Apocalypse Now?



A Harold Camping Follower

 They waited. Some left their jobs and traveled many miles. Others gave away their possessions and money, knowing they wouldn’t be needed. All were confident that when the clock struck 6:00 PM on May 21, 2011 the earth would be savaged by natural disasters, they would be swept into heaven, those left behind would be killed in a series of scourges and the earth would be destroyed in a ball of fire.

Like most people I was busy and missed the action. It didn’t occur to me until later that the fateful event hadn't occured and that radio broadcaster Harold Camping’s prediction was wrong – for the second time in 17 years. Guys who do this are usually given two chances, with the second prediction explaining the flaws in the first one. Amazingly, they often sell books successfully the second time around.

Camping is going for a record of sorts by issuing a third apocalyptic prediction: now it’s coming this October 21. Apparently all the bugs are out of his prediction model and this time it’s definitely going to happen. If you have any money left, send it in.

People are drawn to apocalyptic messages. William Miller produced a famous one when he calculated the Second Coming would happen no later than March 21, 1844. When it didn’t occur he reset it to October 22, which also passed uneventfully. This was called “The Great Disappointment” and Miller withdrew from the leadership of his church.

Many followers left the movement, but those who remained believed a misunderstanding had occurred and that Jesus had returned to heaven and not earth. The group remains intact as the Seventh-Day Adventists and they no longer predict the time of Jesus’s return.

The phenomenon isn’t limited to Christians. The new-age group “Heaven’s Gate” believed the planet was about to be “recycled” and the only way to survive was to free their souls to ascend to a spaceship that followed Comet Hale-Bopp. In 1997 thirty-nine of them “survived” by consuming arsenic and cyanide. There’s been no word back from the spaceship.

We’re now told the ancient Mayan calendar expires on December 21, 2012 and this signals the end of the world. It’s spawned books, television shows, a movie and attention that dwarfs Christian predictions. The hype has overpowered the assessment of archeologists who say the date is a milestone, like the millennium that started on 1/1/2000, and that the Mayans actually computed dates 72 octillion years into the future. Even so, some people will fasten their seatbelts late in the day on December 20 and then rush out to buy the explanatory books a few weeks later.

You’d think people would have figured out that nobody can predict the end of the world, if only because so many have tried and failed. Christians, especially, should understand the date can’t be known because the Bible tells us so.

That’s why the vast majority of Christians saved their money, kept their possessions and enjoyed the day the Lord had made on May 21, 2011.  Unless Mr. Camping gets really, really lucky and his new date coincidentally turns out to be the day God chose, we'll be able to enjoy October 21st as well.

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