Harold Egbert Camping, the 88-year-old full-time volunteer President of Family Radio (technically Family Stations, begun in 1958), might need to consider retirement fairly soon, although, according to his precise and careful calculations, it won’t matter much soon because Jesus is returning on May 21, 2011. (His precise and careful calculations also had Jesus swinging through the clouds to a planet near you in September of 1994 but, oopsie, now it’s definitely going to be in May of 2011.) He is quite the impressive Bible scholar having earned a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Berkeley in 1942 and running his own construction business (cleverly named Camping Construction) before entering the, um, ministry. Church watchdogs may not be able to dig up much technical dirt against him since he doesn’t take a paycheck from Family Radio, but he is still quite the rouser of rabble. He hosts a live call-in program on radio, television, and on the Internet, interpreting life, the universe and everything, and what’s on most people’s radar that distinguishes him from the other egotistical, slightly addled Bible “experts” of our heady age is the fact that he’s telling Christians that the “abomination of desolation” has already entered the church, Christ’s presence has been removed from our churches, the “church age” is over, and basically if you’re hanging out in a church on a Sunday, you’re an Antichrist-worshiping Satanist with whipped cream and a cherry on top. He is persuading Christians—and many are actually buying this, especially many from Camping’s former church of choice, the Christian Reformed denomination—that, since the church age is at an end (which of course he proves by citing all kinds of scary stuff from Ezekiel, Revelation and other exciting Bible stuff, kind of like when Paul Stookey was on Johnny Carson and set about to prove that you can make the national anthem into a song about pot smoking if you emphasize certain words and say it just right…), you’d better not be caught near a church, and, oh, by the way, you’d better not be meeting in those home fellowship groups you were meeting in for a while there (which he said was okay) because they’re too much like going to a church, and God hates that now, since “the Scriptures have been completed,” and church is just evil, evil, evil.
Family Radio takes great pride (which is always a good thing for Christians to do) in the fact that they are strictly faithful to the Word of God (however Harold plays with it); they used to use that passion to build up local churches and spread the love of Christ, formerly known as “spreading the Gospel.” Now their minions are encouraged (in thirty languages, all over the world) to hone in on God’s judgment of the church, to watch for the signs of the bitter end behind every bush, to teach their children about the Lake of Fire where Grandma is going to live forever in agony because she bakes pies for the church bazaar with the Lutheran Ladies Guild. And, by the by, you can get a free correspondence course in “Bible Hebrew and Bible Greek” and lots of free copies of Harold Egbert Camping’s swell books.
Family Radio says they’ve discovered there’s a “great amount of biblical evidence” that we’re “very close to the end.” I’d say they’re participating in that end with their very own “false prophet,” a sad, scary old geezer with a blind ego and a massive worldwide venue for spewing his bizarre prophesies and confusing a lot of gullible people. He’s just one more on the list of egotistical religious-types who’ve set themselves up above the rest of us by “discovering” fabulous gems of Scriptures that only they are privy to, that they’re chosen to divulge to us poor saps, and that you’d better heed. The love of Christ, the majesty of God and His grace, is lost in the rubble of Harold’s brilliant interpretations. Take heed, indeed.
Huggosaurus 