If you’re reading this after 6 p.m. on Saturday, then, bad news: You, too, have been left behind (unless you have the Washington Post app on your iPad in the Kingdom of Heaven). So before we go on with our doomsday, let us pause to consider what brought us to this time of tribulation By Dana Milbank
Opinion Writer
Washington Post
Published May 20, 2011
Signs of the Apocalypse
I’m sorry to say that this probably will be my last column, due to circumstances beyond my control. Apparently, the world is ending.This information, as you likely have heard, comes from painstaking mathematical calculations by religious broadcaster Harold Camping of Family Radio and advertised on billboards across America and in more e-mails than I can count.
Christian movement eats last meals, says goodbye . . .
By Associated Press
Updated: Saturday, May 21, 11:18 AM
Read the complete story
OAKLAND, Calif. — Some shut themselves inside to pray for mercy as they waited for the world’s end. Others met for tearful last lunches with their children, and prepared to leave behind homes and pets as they were swept up to heaven.
And across the globe, followers of a California preacher’s long-publicized message that Judgment Day would arrive Saturday turned to the Bible, the book they believe predicts the beginning of Earth’s destruction on May 21.
Harold Camping/News2 Charleston, S.C.
/AP/familyradio.com
/AP/familyradio.com
The doomsday message has been sent far and wide via broadcasts and web sites by Harold Camping, an 89-year-old retired civil engineer who has built a multi-million-dollar nonprofit ministry based on his apocalyptic prediction.After spending months traveling the country to put up Judgment Day billboards and hand out Bible tracts, Camping follower Michael Garcia planned to spend Friday evening with his family at home in Alameda, near the Christian media empire’s Oakland headquarters.
They believe it will likely start as it becomes 6 p.m. in the world’s various time zones.
“We know the end will begin in New Zealand and will follow the sun and roll on from there,” said Garcia, a 39-year-old father of six. “That’s why God raised up all the technology and the satellites so everyone can see it happen at the same time.”
The Internet was alive with reaction in the hours past 6 p.m. Saturday in New Zealand. “Harold Camping’s 21st May Doomsday prediction fails; No earthquake in New Zealand,” read one posting on Twitter.
25 comments:
It is my understanding that many Christians would rather not have to endure the rapture. But in Wimberley I have heard that the ones that have opted in to be raptured have placed a signal on their front yards or fences.
Mercy, is it too late to get a white cross for my front yard!?
However, I take hope in knowing that Mr. Camping has previously predicted the end of the world for 1994.
Judging from some of the blogs on this site there will be quite a few people left here after 6pm.
I don't think most people in Wimberley need to worry about the rapture even though the fear the white crosses. It's the big spacecraft behind the moon that they wish for. I heard that tinfoil hats were in vogue on the square. nanu nanu
Wouldn't if be awful if we all just lived three weeks longer than Osama bin Laden?
What a bummer.
But don't worry, I'm sure the Heaven most of us will go to has a single payer health care system.
It is almost 6 pm....do you know where your Christians are?
I live in Mountaincrest and here the rapture has occured. Of the 82 homes here 8 have vanished. They did have the rapture signs in their yards.
Well, looks as if those crosses didn't work as promised.
I am still here.
So is my white cross with the little flag.
Damned if I know.
I hedged my bets and was in church at 6pm.
Rats no luck I am still here.....along with the rest of the congregation. LOL
Oh well there is still Dec 2012 to look forward to. Maybe the Mayan's got it right.
You know Bob, I find it curious why you would run a story like this when it has absolutely zero to do with local poltics or issues. If stories or concerns of a more national interest were important than why aren't stories about federal issues run?
The only thing I see here is yet another sad attempt by the media to denigrate Christians. While this guy professes to be Christian, he brought a message that was obvious, even among Christians, that this was a sham, and yet doesn't change one iota of the truth of God's Word as revealed in the Bible. (Now let rock throwing begin, oh you of the hypocrisy brigade - yes, you, the individual who wishes not to be judged but rush to judgment oh so fast.)
Anyway Bob, unless you come back and retort that this was some serious effort to report that somehow a secret answer to the water troubles by reducing the population, then I am offended to think that you would stoop this low to insult a group, any group. Kind of takes the objectivity out of journalism doesn't it?
Bob has always given politics an occasional break, and we need it. Local, state, and national politics has been a grim subject indeed, including the last 2, with your pal and mine, our deceptive president, who duped many of us.
A national news story, with serious implications for the unwitting and unwary, including thousands of hoarders and doom and gloom believers, deserves to be exposed. The "leader of this prophesy", this P.T. Barnum huckster, is preaching a fasinating literal interpretation of the bible. The vast, vast majority of us in the civilized world have never viewed the bible in this manner.
My guess is that every one of the posters of comments to this story has some religous affiliation, but not this literal fundamentalist interpretation of the bible.
Many folks, many people know, that the flag with cross movement in this land of ours has nothing to do with religion with patiotism. Let's face the truth. It's a political statement, through and through.
