You’ve probably heard by now about Harold Camping’s bizarre announcement that the ‘Rapture’ (a concept of the Second Coming of Christ only held by a minority of Christian believers that ‘true believers’ will be bodily removed to heaven, leaving the rest of us on earth for 1000 years) will occur at 6pm on Saturday 21st May.
I want to make it clear here that Harold Camping does not speak for the vast majority of Christian believers. His views are not at all orthodox and he is what we would traditionally call a ‘false prophet’. Just making that clear for any of my non-Christian friends who might assume that I believe what he does!
There are a variety of things I’ve found online that have helped me get my head around this stuff and work out my own response to it. I share these here below:
Excellent website for any ‘normal’ Christian to get involved in to expose Harold Camping as a false prophet. At 6pm tomorrow, login to register that you are still here and that the rapture hasn’t happened!
Extract:
Camping predicts two things – (i) That the rapture will begin at 6pm in each part of the earth and (ii) That it will be preceded by a very large earthquake. These two things should be easy to identify, so RaptureFail has been designed for Christians around the world to catalogue the failure of the prophecy.
The Bible is very clear – Jesus said “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36). Harold Camping’s presumption to know better then Jesus will be demonstrated false by people using RaptureFail to show that the events predicted have not happened.
Blogs
The new Bishop of Bradford speaking about his enthronement possibly happening at the same time as the Rapture (tongue in cheek and funny):
http://nickbaines.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/oh-dear-the-worlds-about-to-end/
A brilliant blog post from the theologian Maggi Dawn: http://maggidawn.com/rapture/
Extract:
We don’t need to sell our possessions or preach “left behind” messages; we need to get on with bringing about peace and justice here and now. That’s our calling.
A thoughtful blog post on how we Christians should respond: http://liamthatcher.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/to-mock-or-not-to-mock/
Media
Two funny cartoons from the excellent Asbo Jesus blog:
A silly LOLcat (this just made me smile):
And finally, this comical video:
My thoughts
None of us know when Christ will come again, and it’s unlikely that the oddly specific predictions of the Rapture will happen in the way described (some going, some not etc.)
“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36)
So:
Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. (Hebrews 12:2)
My recommendation to you:
Enjoy what you have right now, Jesus came that we might have life in all its fulness! (John 10:10)
Bryony Taylor 