Harold Camping's Family Radio Is At It Once More

Not for the first time, false teacher and proven false prophet Harold Camping and his frolicking band of religious lunatics and "Family Radio" devotees are discrediting the Body of Christ with absurd doctrines and false predictions. The date-setting for the return of Christ forbidden by Jesus, hatred of all other churches and ministries aside from their own, the hideous old crank cum heretical false prophet they have for a guru and the absurd doctrines of this cultic and pathetic deceived brood of supposed scripture-believing Christians of some warped description resembles the Jehovah's Witnesses and the World Wide Church of God of the late conniver Herbert W. Armstrong. It holds no resemblance, of course, to any scriptural model of Christianity dating back to the Millerites of the 19th century. That movement directly and indirectly spawned a diverse array of cults and splinter sects including the Seventh-day Adventists and The Dawn Bible Society, which became the Jehovah's Witnesses. Similar episodes of such false predictions for Christ's return have surfaced at multiple pivotal points in church history such as with the early Montanists, the Muenster Ana Baptists in the 16th century and with the Shakers in the 18th century.

The odd phenomena which academics identify by the term "cognitive dissonance" was first researched by the sociologist Leon Festinger who was interested in the social psychology of religion. Festinger catalogued and analyzed how such religious kooks, driven by a vanity characterized by a hollow sense of spiritual elitism, would simply set a new date when their predictions failed instead of admitting that they and their crazed leaders were proven wrong. This is no more true with anyone living today than with Harold Camping, a pathetic and spiritually deranged instrument of Satan who has done nothing for the last 30 years other than mislead naive and undiscerning Christians.  

Satan's objective in raising up such figures as Harold Camping is obvious: he not only leaves his followers disillusioned and confused when the predicted events fail to transpire, but they are left with the choice of either setting a new date or abandoning their faith. The few foolish enough to pay any heed to Harold Camping seem to find their way into an authentically scripturally grounded fellowship. More seriously still, Satan has always used deceivers like Camping to make believers appear as clowns to the fallen world so as to damage the credibility of their evangelistic witness. Additionally, the proverbial "boy who cried wolf" syndrome creates an atmosphere where events of genuine prophetic significance are dismissed as just another false prediction.

It is time we pray that the Lord silences Harold Camping. Sitting on a vast radio empire with multi-million dollar resources and federal broadcast licenses with no theological accountability to any board capable of stopping him, over the years, Camping has gravitated from his Cessationist brand of fundamentalism to progressively more and more ludicrous false doctrinal beliefs and false prophecy.

As with most King James Only extremists such as the Mormons, the Ruckmanites and the conspiracy theorist cyber-cult of Victoria Dillen, Richard Engstrom, Barbara Aho and W. Howard & W. Buster, Harold Camping is a sad individual campaigning for error who is so intoxicated by spiritual pride he imagines himself to be campaigning for truth. Yet, after being demonstrated to be wrong yet again, he will just continue right on campaigning, being controlled by a spirit of error with his services always at the beckoning call of the pit of hell.

May 21st will come and go like the Mayan calendar and Y2K; there will be no more repentance this time than there was the last time Camping staged this delusional idiocy. There will also remain those silly souls who remain loyal to him just as the ridiculous subscribers to the Toronto hoax remained in Elim, Kensington Temple, Holy Trinity Brompton and the Toronto Airport Vineyard. Indeed, after the Pensacola fiasco ended with a scandal and a split instead of the promised revival, John Kilpatrick is once again engaging in the same carnal antics with a moronic band of followers in Alabama. Even the fallen world sees through the lie of cognitive dissonance, and the church of Jesus that should be proclaiming His coming and presenting the Gospel and prophetic truth scripturally is once more propagating a lie and is left looking like a joke.

For the sake of our testimony for His name, let us pray that God will put an end to this wholly detestable and utterly unscriptural rubbish.

Jacob Prasch

Thus says the LORD, "Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things," declares the LORD. ( Jeremiah 9:23-24)

giving no cause for offense in anything, so that the ministry will not be discredited, but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God... (2 Corinthians 6:3-4a)

I am not a prophet, but as a Bible-based believer I make the 100% safe prediction that nothing predicted by Harold Camping and company will come true for May 21 or any date they set. But what we will experience, and have already experienced, is incredible damage to the church where its credibility and witness is concerned. If there is a more suitable poster child for giving offense and discrediting the ministry rather than being commended as a servant of God than Camping and company, I don't know who to nominate. And even worse is the effect that this "crying wolf" is having on the unsaved who, when they need it most, are being desensitized to the Gospel in general and the true specific signs pointing to the return of Christ.

It was not just a colossal waste of time and money, which the deceived squandered, it is not just their personal reputations and witness that are called into question, but every true believer and maintainer of biblical truth has to live with the consequences. If you're a Christian, don't laugh at what was so obviously a folly of the flesh; weep at what has been done to the name and message of Christ.

Will those subscribing to and following Camping's nonsense repent of their error and forsake the deception they have so fervently proclaimed? Let's look at history.

Even Camping's own website admits that in 1992 he published a book titled "1994?" pointing to that being the final date. What happened when that prediction failed? He simply set another date! (This is what date-setters always do.) His website explains, "Important subsequent biblical information was not yet known, so this book was incomplete. Mr. Camping warned there may be something he overlooked therefore the question mark was prominently placed on the title." (I guess that's what you call a "safety net".) It goes on to state, "In the nineteen years since 1994? was written the biblical evidence for 2011 has greatly solidified. Today there is no longer any question". (So much for a "safety net" this time.)

His website also categorically answers the self-posed question, "What if May 21 ends and nothing occurs?" with, "The Biblical evidence is too overwhelming and specific to be wrong." How much do you want to bet that we will once again be told, "Important subsequent biblical information" is to blame just as it was in 1994 when they adjust for the new "final" date?

My point is that there will be no repentance, no admission of error, no change in direction-they will simply set another date without regard for the continued and multiplied damage to the name of Christ and the witness of the faithful who never subscribed to Camping's poison in the first place.

The saddest fact of all is that Camping and his ministry would disappear almost overnight if people stopped sending the donations, which keep this madness fueled. How I weep for the waste of dollars contributed by so-called Christians, which have done nothing but harm and discredit the Gospel. This is not being accomplished through outside enemies of Christianity such as Islam or atheists but within the walls of the church! I wish I could be angry enough to overcome my grief-not grief over Camping being wrong, but the tens of thousands of believers he has deceived and the hundreds of thousands of non-believers he has desensitized to, or outright driven from, the Gospel.

This Sunday, on the day after, the world will be laughing; true followers of Christ everywhere should be in mourning.

Servant@WalkWithTheWord.org

Originally posted on the MORIEL website
http://moriel.org/MorielArchive/index.php/discernment/church-issues/popular-teachers/the-false-teacher-who-cried-wolf