The End of the World as We Know It Do failed end-time prophecies discredit our faith?
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Part one in a two-part series BY DONALD E. BURKE
he American humorist Mark Twain, after hearing that his obituary had been published in a New York newspaper, commented, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” In recent months one might paraphrase Twain’s remark to observe, “The reports of the end of the world are greatly exaggerated.” After the much-publicized prediction by California preacher Harold Camping that the world would end at about 6 p.m. on May 21, 2011, passed quietly, many heaped scorn upon Camping and his followers. According to Camping, on that date the righteous were to be “raptured” from the world, spared the agonies of the subsequent “tribulation” and delivered into eternal bliss. When the spectacular event did not happen, Camping quickly adjusted his timetable to predict the rapture on October 21, 2011. Reportedly, Camping claimed that he had misunderstood the significance of the May 21 event; it was not the date of the rapture but rather the deadline for repentance and admission to the company of those who would be spared the sufferings of the tribulation. Apocalypse Now? This latest failed prediction of the return of Jesus and the end of the world as we know it has led to several responses. There are those outside the Church who ridicule Camping and his followers as part of a lunatic fringe, worthy only of scorn and contempt. Media reports often convey this thinly veiled disdain. Comedians derive considerable grist for their joke mill at the expense of those who make and believe such predictions. Frequently, the scope of the derision is broadened to include Christianity and Christians generally. It is concluded that these failed predictions expose Christian faith as the wishful thinking of gullible people who lack the ability to see through the delusions of religious belief. 14 I September 2011 I Salvationist
Within the Church, many distance themselves entirely from the kind of speculation promoted by Camping and others of his ilk. Some reject belief in the return of Jesus and the accompanying judgment altogether, asserting that a God of love would never subject humans to such consequences. Others simply conclude that the kind of precise predictions made by Camping are doomed to failure since it is not possible to know the time or season of Jesus’ return. Finally, there are those who continue to follow Camping faithfully, accepting the explanation that his calculations were mistaken and that a revised computation will produce a more reliable prediction. These various responses raise serious questions for Christians. How are we to respond to repeated predictions of the return of Jesus that prove untrue? How do we assess their credibility? What do we say when scorn is heaped upon the gospel because of these failed predictions? Is Christian faith ultimately discredited? Thy Kingdom Come In response to these questions, it may be helpful, first of all, to put predictions of the return of Jesus into a larger historical perspective. The anticipation of Jesus returning to earth to complete the work of God is a longstanding feature of Christian faith and is rooted in Scripture. In light of the teaching of Jesus, his stunning death and his dramatic Resurrection, his followers were convinced that God would act to establish the Kingdom of God in its fullness. Many in the Early Church were convinced that Jesus’ departure from earth into Heaven after his Resurrection would be short-lived and that his return was imminent. Jesus’ encouragement to his followers to pray, “Your Kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10) in the Lord’s Prayer is consistent with this expectation. So, too, was the Thessalonians’ belief in the impending return of Jesus. In his letters to the
church at Thessalonica, Paul addressed Jesus’ return and indicated that it formed part of his early Christian preaching. Elsewhere, the prayer with which Paul closed his first letter to the Corinthians, “Maranatha—our Lord, come” (see 1 Corinthians 16:22), expresses this hope. So, too, does Revelation 22:20 which concludes with the plea, “Come, Lord Jesus!” The fact that Jesus did not return quickly after his Ascension caused some consternation within the Early Church, but it has not caused the Church to abandon this hope. It is also important to recognize that attempts to predict the precise date of Jesus’ return have been made throughout Christian history. In the second century, a group known as the Montanists eagerly anticipated the return of Jesus and the end of the world. In the Middle Ages, Joachim of Fiore developed an elaborate timetable for the second coming. Closer to our time, especially since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, speculation has run rampant. For example, in the 1970s, Hal Lindsey’s book, The Late, Great Planet Earth, spawned increased speculation about the world’s end. In the mid-1990s, a series of Left Behind books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, subsequent movies and even video games dramatized the rapture and the tribulations of those who were to be left behind. Almost on a daily basis, Christian preachers speculate about the end of the world. There is, therefore, a long tradition of end-of-the-world predictions within Christianity. But while such predictions are grounded in the important affirmation that God will bring his Kingdom to completion and that the return of Jesus will be key to this, the most prominent characteristic that these doomsday predictions have in common is that they have all been wrong: Jesus has not yet returned, the righteous have not been raptured and the world continues on. Where have these predic-