A lot of fuss has been made recently by the predictions of a pastor named Harold Camping. Camping is claiming that based upon his years of extensive Biblical study, the world will end on May 21. Or more correctly, the rapture will occur on May 21 and then God will destroy the earth on October 21. Camping's comments are excruciatingly embarrassing to many Christians, who are tired of the crazy-eyed minority gaining headlines for all the wrong reasons (like our friend, Fred Phelps, the Koran burner). Frighteningly enough, some people have taken Camping seriously enough to cash in their life savings and spend it, figuring they won't need the money anymore after May 21.
Robert Fitzpatrick, for example, a 60-year-old, retired transit worker from Staten Island has invested his entire life savings of $140,000 into a bus advertisement campaign warning people about the end of the world.
“I’m trying to warn people about what’s coming,” Fitzpatrick told the New York Daily News. “People who have an understanding [of end times] have an obligation to warn everyone.”
Camping's predictions come in a year where there already has been a lot of fuss about the end of the world. The Mayan doom prophecies for 2012 have been pulled out and dusted off, especially in the light of the numerous natural disasters parts of our globe have suffered through. The fact that the Mayans did not actually predict the world would end in 2012, but just ended their calendar there obviously doesn’t sell as many papers, so that point is rarely added to the mix.
The only prediction I feel safe in making is that over the next year or so, we will see an increase in crazy-eyed people who claim to have inside knowledge of the exact date and time. They will receive their headlines and 15 minutes of fame and then quietly slink away when their predicted date comes and goes, and inconveniently no apocalypse has arrived. What really annoys about this is that one day, one of these intense ‘prophets’ will be right (law of averages and all that). If heaven is to hold any joy for me, there will be no one allowed to walk around saying, “See! I told you so!”
I don’t mean to belittle the whole End Times thing - the Bible clearly addresses it (although the bit about “no one knows the time our hour” seems to skip so many by). Christians have been proclaiming Christ’s imminent return ever since there have been Christians - we see evidence of this in the New Testament itself. However, we also see evidence in the New Testament of a growing realisation that there is a difference between “imminent” and “immediate.” Striving to live every day as if Christ is imminent makes complete sense to me.
Yet the fringe lunatics of our faith family still persist in casting predictions of the exact time and hour, and coming out with all sorts of theories based on a very narrow and limited reading of Scripture. I know I might ruffle a few feathers here because of its popularity, but I would include the “Left Behind” book series in this lunatic fringe. Writing for the Huffington Post, the Associate Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary, Dr. Matthew Skinner, argues this point far better than I could.
“Witness the Left Behind franchise, which has made millions promulgating a theology based on the notion of a "Rapture," in which living Christians are snatched away to an otherworldly existence while the rest of earth slides fearfully into political and moral chaos. This theology comes from a very idiosyncratic view of the Bible that is popular in fundamentalist circles but has also infiltrated wider Christian discourse. Yet it represents a way of thinking about God and history that possesses, at best, dubious biblical support. Its retribution fantasies hardly align with notions of divine love and justice found in many other parts of the Bible.”
Since there are so many New Testament passages which describe the dawn of a new era, begun in Jesus’ first coming, but to be fulfilled in his second “appearing,” it would be silly to ignore the whole topic. We need more sensible, thoughtful opinion otherwise the fringe theorists will inevitably fill the void. This is why Skinner gives advice (see below) as to how we can read these many texts in a way that will not distort them to fit into our own conspiracy theories. Skinner’s advice on reading the Bible is long, but well worth working your way through.
“First, we have to note how context matters. Future hopes are given greatest attention in the New Testament usually when two other things are in view: the corrosive effects of religious hypocrisy and early Christians' experience of persecution. Biblical passages about Jesus' return therefore reiterate that God's commitment to the world is not warmly embraced by the world's business-as-usual religious, social, and political routines.
Next, "symbolic language" does not mean "not to be taken seriously." These texts are important in their ability to communicate that we don't live in the best of all possible worlds. They point toward the promise of a better future. New Testament scholar Dale Allison likens the Bible's visions of the end to its visions of the beginning:
"Genesis is no historical record of the primordial past, and the New Testament offers no precognitive history of the eschatological future ... We must interpret them not literally but as religious poetry, which means with our theologically-informed imaginations." (page 97).
Therefore, these passages prompt us to let the dimensions of our "longed-for future" be creatively informed by our "present religious experience and faith and theological reflection" (page 98). What Christians say, then, is the state of affairs Jesus promised the world has yet to come to full fruition. New Testament talks about the future issues vivid reminders that God still has work to do among us. The specifics about the future remain wholly mysterious. Still, the dominant emphasis is on promoting hope, not inciting fear.
All this could leave Christianity vulnerable to charges of escapism, but only if it leads people to ethical and social passivity. Or to paint motor homes like this.
A fourth observation pushes against passivity, however. Biblical images about Jesus' return evoke the sights and sounds of Roman propaganda. For example, caution expressed in 1 Thessalonians 5:3 concerning seductive reassurances spoken about "peace and security" in the world refers to an imperial slogan. Also, as one might expect given Christians' occasional status as a marginalized group in the first century, these images sometimes also imitate Roman propaganda. The description of Jesus' return in 1 Thessalonians 4 depicts him with language recalling Roman dignitaries' official visits to cities.
These passages' subtle connections to imperial rhetoric allow them to subvert it, too. They thus can commit Christians to an unwillingness to rest content with the status quo of human political existence. They portray the future that God will inaugurate as showing up our inferior ideals -- exposing all that humankind settles for (and gets oppressed by) as false substitutes for true peace and true security. They speak about a world that is sick, about people who abuse power. At the same time, they call people of faith not to shun or denigrate human society but to work for the world's redemption.”