You recall one Harold Camping, the radio pulpit pounder who last year predicted the Second Coming of Christ for May 21, 2011. He was wrong, of course and admitted as much a while back. Now, however, he’s called his prediction “sinful.”
In his original sinful prediction, Camping said that the “Bible guarantees it.” Apparently Camping conveniently forget the cautions in Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32 that “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven.”
Not that I knew those scriptures either.
Camping’s admission that he was not only wrong, but sinfully wrong included assurances that while he erred, all is well. “We are so thankful that God is so loving that He will forgive even this sin.”
That always bothers me. People do and say the darnest things in the name of God or Jesus or Allah or whomever and then, when, oops!, they are wrong, they know, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are forgiven.
Isn’t it possible for God/Jesus/Allah to be a little annoyed at such audacity and arrogance? Isn’t it possible that while the offender isn’t necessarily going to get hit with a lightning bolt, he may become suspect in the deity’s eyes? No offense, just wondering…
The tragedy in all this is not simply needlessly panicking people, but, according to Denny Burk, associate professor of New Testament at Boyce College in Louisville, Ky., “a false teacher like Camping…gives the scoffers (like moi) a reason for feeling vindicated in their scoffing.”
I don’t feel particularly vindicated in my scoffing, I just dislike anyone manipulating others with predictions of doom and gloom and other hysteria. It’s cheap and theatrical and does needless harm.
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