Harold Camping is at it again. The on-air Christian evangelist who predicted that this past May 21st would herald the Rapture and the return of Jesus Christ (uhhhh, it didn't happen) is now saying that the Rapture will be on October 21st instead.
As for that failed May prognostication, here's what Camping's outfit has said...
What really happened this past May 21st? What really happened is that God accomplished exactly what He wanted to happen. That was to warn the whole world that on May 21 God’s salvation program would be finished on that day. For the next five months, except for the elect (the true believers), the whole world is under God’s final judgment. To accomplish this goal God withheld from the true believers the way in which two phrases were to be understood. Had He not done so, the world would never have been shaken in fear as it was.Ummmmm... oooh-kaaaay...Thus we can be sure that the whole world, with the exception of those who are presently saved (the elect), are under the judgment of God, and will be annihilated together with the whole physical world on October 21, 2011, on the last day of the present five months period. On that day the true believers (the elect) will be raptured. We must remember that only God knows who His elect are that He saved prior to May 21.
And on the chutzpah-ish side of things, televange-pest Pat Robertson is telling his viewers to be wary of those like Camping who make false predictions. Click on the link to peruse a list of many of Robertson's own prophecies, none of which came to pass.
In Camping's defense (and it really pains me to defend him), that is SORT OF what he said all along.
ReplyDeleteHe said the 'rapture' would be in May (when the believers are 'taken up'), then the rest of the world would suffer through a five month judgement, and then the world would actually come to an end in October.
He did modify it some from what he was saying originally...now the 'rapture' happens in October, but we were all judged [silently?] by God in May, and who knows when the actual end of the world happens.
But the October date was always in there, buried beneath the May date in smaller letters (I got one of his handouts a while back, but I think I threw it out).
Of course, the whole idea of a 'rapture' in this sense is a weird, revisionist interpretation of the Scripture that arose in the mid-1800's. Yeah, the world is going to end at some point, but not according to the 'rapture' script (even if we put the specific date predictions aside).