Why advertise? The cross with flag can just as easily be planted in a backyard, under a tree, with a sitting bench for meditation.
As a devout Christian myself, I have little respect for people who wear their religion on their sleeve.
This country, the United States of America, was founded originally based upon relious tolerance, and this flag with cross movement is a personal affront to millions of us.
Jon Thomson is one of these self-righteous locals who simply can't understand why this whole Rapture story is funny and OK to be put up in the locally focused Roundup.
This story is not denigrating to Christians. Instead, it makes the mamjory of Christains look sane by comparison.
Mr. Thompson needs to get a life - but more importantly a sense of humor. His life would be much more fun and enjoyable if he did.
Good piece Roundup, if you can't see the humor in it then you've already been taken away and you don't know it.
If the religious right can take control of the state legislature then it's our duty to throw up opposition, criticism, rocks and votes to get rid of them.
By the way, all the morals legislation recently passed still cannot solve the state's revenue problem. Perhaps you need to pray harder Jon Thompson.
Hey, Jon, I don't think we have never met. But in response to your comment about Ochoa putting the article up, I disagree with you. I find the whole Rapture predictions to be quite humorous.
If the Rapture one day turns out to be true, it will not be because any one man or specific church has the insight to know it is coming. And anyone who thinks otherwise, well, they are quite out of touch with the fact that the Bible does not specify a date - probably on purpose.
So, to add to the smart humor of such ignorant grandiosity of purporting to know the End Day, as a spiritual man let me add a joke that might very well fit into your indignation:
A busy Hays County newspaper reporter caught up with a Dripping Springs ISD Board member during the last Board election.
The reporter asked the DSISB Board member what he thought about bi-lingual education in Texas public schools.
The Board member replied:
"I don't think we need bilingual education in Texas, if English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for our kids."
Now, I first heard that joke applied to George W. Bush, but it still applies quite incisively to many Texas and local politicians, school board members, etc. - and a few responders to the Roundup.
I'd like to know, Jon, do you find that joke funny or insulting to Christians? Do you think there is no truth to the parody of Christian ignorance in the joke? Be honest now.
I'm sure you have laughed at one-sided jokes about liberals and certain stereotypical but obviously not true minority jokes.
And please don't write back telling us you never laugh at such off color jokes. No one will believe you.
Lighten up, Jon, you will live longer.
Jon Thompson wrote:
"If stories or concerns of a more national interest were important than why aren't stories about federal issues run?"
I read stories of national interest quite regularly in the Roundup - articles mostly about national politics or economics that affects Texas and Hays County.
I find it interesting that Thompson knew about this Rapture article but don't know about the regular national articles in the Roundup.
I think Thompson is just trying to look like some Christian family values guy to the locals in DP. Isn't he some kind of city manager there?
His seemingly phony outrage could be an effective but amateurish PR ploy to get him on the good side of the Christian right wingnuts in north Hays County.
He and Jason Isaac are two peas in a pod.
Jon Thompson is a fictional character in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged (1957). Although he does not appear in person until the last third of the novel, he is the subject of its often-repeated question "Who is Jon Thompson?" and of the quest to discover the answer.
These fundamentalist Christians are the ones denigrating Christianity and driving a wedge further between people who accept that are many ways to tread a spiritual path and those who are convinced that their particular church has the one and only answer.
Intolerance in religious matters is what is fueling hatred the world over.
Most of the Christians I know would put Jesus either in jail or leave hm alongside the highway with his thumb out. Jesus would be ushered out the door of most churches and certainly not allowed to marry their daughters.
You folks profess to believe in Jesus, but have you even stopped to really try to understand the kind of world he envisioned?
It certainly was not the one I see lived by most Christians, with their rampant materialism, nationalism and intolerance toward other culture and races.
Sorry, but the kind of Christianity you people are showing to the world and to your neighbors is nothing I want anything to do with...and neither would Jesus.
Excuse me, but that is "Who is John Galt?"
Jon Thompson is real enough and out of his depth in this conversation.
Get back to making apologies for your developer friends, Jon.
How insensitive of me to be offended. I knew that saying anything would upset the apple cart. Rocky, since you and I are the only ones with real names, I have a different perespective on faith than you, but believe you are fully entitled to your opinion. I did find the article humorous, just not in this journalistic forum. Sad to say there are those who find personal attacks as their means of finding value and validation of their self-worth and their opinions.
Mr. Thompson. With respect and in all seriousness. I can go to my bible, or I can google. But I really would like a 2011, accurate, interpretive answer to my 7 questions:
1. Who will experience the rapture?
2. What exactly is the rapture?
3. When is it likely to occur?
4. Where does it occur- does it happen nationally, internationally, or is it universal? Are all the various religous groups affected?
5. Why does it occur?
6. What happens during and after a rapture? How is it supposed to feel?
7. What does the cross and American flag mean?
Please. Anyone?
