be just as volatile in their use of childhood indoctrination-esque brainwashing as any radicalist group. But then, as the only decent Black-Eyed Peas song says, "Where is the love?"
ReplyDeleteHow is it, Mike, that I've missed your blog until now. . . ?
ReplyDeleteThe problem, of course, is not whether we say "I told you so." It's that HE told them so, and now they need someone else to tell them right. Christians often lose sight of how impressionistic people are at the moment they give themselves over to faith--and any pretense behind that act can impact their perspective of scripture, the church, and God himself for the rest of their faith journey. So for those who believed in Christ for the first time yesterday because someone convinced them they'd be seeing him in a day or so . . . how will NOT seeing him affect their belief tomorrow?
Great stuff, Mike. Thanks for the post.
- Scott
Great post! And I agree with all points and comments. Sad to think of the disruption to the families who chose to follow him. Tonight must be filled with a lot of emotion.
ReplyDelete