Camping refuses to take responsibility for failed Judgement Day predictions

An unrepentant and unapologetic Harold Camping has insisted that his failed end of the world May 21 prediction was only partially incorrect, but that the world would now definitely end on October 21.

Speaking before reporters at his Family Radio headquarters, Camping said that his predictions have been right, but that he did slightly err because his interpretation was more literal when it should have been spiritual.

Furthermore, Camping stressed that Judgment Day on May 21 did actually arise, but only in a spiritual sense and that the physical manifestation of this judgement would be known on October 21.

"On May 21, this last weekend, this is where the spiritual aspect of it really comes through. God again brought judgment on the world. We didn’t see any difference but God brought Judgment Day to bear upon the whole world. The whole world is under Judgment Day and it will continue right up until Oct. 21, 2011 and by that time the whole world will be destroyed," he argued.

Camping admitted that initially he thought his prediction had totally failed and he found that very hard, but after praying and reviewing the Bible he discovered he was looking at it more factually than spiritually.

"I can tell you very candidly that when May 21 came and went, it was a very difficult time for me, a very difficult time. I was wondering, 'What is going on?'

"The Bible is a very spiritual book. There are a lot of things that are very factual, very factual, of course, but there are a lot of things that are very spiritual. How to know whether to look at it with a spiritual understanding or a factual understanding is hard to know," said Camping.

"The fact is when we look at it more spiritually then we find that He did come."

Camping then insisted that Oct. 21, 2011, is still the date of the End of the World.

During the question and answer session with reporters that followed his statement, the 89-year-old also defended the accuracy of his previous Judgement Day predictions.

Camping broke down each of them down, arguing they were all fulfilled: May 21, 1988, judgment came upon the churches; Sept. 7, 1994, judgment continued on the churches; then on May 21, 2011, judgment came upon the entire world.

"We are not changing the dates at all. We are just looking at it a little more spiritually but it won't be spiritual on Oct. 21 because the Bible teaches the world will be destroyed altogether. But it will be very quick," confirmed Camping.

Camping refused to take responsibility for the chaos he has caused among those followers who had sold all their possessions and given away their life savings ahead of May 21.

"I don't have any responsibility. I don't have any responsibility of anybody's life. I'm only teaching the Bible. I'm simply saying, 'This is what the Bible says,'" he said.

"We at Family Radio never tell anyone what [to] do with their possessions. That's totally between them and God," he added.

When pressed by one reporter, Camping offered a half-hearted apology.

"If people want me to apologize then I can apologize, yes. I did not have all of that worked out as I wished I had it. But it doesn't bother me at all because I'm not a genius. When I make an error, I say, 'Yes, I was wrong.' I said that already," said the president of Family Radio.

Interestingly enough, Camping also offered his views on the type of person who would be raptured and ascend to heaven before Judgement Day. Camping is of the opinion that being a Christian plays no role in this.

"It has nothing to do with religion,” he emphasised, noting Hindus and those of other faiths can be raptured. “If God has saved them then they're going to be caught up."

Citing the biblical passage stating "the last shall be first and the first shall be last," Camping said salvation belongs to those whom God has chosen and those who ask mercy from God.

"The last are those who know the least about the Bible. If God has decided to save them ... they don't have to know all about the Bible ... They just have to know God has spoken."

Archbishop challenges Hawking’s views on Heaven

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has responded to Professor Stephen Hawking’s recent claim that Heaven is a ‘fairy story’ made up by people who are afraid of dying.

“Heaven is not just some kind of place for retired Christians where they’re going to be enjoying their retirement,” the Bishop told BBC’s Toby Foster during an interview. “Heaven is where God’s will is being done. In fact, the Lord’s Prayer talks about ‘your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven’. So God is very much on earth as He is in Heaven.”

When the Anglican leader was asked directly about Hawking’s declaration that “there is no Heaven or afterlife” and that it is all “a fairy story for people afraid of the dark,” he responded by making it clear, “I’m not afraid of dying. Bring it on any day.”

Sentamu then continued, “[Hawking] shouldn’t paint a picture of some kind of sky stuff up there because the faith of God is not that kind of faith. The coming of Jesus in human flesh on earth was actually trying to say, ‘when I look at you ... you should be telling me more about what God is and about what it is to be human'.”

The second most senior cleric in the Anglican church then smiled as he observed that he would inform “that wonderful professor” not to picture another image which most people do not have at all.

Sentamu was then asked what he believed the challenge was for Christian believers in a world filled with differing points of view.

“The challenge really seems to me is not to try and think that we’re in the marketplace where we’re all looking for an easy bargain,” the Bishop stated.

“Where we are is that, God becoming human in Christ was trying to say if you want to know the authentic human life it is lived in a man called Jesus and if you want to know God, it’s not some kind of imaginary power out there.

“[God] actually takes upon our own nature so that we would become more loving, more caring and in the end, God for me is Christ-like.”

“If we do the will of loving and caring, of supporting, of rejoicing in the fact that human beings are made in God’s image and likeness, I think that’s a great thing to be done,” he added.

“So living with people with other faiths, I’m not so much pushing my idea to them, I’m more called to be loving, to be caring.

"It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t tell them about God by the way [but] I should be caring that in what I’m saying, I myself completely believe in the reality of the God that I’ve seen in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Harold Camping to explain his Rapture errors

After creating a storm of media headlines through his May 21 end of the world predictions, preacher Harold Camping lay low on Sunday when his predictions failed to materialise. The media continued to ask questions, however, with many wondering at the fate of his many followers who had sold their possessions and given away life savings.