@ Rocky, My apologies for not reading through your whole posting. Of course I have laughed at good one-sided jokes, especially those of a political nature, whether liberal or conservative. I even find a good Christian joke hilarious as well, you know, "a Baptist, a Catholic, and a Jew..." (you fill in the blank). Of course, there are the Muslim jokes that tend to be out of season for fear of reprisal bombings, hence my "one-sided" jab at the editor. If we're going to have Christian jokes than by all means let's open it unto all! I would love to see a good Hindu joke, or Muslim joke, or tree-hugger joke (you know the one about yellow-cheek warblers tasting like chicken?). So, I have a decent sense of humor, just not when it's lopsided against one group or another.
Mr. Thompson. With respect and in all seriousness. I can go to my bible, or I can google. But I really would like a 2011, accurate, interpretive answer to my 7 questions:
1. Who will experience the rapture?
Find the term "rapture" in your Bible. Having trouble? It isn't in there. Doesn't mean that the concept might not be, but the term itself isn't. In several place, the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and in the Pauline epistles (1Thessalonians, I believe) there are references to "gathering" the saints or "meeting" in the air. From such references comes the premillenial (both traditional and other variations involving a tribulation period) Christian position. There are other Christians who hold to non-rapture eschatologies such as postmillenialists and amillenialists. So, the idea of a rapture in Christian theology is obviously not an idea that is universally held by all, if even a majority of Christians.
2. What exactly is the rapture?
May 22, 2011 8:40 PM
Sorry Spencer, from an iPhone unable to scroll up and down in the answer box, so couldn't get to your other questions. Who? What? And why? Where? When?
Who? To those who hold to the rapture doctrine it will be those whose faith in eternal life has been placed in Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of Old Testament prophecy (though many, if not most observant Jews hold differently). For those Christians of other eschatologies, while no rapture even they hold to the separation of those who are "saved" (Christian euphemism for the longer explanation of salvation in Christ) from those who are not. Meaning that there is a Christian doctrine of a real heaven and a real hell.
Why? Good question, other than how it fits into the premillenial eschatology, no good explanation, and it leaves open the "how" question for other Christian eschatologies. The best answer for that would the idea of a real "Judgment Day".
When? Again, only from a premillenial perspective is the idea of the rapture relevant, but the idea of date setting for Christ's Second Coming (whether by rapture or by however the "end" occurs) is clearly forbidden by Jesus in the gospel of Matthew when He says that no one, not man, nor angels, nor the Son of Man (referencing Himself), knows the day and time, but only the Father (Trinitarian theological questions reserved for some other day , please).
Where? Do you mean geographically or time and space continuum? Seriously, again, depending on your eschatology, it is generally accepted that it is globally. Universally, all will be raised from the dead, though Scripturally speaking, some to everlasting glory and some to everlasting damnation, both as a result of the Judgment of God. (Since I don't want to incur the wrath of Bob, I'll close this segment by saying that there is much more to be added to this explanation that may get to offensive to those who either are atheists, agnostics, nature worshipers, or other religions; or worse it might offend those whose consciences are guilty for knowing there is a righteous standard of right and wrong.)
Well, there you go Spencer a few thoughts on your posed questions. Now what will you do with it? Hopefully, your questions were asked with humility and you were truly inquisitive, and not asked with malice against me or Christians, generally speaking.
For those whom I fear will now write to somehow sledgehammer me for daring to express religious answers to a posted question on religion without belittling the questioner, my apologies in advance. I did think that this blog's intro talks about "intelligent" answers, not snide, cheap political ones. Civil discourse is my aim, though offense is not intended, it may happen nonetheless if your opinions and mine do not align.
Jon, if you think the jokes are lopsided against Christians, which I don't think is true, its probably for the following reason:
Too many Christians still tend to be in denial for stereotypically extreme (hence humorous) reasons with scientifically valid issues such as climate change, evolution, homosexuality, family plannning and birth control, education policy, etc. etc. The list goes on and on.
To be fair I don't believe science has all the answers but science does offer more plausible explanations for many of our life challenges, much more than a simple "faith" perspective that does not come close to answering challenging questions for human survability.
And of course, faith, when integrated into one's life in a reasonable and healthy Christian way, can provide us all with a spriritual guidance that we can apply to our lives everyday.
But unfortunately, we regularly see so-called Christian family values politicians lie to us during the campaigns and run on small government conservatism, then use ugly big government power to repress minorities, women, and those that disagree with their "Honor Thy Father" self-righteous interpretation of what people need to be saved. such political behavior is hypocrisy in a true democracy.
Right wing Christian Americans need to be very careful they do not cross the line to Taliban- like social policies and economic policies that only benefit their own just because they have temporary state and local political power.
Moreover, young Americans - the real future of America - don't want repressive social conservatism controlling their lives. They are OK with America being a Christian nation, but not with America being a globally judgemental and domestically mindless quasi-theocracy.
Btw, I loved your explanation of the Rapture. It was very informative.
Actually, and unfortunately for these Americans, a "Rapture" of sorts did actually occur, a day late, in Joplin, MO.
Let's all pray for those citizens of Joplin who have suffered their own local apocolypse.
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