I guess its only natural to feel like making some good-natured fun of Harold Camping and the followers of Family Radio. And I’m sure there were those, even Christians, who felt some relief and then laughed at Mr. Camping at 6 pm on Saturday when the earth didn’t quake and thousands of people didn’t disappear from the earth. I’ve seen some not-so-good-natured kidding and ridiculing of Camping going on too on Twitter and FaceBook. And I don’t think relief is what we should be feeling.
I’m not necessarily trying to make a statement here but I guess I want to talk this out because I’m feeling very somber for the people who believed Mr. Camping. In the back of my mind I wonder where all Mr. Camping’s followers are. We may hear from them sooner or later. But I wonder if they are hidden somewhere and being offered funky kool-aide. I wonder if they are broken-hearted or angry? I wonder what this has done to their faith in God? Did they have faith in God to begin with, or just faith in Harold Camping?
You can call them fools or idiots as I’ve heard them called today. You could call them deluded or ignorant and that might be nicer. I think they were deceived and if I try a little and enter into their disappointment, dashed hopes, failed faith, fear and disillusionment, I feel sympathy for them. It breaks my heart because I know what its like to be proven foolish.
I mean, who over the age of 25 hasn’t had a crisis of faith? Who hasn’t felt betrayed or, at the very least, forgotten by God? If only for a short time? Haven’t most of us been taught, either purposely or unintentionally, an untruth about our faith, only to have to go back and relearn the true and right Word of God on the subject? And wasn’t God kind? Wasn’t He forgiving? Did He ridicule us when we sinned?
I read about the Great Disappointment of the Millerites that occurred in 1844 and how the people who were deceived at that time wept and wept about their error and some even fled to the wilderness for months because of their embarrassment, heart-break and sorrow for their sin and deception.
Officially, the Millerites leader proclaimed a “Jonah Experience”. He claimed that enough people had repented and turned to God because of what the Millerites had preached, that God stopped His plan for His return and judgment and gave the world another chance. And that may well be what Mr. Camping and his followers will claim.
Even so, I think those followers have to make some kind of determination about their faith. I said that I know what its like to be proven foolish, but I also thankfully know what its like to know truth and to put that truth in place of my foolishness and sin.
This non-event will either send them further down the path of error, as in the “Jonah Experience”, or it will awaken them to truth. I hope it will be the latter but I think, for at least some, it will be the former. At the very least I hope they all walk away from Mr. Camping. And yes, I hope he repents and finds truth as well.
Its very sad when you think about it but full of opportunity for redemption.
9 Comments