Family Radio, ( as of this writing, the website is down) specifically its founder, Harold Camping, who insisted his [mis]calculations on Biblical prophesies pinpointed May 21, 2011 as the day of the Rapture: the day when Jesus would come and supernaturally vacuum up all Christian believers and deposit them in heaven as a prelude to the end of the world. All of the hubbub surrounding this non-event had me re-visiting places and theories and ideas that I hadn't for some time. Bear with me while I process these thoughts.
As usual, most people were poking fun and mocking before May 21 and now a lot of people are angry at Camping. That's what happens to prophets, false or real. It doesn't matter what they say, until what they predict actually happens, every prophet gets treated in the same manner. There is no justifiable reason to believe someone whose predictions have never come to pass and Camping has made this kind of prediction before. Though, in the days before May 21, underneath some of the playful mocking I felt and heard expressed an undercurrent of fear. What if he's right? Nah, it's all too ridiculous and based on very sketchy theology and bogus number crunching. Those people are crazy. But what if he's right? Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Pishaw, do you know how many doomsday predictions there have been? Thousands! Maybe millions! They've all been wrong. He's wrong, I tell you. But it could happen. Anything can happen. Yes, and I could be turned into a toad by an evil witch because there are books that foretell that sort of thing happening.
What irked me most was not the prediction itself but the attitude of the prophet. As tarot readers, we understand predictions. We're well aware that predictions are hit or miss, like the weather. We know that probable outcomes are not a concrete certainty. In Camping's predictions there was no humility, no understanding that he could be wrong (a "tiny miniscule chance" that he could be wrong is all he would admit). There was no acknowledgement that he is but a finite dude in human clothing that can't see with the eyes of the God he believes. I've studied the Bible, Christian theology and history, as well as various non-canonical writings. More importantly, I've spent time among evangelical, fundamentalist Christians. I was a part of that world once and I know how Camping got his listeners to embrace his theories. It was built, scripture verse by verse with years of indoctrination into a mindset and belief system that made it "rational" and "sensible" and entirely believable to many people. If you're coming into it at this juncture, never having experienced what it is to be taught and to believe the foundational pieces to this colossal gaff, it all seems so unbelievably stupid.
Most Christians don't really dig that deeply into the mind-y apologetic stuff, but a good many do. Usually they are the really gifted and brilliant ones, ones whose minds need such provoking. You know, the Swords types of people. There are lots more Cups people in Christianity. Christianity can feel really good. I remember feeling relief that, after all the uncertainty and questioning, I had finally been shown the answers to life's problems or at least the means to find them in the Bible. It felt good to belong to a community that welcomed me and accepted me. It felt good to sing and worship. It was reassuring to know that voice I sometimes heard inside didn't qualify me as schizophrenic, that it was indeed God's Holy Spirit guiding me. All these qualities and more filled the cups inside of me. Fiery Wands folks are usually found in the Evangelical and Charismatic camps, but they're everywhere. Passion and zeal for their spiritual beliefs prompt them to do some pretty wild things, but they also provide the inspiration for change and reaching out to others. They'll let the Pentacles people tend to the homeless and hungry but they were the ones that got the program started. Me, I'm more a Swords type, and while it was my searching and curious mind that led me into Christianity, and despite the initial emotional satisfaction, that same inquisitive mind led me out. Out of the labels and boxes and debates and mind-numbing, hair-splitting, morally repugnant, contradictory, sometimes nonsensical theological web that is The Church. It has taken years to unravel the knots, but I took some really good stuff with me.
Thomas, Judas, and Mary Magdalene's. Over the last two thousand years a lot of energy in these groups has gone into proving each other wrong. The varied sects of Christianity have continued to divide even more and there is now exponentially more arguing and debating over the minutiae of Scripture. If one spends any time among Christian apologists, one should be prepared to give one's position in titles before you can begin the discussion. Are you Reformed? Calvinist? Arminian? Are you Evangelical? Are you a Dispensationalist? What about Pre-Trib or Post? Forget that, are you a Preterist? A Universalist? What's your stance on baptism, sprinkled or immersion? Infant or age-of accountability? What do you believe about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit? Are they for today or did they cease after Pentecost? Clearly this goes way beyond Catholic versus Protestant, Gnostic or Orthodox. Each of these positions rely heavily on Biblical prooftexting and are likewise each very persuasive to the intelligent mind. However, they oppose one another. One cannot be, for example, both Arminian and Calvinist as they negate each other, even though one might agree with concepts in both theories.
