A couple weeks ago, I saw a series of billboards a near my house so strange that they warranted a Google search. In almost no time, I found that these fiery displays, threatening the end of days, belonged to Harold Camping, the almost 90-year-old Family Radio preacher who was certain that God would make his final judgments last Saturday.
With the exception of his few loyal followers, Camping was probably the only one of us who was disappointed when he opened his front door Saturday morning and realized the world wasn’t enduring any sort of rapture. After a weekend of silence, Camping emerged from his California home Monday to concede that the 21st was simply a “spiritual rapture” and that the world will really come to an end this October.
Now, I like to think I am fairly well-versed in Christianity, and though I may disagree with much of what many prominent Christians preach, I can usually understand how they came to have these beliefs. Camping’s date setting, however, raises a lot of questions for me.