Is May 21st Doomsday
May 21st, Doomsday is one of the hottest search topics in Google.
So in case you haven’t heard by now, Harold Camping is the preacher who claims to have the calculations set on May 21, 2011 as The Judgment Day, Rapture Day, Doomstay – or whatever you want to call it. Camping’s apocalypse hype is getting worldwide attention.
Harold Camping (89) is a former civil engineer and Bible scholar. He is president of the religious non-profit Family Radio based in Oakland, California which fervently preaches the message about the end of the world, now days away. He and a caravan of trucks have been plastering over 5,000 billboards, spending millions of dollars to spread the message.
So – where do they get the funding for all this?
Tax returns indicate that the radio ministry raised a staggering 100 million dollars over the past seven years. The ministry also owns 66 radio stations worldwide valued at 72 million dollars in 2009. Not to mention donations have soared as well. The contribution comes from radio listeners (according to Tom Evans) board member of Family Radio.
However, Camping claims that it is not about the money, but spreading the message and saving as many people as possible.
“When Judgment Day comes, if someone is a billionaire, how will they take their money with them? If we have any money left, and we will because we have to pay bills up to the very end “… it will all be destroyed because the world will be in a day of judgment.
“The money is not important at all. It’s a vehicle to spread the judgment and a vehicle of the Lord.”
- Doomsday.
In January 1961, a few days before John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as president, he invited Billy Graham to spend a day with him in Key Biscayne, Florida. After a round of golf, Kennedy and Graham were returning to their hotel when Kennedy stopped the white Lincoln convertible he was driving by the side of the road.
Kennedy asked: “Billy, do you believe that Jesus Christ is coming back to Earth one day?”
“Yes, Mr. President, I certainly do” – the evangelist responded.
Kennedy wondered: “Then why do I hear so little about it?”
Were Kennedy alive today, he probably wouldn’t be asking the same question.
During Kennedy’s lifetime, few mainline Protestant churches discussed the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Fifty years later, however, televangelists, network television programs, movies and books like the ‘Left Behind’ series — which has sold more than 60 million copies — have succeeded in placing the return of Jesus Christ in the public consciousness.
A 2004 Newsweek poll revealed that 55 percent of Americans believe in the Rapture, the snatching away of all Christians prior to the end of the world and the return of Jesus Christ.
As a pastor who preaches often about Bible prophecy, I am grateful for the general awareness people have of the promised return of Jesus Christ.
But our culture’s newfound interest in the end times has a downside. Bible prophecy inherently attracts fanatics. As a seminary professor of mine used to say to our class: “Remember, wherever there is light, there are bugs!”
With the end of the world looming this Saturday, May 21, non-believers are planning ‘Rapture parties’ to poke a little fun at the Doomsday prediction and also raise awareness for other causes.
Harold Camping, 89-year-old leader of the ministry Family Radio Worldwide, has predicted that a five-month destruction of humanity will commence Saturday with a Rapture, in which believers will ascend to heaven.
“Whereas this five-month period will be an enormous horror story for those who have not been raptured, it will be a time of great joy and wonder for those who are raptured” – according to the Family Radio website.
Camping uses a mathematical formula linked to prophecies in the Bible. He once predicted September 6, 1994 as Judgment Day, but that math didn’t quite work out. This time around, Camping’s organization took out an ad in Reader’s Digest, stating – “The Bible guarantees the end of the world will begin with Judgment Day May 21, 2011.”
In Tacoma, Wash., producers of a local talk show ‘Ask the Atheist’ will sponsor a Rapture party themed ‘Countdown to Backpedaling: The End is Nah!’
A group called American Atheists has a short list of Rapture parties occurring in a handful of other cities.
Might the world really begin to end this weekend? Even many Christians aren’t buying it.
“There are a long line of brilliant people who, through intricate calculations, have made predictions about the end of the world” – Pastor Joseph Fuiten with Cedar Park Assembly of God Church in Bothell, Wash., told the Seattle Times. “Unfortunately they have overlooked the obvious words of Jesus: ‘You do not know the day or the hour’ of such events.”