What we are witnessing is the slow-motion “crash and burn” of an apocalyptic cult. It is lurid fascination that makes us pause with bated breath to see what is going to happen, as we did in watching the live prime-time coverage of a Jet Blue Airbus approaching LAX in September 2005 with its nose gear stuck open at the wrong angle.
Will it crash and burn, or will the pilots manage to land the plane safely? What will happen to the passengers, and what must they be feeling right now?
The pilot of this Rapture plane is 89-year-old Bible preacher Brother Harold Camping of Family Radio Inc. His passengers are the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of faithful who collectively have contributed $80 million over the past half decade to his on-air gospel ministry. Many have discovered Camping by accident, as I did when I stumbled across his sonorous voice on the “Open Forum” program a few years ago.
Working as I do at the National Center for Science Education, I was naturally intrigued by his claim that “our modern scientists” falsely assume that the universe is billions of years old and that humans are related to other animals on earth.
Family Radio airs syndicated programs like Mel Molder’s “Beyond Intelligent Design” and Ian Taylor’s “Creation Moments.” But its eclectic programming isn’t limited to creationism. It also includes Christian radio staples such as praise music, Bible reading, personal advice, and tips for rearing Christian children to face the challenges of tomorrow.
However, if Camping is right, there is no tomorrow. He has declared that the Last Judgment of the human race will take place on May 21, at 6 p.m. local time in every time zone. Beginning with a great earthquake that will open the graves in New Zealand, Australia and Southeast Asia, the cataclysm will race around the globe for a whole day, wreaking havoc in every time zone. The dead who are among God’s elect will be raised, and along with the living “true believers” they will be snatched up or “raptured” into heaven.
Camping estimated the number of the elect to be about 200 million. The rest of us, the reprobate ones, will endure a chaotic summer of earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, forest fires, insect infestations, wars, and famines, until on October 21st the entire universe will be consumed by fire, and we will witness for a fraction of a second the very end of time.
Where does Harold Camping come by this insider knowledge about the “second coming” and Judgment Day? After all, Jesus warned his disciples that “about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matthew 24:37).
How is it that God the Father is willing to confide information to Harold Camping that He wasn’t willing to share even with God the Son? Shouldn’t Jesus have had a more intimate knowledge about God’s intentions than a construction company owner in Alameda, California? (It was with the aid of construction company profits that Camping helped to found Family Radio in the 1960s.)
Camping is not the first radio evangelist to peddle his particular brand of Christian theology, preying upon his listeners’ fears of damnation in order to solicit donations, giving them hope that they are among the elect.
If you listen to Camping carefully, however, you get the distinct impression that in fact there is no theological point in joining the Family Radio crusade. God determined before the creation of the universe who would be among the elect and who would be among the damned, so there seems to be little or nothing we can do either to earn or to forfeit our salvation.
What sets Camping apart is that he has the money to command air time, a notoriety that fuels his growing listenership, and an autocratic rule over the content of his message. Any caller to the “Open Forum” show who dares to challenge Camping’s interpretation is brushed off without any indication of humility on Camping’s part. Callers who mention his failed 1994 prediction of the apocalypse are summarily cut off.
Camping’s current message is that we now find ourselves at the very end of time, an argument laid out in his book “Time Has an End (Vantage, 2005),” http://www.amazon.com/Time-Has-End-Biblical-D/dp/0533151694.
When God commanded Noah to enter the ark, saying, “seven days from now I will destroy the earth” (Genesis 7:4), the seven days symbolically represent seven thousand years. (This assumption is based on its own Bible verse: “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” [2 Peter 3:8].) Camping calculates that the global flood in Noah’s time took place in 4990 B.C., and that there are exactly 7,000 years from 4990 B.C. to A.D. 2011 (subtracting one year since there was no year 0.)
Why hasn’t your local church told you this? According to Camping, Christ abandoned the churches of all denominations in 1988, leaving Satan to rule in their place. Accordingly, Camping has commanded his radio listeners to abandon their churches and cleave to the only source of truth, the Bible − or more specifically, Camping’s interpretation of it.
How does he arrive at the year 1988? Well, Jesus Christ was crucified in A.D. 33, and 5 x 17 x 23 = 1955, and 1955 + 33 = 1988. Why 5, 7, and 23? Camping accepts an idiosyncratic numerological reading of scripture, in which each number is assigned a mystical meaning: the number 5 signifies “salvation,” 17 signifies “heaven,” and 23 means “judgment.” So to put it another way, salvation x heaven x judgment = 1988.
If that isn’t enough, consider that there are 23 years between 1988 — the year in which Christ abandoned the churches — and 2011: no coincidence when we recall that 23 stands for “judgment.” If you don’t accept Camping’s calculation of the significance of May 21, 2011, as the precise date of the Last Judgment, you are clearly under the sway of Satan.
All of this might make for a mildly interesting sociological study, but why get excited or alarmed by it? After all, apocalyptic talk has been around since the earliest days of the Christian Church, and indeed before, in Judaism, especially in the Book of Daniel.
Apocalyptic thinking often takes root in communities suffering intense persecution, or facing challenging economic and political times.
Apocalypticism offers the promise of God’s bringing about the ultimate resolution of conflict, meting out reward to his followers and punishment to evildoers, and bringing the present age to an end.
History has seen outbreaks of apocalyptic thinking around key dates like A.D. 1000, or in times of stress like the years of the Black Death in the 14th century. More recent episodes include the evolution of apocalyptic movements into denominations, such as the Millerites, who after their “Great Disappointment” of 1844 became transmuted into various denominations such as the Advent Christian Church and Seventh-Day Adventism.
What is alarming about Harold Camping’s movement is its potentially serious human consequences. In recent months Family Radio has drafted modest legions of followers to join caravans traveling in motor homes to numerous cities around the United States and much of the world, distributing tracts and warning people of their impending doom.
Reports abound of people who have sacrificed significantly, such as the New York retiree who spent his $140,000 in life savings on subway billboards to spread the word about the end of time. There are stories of people who have quit their jobs, left their homes and families, or have even euthanized their pets in preparation for the Rapture.
This is not the first apocalyptic cult to rocket into the headlines, only to crash and burn with tragic results for many, nor probably will it be the last. The key to diminishing the appeal of such movements is education.
We can only hope that a solid grounding in science, philosophy, and the religious history of our species will decrease the attraction of such cults among the apocalyptically vulnerable.
Peter M. J. Hess, Ph.D. serves as director of Outreach to Religious Communities with the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California. His position involves working with churches and faith communities to promote understanding at the interface between evolutionary biology and religious belief. With an M.A. from Oxford University and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley), his scholarly work focuses on the interactions between science and religion in the modern world (1600-1900) and the response by theologians to discoveries and new paradigms in the developing sciences. He authored “Catholicism and Science” with Paul Allen (Greenwood Press, 2008), teaches at various universities in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is a fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion. An avid rock climber and volcano mountaineer, Peter and his wife Viviane have two sons, Michael and Robert.
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