On Sunday afternoon, nearly 24 hours after Camping’s predicted time for the start of Judgement day and rapture had come and gone, he finally spoke to The San Francisco Chronicle.

“I’m looking for answers,” the 89-year-old said, before admitting he was “flabbergasted.”

The International Business Times has subsequently reported that Camping will make a statement in a "public forum" sometime on Monday to explain why he had chosen May 21, 2011, as Judgment Day and why it had failed.

The newspaper had been informed by representatives from Camping’s ministry, Family Radio, that he needed time to "think and recover" but will "explain everything."

What is less clear is the fate of Camping’s many followers, many of whom are now severely out of pocket. Some followers have already shared that they feel their faith has been deeply shaken as well.

One commenter identified only as TL wrote a blog on the website Patheos entitled, “A Letter to Harold Camping and Those Who Expected Judgment Day,” in which he said that his mother had believed in Camping’s teachings for some 20 years, including his previously failed 1994 prediction.

“The faith she gave me as a young child (and my sisters) became the subject of much ridicule,” wrote TL. “This has been so hurtful on so many levels. Today, on May 22, I am strengthened by your words and pray for compassion.”

Another commenter called “Lara” wrote on the same website: “As the daughter of a man who completely bought into Harold Camping’s false teachings this is the most comforting thing that I’ve read so far. Our lives have been wrecked for the past 2-3 years. My father apologized to our family today. We are thanking Jesus for the miracle. We have hope that God will use evil for good.”

T.D. Jakes tells Franklin Graham to apologise to Obama

Franklin Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham and the CEO of the Christian charity Samaritan’s Purse, has been criticised by the megachurch pastor T.D. Jakes for his recent comments regarding U.S. President Barack Obama’s Muslim roots.

Graham told media of his conviction that Obama was born a Muslim and that those religious roots affect his governance today. Franklin insisted that although Obama claimed to be a Christian, the “seed of Islam” is in him and “the Islamic world sees the president as one of theirs.”

In an interview with columnist and Obama biographer Roland S. Martin, Jakes said Graham’s comments deeply concerned him.

“We didn’t question the Christianity of President Bush when he said he accepted Christ, and I’m disappointed in Rev. Franklin Graham in that regard,” Jakes told Martin.

”…And I would hope that he would see the rationale in apologizing for such statements — because if the president’s faith is suspect, then all of our faiths are suspect, because the Bible is quite clear about what it takes to be saved and the president has been quite open about his accepting Christ and him openly confessing it before men. And if it’s good enough for the Bible it ought to be good enough for the rest of us.”

“I wish he had the diplomacy of his father, who brought the gospel to people without being nuanced by politics because when you do those things you offend people that you are actually called to save and to serve,” added Jakes.

(Image shows Obama with T.D. Jakes at the recent White House Easter Prayer Breakfast).

Brad Pitt has ‘issues’ with his Christian uprbringing

Brad Pitt's latest movie - “Tree of Life” - shows him searching for meaning in life as a confused and lost 1950s Texas man. Pitt himself, however, is not a fan of traditional religion.

“I got brought up being told things were God's way, and when things didn't work out, it was called God's plan," Pitt informed reporters at the film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

"I've got my issues with it. Don't get me started. I found it very stifling."

Pitt grew up in a conservative Southern Baptist home, and his younger brother Doug is still very involved in a large church outside of Springfield, MO.

Pitt has questioned his Christian upbringing for many years, telling Parade magazine in an interview a few years ago:
"I always had a lot of questions about the world, even in kindergarten. A big question to me was fairness. If I'd grown up in some other religion, would I get the same shot at heaven as a Christian has?"

Pitt insisted that abandoning the religious beliefs he grew up with was an experience of release for him.

"When I got untethered from the comfort of religion, it wasn't a loss of faith for me, it was a discovery of self,” he insisted. “I had faith that I'm capable enough to handle any situation. There's peace in understanding that I have only one life, here and now, and I'm responsible."

The film "Tree of Life” opened at Cannes to a mixed reception, with many of the audience booing at its conclusion.

Opinion: An Idiot’s Guide to the End Times

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.”

Stephen Hawking: 'Heaven is a fairy story’

The world famous scientist and cosmologist, Professor Stephen Hawking, has dismissed heaven as a “fairy story for people afraid of the dark”.

The 69 year-old author of a ‘Brief History of Time,’ was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21, and has far outlived the life expectancy given him by doctors shortly after the diagnosis.

Hawking insisted his incurable illness has helped him enjoy life more and that he is “not afraid of death”.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Prof Hawking not only rejected the idea of life beyond death, but also emphasised the need to fulfil our potential on Earth by making good use of our lives.

"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years,” Hawking informed The Guardian.

“I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail.

“There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

When Hawking was asked how we should live he replied: "We should seek the greatest value of our action."

Hawking has previously argued that if there was a God, it certainly could not be a ‘personal’ God.

When interviewed by Channel 4 last year, Hawking made clear his position.

"The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can't understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second.

“If you like, you can call the laws of science 'God', but it wouldn't be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions."

Various religious leaders have challenged Hawking’s theories with Reason To Believe research scholar Dr. Jeffrey Zweerink saying:

“A fundamental flaw in this Hawking idea is that God is no longer personal, and yet we human beings are personal. We have a mind, we have a spirit, and you’re attributing the development of the human mind, the human spirit, the minds for that matter we see in the higher animals, the personalities that we see in all of us from completely impersonal soul-less and spirit-less laws of physics. How can the lesser produce the greater?”