The entire construct of Camping's Rapture date was based on a "new earth" creationist theory which places the date of earth's creation at around 6,000 BCE plus or minus 2,000 years. There are many problems with this, one of which is that the ancient civilization of Egypt began prior to the time assigned to the creation of man. Per the creationists, that's a technicality and those carbon daters have it all wrong because natural earth events, acts of God, like floods and volcanoes tend to speed up geological processes. Both creationists and evolutionists agree that evolution is impossible with a "young earth" perspective, which suits creationists just fine since they don't believe in evolution anyway. In order to accept Camping's evidence, one would first have to believe Genesis happened literally. While that may seem far-fetched to many, the Christian literal belief system is based on a belief in a God that can do anything. Any Thing. What other kind of god is worthy of worship and devotion? So while the stories in the Bible may seem unbelievable, a literalist Christian will believe them because God is capable of doing unbelievable things. In order to even begin to accept Camping's evidence, one would have to already accept as fact that God exists, is Omnipotent, and the creationist position of a "young earth." Lots of Christians already believe those things. It's heresy in many circles to not believe them. Because there are no assigned dates in the early books of the Bible, the first known date is at the beginning of King Saul's reign over Israel in 1020 BCE which creationists then work backwards from to arrive at their year of earth's creation. It is done through estimates of generations, the time of Judges, genealogies, etc. They didn't just pull a date out of their underwear, but they do limit themselves to what is contained in the Bible, which they consider infallible and the only reliable source of truth. Camping took on the arduous task of calculating these dates and ended up with May 21, 2011 and presented his work as evidence. For someone who already accepts certain foundational arguments, the evidence is quite persuasive. For everyone else, it's nonsense. But it isn't ignorant, it's just...unlikely.
In order to reconcile anything, including monkeys flying out of my butt, I had to believe God would and could do Any Thing. I finally got to the place where I couldn't do that anymore. I couldn't speak peace with God in one sentence and callously care less that "evildoers" were destined to burn in hell for eternity because they didn't jump on the Jesus Bus soon enough. I never could accept that most of the human race were living walk-on parts in this drama but destined for hell because they aren't among God's elect. I could no longer abide the contradictory logic that on the one hand told me all my sins, past, present, future, were forgiven, but God's arms wouldn't reach past a certain point if I decided to keep sinning. Nor did it make any sense that if Jesus defeated Satan on the Cross and released the captive prisoners of the devil, then why were Christians warning about the devil duping me now? Grace is amazing, but you better watch your step because God may decide to rescind it if He gets fed up with your sorry self. The most honest Christians are the ones who see the inconsistencies in the interpretations and teachings and simply throw up their hands and say, "Look, we can't know for sure, but I believe because Jesus has spoken to my heart, and I've trusted God's voice inside of me. That's all I know for sure. Meanwhile, I know God loves us and I love God's creation, the people and the earth and life itself. I'm just going to attempt to live that." My Christian intellectual finds unearthed so many more questions than answers but I'm content with unanswered questions now. I feel no pressing need to reconcile what happens in life to any predetermined code or theology. We're all in this together and any one of us could get it right or wrong at any given time.
I sincerely hope this non-Rapture experience proves to be enlightening for some people, but Christians are a fairly stubborn lot. That comes, in part, from having beliefs rooted in some good, solid evidence, or at least what appears to be evidence. What many Christians fail to fully appreciate about their faith is that it isn't, or shouldn't be, based on evidence but is itself the evidence. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) Faith in what you believe is the outward manifestation of that belief. You don't need numbers and dates and calamities and prophecy fulfillment to know God is real to you. What more evidence does one need than that within your own heart and life? If you're still seeking outward evidence, fine, but that's not faith. And having a solid faith doesn't mean nothing catastrophic will happen to you, but a calm in the middle of the storm. There really is no way to prepare for major disruption on earth. No emergency kit will help when a 9 point something earthquake hits. Only love for one another, people helping each other get through the day, helps anything. And isn't that what we're told Jesus gave as the one and only commandment that sums up all of the Law and the Prophets commentaries combined? "Love one another as I have loved you." (John 13:34 & 15:12) Camping isn't the only one that needs to brush up on that.