If I were to make a joke now it would be about Rev. Camping explaining why the Rapture didn't happen last night - saying he forgot to carry the one.
Or perhaps the explanation he thinks up might be a bit more prosaic... or worse yet, obscure.
I ran across one article on BBC which gave me pause - not only for the insistence of some folks in believing what someone else tells them and bending into pretzels to make it make sense, but for something I never thought of before: how many people are actually going to lose their faith over this? never mind how many have quit their jobs, spent their life's savings and even gone into debt leading up to yesterday. You can read about it here. What about the people who truly expected not to be here this morning? Wow. How crushed, disappointed, and bewildered some of them must be today. The people of Calvary Bible Church in Milpitas California have opened their arms and their hearts to those of Camping's followers who are grieving today.
That's compassion.
I'm continually amazed at the predilection people have to fixate on one particular person and blindly follow everything he or she says. Folks are looking for truth and if someone claims to have it and thinks up a great way to package it, they look to that person to the exclusion of revealed truth. I remember one preacher saying (when speaking of the Bible and how to interpret it), "If the literal sense makes good sense, don't make it into nonsense." People believe the sheisters because they don't believe that they can find out what the Bible says for themselves, and / or they can't interpret it properly. They rely on the ones with the seminary educations and the theological degrees, when the reality is that many of those well-educated people are just as confused as the next person. The followers of such people perhaps can't come to believe that they can actually have a first-hand relationship with God instead of relying on others who are more educated to feed them pre-chewed spiritual food.
That said, one doesn't need a seminary degree to show a little acceptance, love, and compassion to people who - today of all days - are baffled that they are still here. Laugh at the prediction if you must - I know I did - but save the baby before throwing out the bathwater. I believe that Jesus IS coming back. Not sure when, don't need to know, can't know anyway. If this whole thing has done any good at all, it is that it has re-awakened a long-forgotten hope in many of us.
Am I angry at Camping and folks like him? oh yeah. Mostly it's because they prey on the sheep - usually to line their own pockets - and end up disgusting and repelling so many people watching all of this, people who otherwise might have considered Christianity as viable. Not only that, but the setting of dates and the majoring on minors (like nit-picking and judgmentalism, things that evangelicals are famous for doing) just adds to the cynicism of those who already view Christians as hypocritical nut-cases, and weakens our credibility before the watching world.
But for those rapturists who have lost everything - who because of this fiasco are questioning for the first time if there's even a God - my heart breaks.
Or perhaps the explanation he thinks up might be a bit more prosaic... or worse yet, obscure.
I ran across one article on BBC which gave me pause - not only for the insistence of some folks in believing what someone else tells them and bending into pretzels to make it make sense, but for something I never thought of before: how many people are actually going to lose their faith over this? never mind how many have quit their jobs, spent their life's savings and even gone into debt leading up to yesterday. You can read about it here. What about the people who truly expected not to be here this morning? Wow. How crushed, disappointed, and bewildered some of them must be today. The people of Calvary Bible Church in Milpitas California have opened their arms and their hearts to those of Camping's followers who are grieving today.
That's compassion.
That said, one doesn't need a seminary degree to show a little acceptance, love, and compassion to people who - today of all days - are baffled that they are still here. Laugh at the prediction if you must - I know I did - but save the baby before throwing out the bathwater. I believe that Jesus IS coming back. Not sure when, don't need to know, can't know anyway. If this whole thing has done any good at all, it is that it has re-awakened a long-forgotten hope in many of us.
Am I angry at Camping and folks like him? oh yeah. Mostly it's because they prey on the sheep - usually to line their own pockets - and end up disgusting and repelling so many people watching all of this, people who otherwise might have considered Christianity as viable. Not only that, but the setting of dates and the majoring on minors (like nit-picking and judgmentalism, things that evangelicals are famous for doing) just adds to the cynicism of those who already view Christians as hypocritical nut-cases, and weakens our credibility before the watching world.
But for those rapturists who have lost everything - who because of this fiasco are questioning for the first time if there's even a God - my heart breaks.
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