A final word on the Apocalypse?

By the fact that you are reading this, I gather that you have not been raptured.  By the fact that I am typing this, you may gather the same about me.  And thus ends the debacle that was May 21 Doomsday.  Or does it?
Harold Camping is not the first, in the name of scripture, to predict a specific date for Judgement Day.  And despite Jesus's warning's against such predictions (and predictors), Camping's followers are not the first group to wholeheartedly sell out their possessions and lives in preparation for the second coming.  The Apocalypse has been incorrectly predicted time and again, by prognosticators both scientific and religious.  The founders of both the Methodist and the Seventh-Day Adventist churches predicted dates for the end of the world.  So despite Camping's failed prophecy, don't expect his followers to abandon ship just yet.

In fact, Camping has not abandoned his own ship.  In an interview with BBC, he maintains that the world has indeed entered into Judgement, though not with the kind of flare he'd expected.  The actual date for the end of the world, he maintains, is October 21, 2011.  So we will have to wait until then to see if he is truly correct.  The benefit for us here is that we get to continue Apocalypse Watch 2011 until that day.  The bad news is that, just as before, people craving escape from this broken world will continue to follow Brother Harold into deceit.

Props to Camping for hedging his bets.  While some of his followers have literally given everything they owned in expectation of the end, he awoke on May 22 still owning a private, for-profit business capable of sustaining him.  Family Radio is worth over $100 million, and I am guessing that won't be much different on the morning of October 22.

I have taken three observations  from this debacle.  First, the bible is an incredibly challenging book to understand.  Debates have raged since before canonization about what Christianity actually means.  I am thankful for the redemption brought through the Church, but I am saddened at the manipulation and confusion that has diverted millions from the goodness of the gospel.  I pray that we would be protected from those who use the scripture to promise health and wealth, to promote violence and to swindle the masses.

Second,  if you want to see how invested a prophet is in his own predictions, check his bank account.  Like Camping, both of the Wesley brothers, the founders of Methodism, individually predicted different dates for the end of the world.  Like Camping, their dates were wrong.  However, John challenged his followers that poverty was a call of the gospel, proclaiming that dying with anything to one's name was shameful.  Unlike Camping, John Wesley lived in poverty, and died with less than $20 to his name.  So long as your prophet projects the end of the world while maintaining a healthy pocketbook, you should look at him with mistrust.

Finally, people are incredibly forgiving.  As I noted before, failed end of the world prophecies have sprouted before into huge, international denominations.  Remember, despite Brother Harold's previous incorrect predictions in 1994, he still maintained a large following, not to mention a lucrative radio network run exclusively by donations.  Even if the world fails to end in October, don't count on all his followers to jump ship.

So keep coming back as Apocalypse Watch 2011 progresses.  And remember, even if the world doesn't end, we still have the end of the Mayan calendar, scheduled for December 2012.  Happy watching.

The point is moot, neither Rachel nor I have been raptured. #ApocalypseWatch2011

I think that means I've got the better shot at going. #ApocalypseWatch2011

Rachel, full of ridicule: 'I can't believe this conversation is happening.' #ApocalypseWatch2011

Me: 'If I get raptured tomorrow and you are left behind, would you remarry? It would be hard for me to remarry if you got raptured' #ApocalypseWatch2011

Friday Pick of the Week

Well friends, it saddens me to say that this might be the last ever Friday pick of the week, as some are predicting Judgement Day tomorrow evening around 6 pm EDT.  If that is the case, it well could spell the end of Friday picks for a number of possible reasons:

1. I've been raptured.  For those left behind, may I recommend the blueprint laid out by Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins.

2. The Apocalypse is upon us and I won't have time for weekly musical selections to pass along.  You will understand as you are being tormented by the ravages of a graceless world.  Feel free to join me in my pursuit of blueprint laid out by Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins.
3. The aforementioned shit went down and my training proved insufficient.

What better choice for the Friday before the end of the world than Sufjan Stevens?  His most recent album, The Age of Adz, celebrates the life and artwork of the prophet Royal Robertson, ranging in themes from aliens to schizophrenia to the Apocalypse.  The title track is particularly appropriate as, so far as I can tell, it is about Judgement Day.

The end is near

If you are yet unaware, the world is coming to an end.  When is that end? May 21, 2011.  That's Saturday around 5 pm CDT.  Better get your ducks in a row.


At least, that's according to Harold Camping of Family Radio Worldwide.  Harold claims to have examined the scriptures and done the math, and proclaims that Judgement day is upon us.  He's not the only one.  The message has gotten out, and numerous followers are preparing themselves for the rapture by spreading the news all over.  Some have even quit their jobs and budgeted their funds in such a way as to run out on the 21st.

In response to all this, I have two questions: 1. Even if I don't actually believe that the rapture is coming on Saturday (I have some serious misgivings about the rapture anyway), do I get to go? 2. What does all this say about the God we believe in?

Firstly, if this is all true, I hope I get to go.  I read Left Behind in high school, and it is bad news for those who don't get the call.  As I said, I have some misgivings about the theology of the rapture, like when Jesus prayed that God wouldn't take believers out of the world but that He would protect them from the evil one.  But maybe these folks are right.  Maybe God has chosen to make the timing (with which He wouldn't share with Jesus) known to an 89 year old white preacher with a $100 million radio network.  Reading some interviews, like here at NPR, folks have literally given their lives over to what this guy is selling.  NPR also notes, importantly, that Brother Camping has incorrectly predicted the world's end before as September 6, 1994.  (In his defense, he had yet to complete his research.)

If all this isn't true, what does it say about our perceptions of God?  Why is He poised in anger to torture and destroy most of the world?  And why do Christians work so hard to escape the world around us?

Three things strike me about the interviews in the NPR story linked above.  First, there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty among the believers interviewed.  They are not uncertain about Brother Camping's predictions, but they are uncertain about their salvation.  It is as though our God is one who sits in heaven measuring our good deeds, and He's not taking many with Him.  In fact, despite one-fifth of the world claiming Christianity, only 3% will supposedly be rescued.  The need for an in and out group, even within the church, is disheartening.  The same Jesus whose compassion extended to the weak and heavy laden, the orphan and widow, the outcast and the harassed is now going to massacre 97% of the world's population, most of whom used to be within His range of compassion?

A second point I noticed is that all of them are fearful of one thing: the suffering to come.  What could be more American than a gospel that assures avoidance of suffering?  Why are we, as Christians, so committed to a faith that allows us escape from suffering when it is one of the few things that Jesus promised?  Jesus assures few things, and suffering is on the list.  Thankfully, we also get a Helper, and the comfort of knowing that He is coming back.  I don't think Brother Camping would get much of a following if he promised his followers that they get tortured and killed, but somehow Jesus sold the promise of a cross and it worked.  (If that isn't divine intervention, I don't know what is.)

Finally, these folks are wholeheartedly committed to this cause - enduring rejection, forsaking their loved ones and selling all they have.  What if these folks were doing these things not to escape Judgement but to bring Justice?  In some ways, I am jealous of them.  They have found the proverbial pearl of great price, something so valuable that it is worth forsaking all else.  Though Brother Camping may be distorting the gospel and truth of scripture, he has managed to convince these folks that he has something worth value.  What if I believed in something so much that I forsook finances and relationships and social standing?  I am afraid that might actually be the call of the gospel.