The Rapture that Never Happened

The attached billboard says it all. After being plastered on thousands of other billboards around the world eerily proclaiming Judgment Day on May 21, 2011, the doomsday prophecy of Harold Camping, the president and general manager of Oakland-based Family Radio, failed to come true.

Camping claimed that based on information gleaned directly from the Bible, on May 21 there would be cataclysmic earthquakes, dead bodies coming alive from graves flung open, and 200 million people disappearing skyward into heaven to escape five more months of catastrophe culminating in the end of the world on October 21, 2011.

After spending an estimated $100 million to warn the world of its pending doom, its failure, indeed, was awkward.

The day after, Camping appeared at the front door of his residence and told reporters "It has been a really tough weekend." Ya think?

"I'm looking for answers," he added, referring to frequent prayer and consultations with friends, "but now I have nothing else to say. I'll be back to work Monday and will say more then."

But people hoping that Camping would admit that he was wrong and ask forgiveness were sorely disappointed when during a press conference at Family Radio headquarters Monday night, he claimed that May 21 was a "spiritual" Judgment Day rather than a literal one, and he was initially "flabbergasted" that nothing was destroyed because he was focused on a literal judgment. Instead, God has now judged the world "spiritually" and will bring about the end of the world on October 21:

"We've always said May 21 was the day, but we didn't understand altogether the spiritual meaning. The fact is there is only one kind of people who will ascend into heaven ... if God has saved them they're going to be caught up."

God completed his judgment and salvation plan on Saturday, so there is no point in warning people about it anymore. Thus, Family Radio will instead play Christian music and programming until the real end on October 21.

As he continued to explain himself before an army of reporters and cameras, his bizarre theology came out of the closet with these rambling remarks:

• God's judgment really began back on May 21, 1988, when He left the church and let Satan take them over. Churches don't really believe the Bible is the literal Word of God because in teaching from it pastors always say "Paul says", "Moses says" or "Peter says" instead of "God says."
• There is no such thing as conscious eternal damnation for the lost, and thus no hell. In His grace and mercy, God spared the world five months of destruction and judgment because that would have brought eternal damnation on the earth. (Camping believes in the unbiblical doctrine of annihilation--that the lost will cease to exist rather than suffer eternally in hell.)
• God's period of judgment was from May 21, 1988 to the same date in 2011.
• September 7, 1994, the last time Camping predicted the end of the world, was actually the beginning of salvation for those who left the church and cried out to God for mercy.
• He declined to offer hope or assistance for the thousands of followers who blew away their life savings buying billboards and going on RV caravans to spread the May 21 message. He said that we're in a recession, and lots of people lost their homes "but they survived. People cope, people cope." Also, the great losses from the recent economic crash was much less than what "the average Family Radio listener" experienced.

With all due respect, these are the confusing and contradicting words of a unrepentant, rambling idiot.

Meanwhile, lawsuits against Family Radio may be coming. An attorney in Media, Pennsylvania is actively offering his services to devastated Camping followers who want to sue the pants off him for losses and damages incurred from his misleading information.

So what happens now? Camping has again been proven to be a false prophet and bona-fide cult leader, but the damage has been done to Christianity in general.

Well, I've made the following observations.

• The Rapture is a legitimate secondary doctrinal issue we can disagree on, but which Camping has twisted and brought into disrepute.The Rapture is an endtimes doctrine held by many evangelical and conservative churches in which believers will be literally caught up from the earth to meet the Lord in heaven before a seven-year-event called the Great Tribulation, followed by Christ's second coming to the earth to set up a literal 1,000-year reign of righteousness from Jerusalem. There are variations to this doctrine, such as "pre-trib", "mid-trib" and "post-trib" Raptures, but no exact or approximate date is ever given or assumed for when the Rapture will happen. While I no longer hold such endtime beliefs as a Lutheran, I still have fellowship and partner with fellow believers who sincerely believe this secondary doctrine and it boils my blood when nutcases like Harold Camping butcher and distort it so that it makes all evangelicals look bad.
• Camping's followers need compassion and mercy in their seeking recovery from his influence. On the message boards at Crosswalk.com a pastor met about 25-30 Family Radio listeners who fell for Camping's rubbish because they grew up in strict fundamentalist churches with authoritarian leadership that told them what to believe and why. These poor folks were never taught how to read the Bible for themselves and check what was being taught. Psychologically they have been conditioned to accept anything Camping says because of his assumed authority, just like how cult members are conditioned and brainwashed. And like anyone else coming out of a cult knowing they were duped, a judgmental "See, I told you so!" approach will not work. A gentle, compassionate and genuinely caring approach has proven to be far more effective. When I left an authoritarian, legalistic independent church in 2000, the unconditional love showed to me by the Immanuel First congregation helped me heal from that influence.
• We ourselves need to be on guard against false teachings, lest we end up just like the Family Radio followers. It's very easy for us who sit under solid biblical teaching to make fun of and dismiss the Family Radio masses as a bunch of brainwashed nutcases who blindly believe what they are taught. But have we ever been persuaded that a certain preacher or Bible teacher is trustworthy because they are bold hellraisers who condemn hot-button issues like gay marriage, abortion, moral relativism and the liberal agenda? John Hagee is such a hellraiser who has gained a large following because of his bellicose and blunt personality, but he is also a Word of Faith preacher who believes the Jews already are saved under a separate covenant with God, that positive confession can heal all diseases, and that persecution of the Jews throughout history (including the Holocaust) was because of their disobedience to God. Like with Harold Camping, we must never let the charisma of a pastor cloud our spirit of discernment. After all, God gave us brains to use.

So much more can be said of what we can learn from this whole debacle, but this will suffice.

In closing, I am humbled that at least two frightened listeners of Family Radio were convinced to switch it off completely and instead tune in to better Christian alternatives and return to the church through my corresponding with them on Crosswalk.com. Never did I ever think that I would help set a lover of God free from a dangerous cult, but I have always been passionate about apologetics, which is part of evangelism and the Great Commission. In addition to the 25-30 others now being counseled by the aforementioned pastor, I hope that this evangelism to former Camping followers is replicated nationwide and worldwide. If even one person comes out of the darkness back into the light, it will be worth it all.

Welcoming Victory Outreach to the IFL Campus

The Immanuel First campus was bustling and booming on Easter Sunday (April 24) with members and visitors coming to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. But this Easter was more bustling and busy than in years past because in addition to our services and those of Grace Chinese Alliance Church, Victory Outreach of West Covina held its first service on that day in the east wing of our former day school.

Victory Outreach, founded in Los Angeles and now headquartered in San Dimas, is a Pentecostal denomination known for bringing addicts to Christ and helping them stay clean and sober. The West Covina church signed a lease with Immanuel First to move onto the school campus from its former location in El Monte, where the local neighborhood is predominantly Spanish-speaking and there was little room for growth. As VO held its first service here, several members, including the youth, expressed excitement that the church was now located closer to their home than back in El Monte.

The move is a win-win situation for both our churches. VO has room to expand and grow in larger facilities and serve the Lord in the multi-ethnic city that West Covina now is, and Immanuel First gets additional income from renting out the school campus, which has been vacant since the school shut down in 2009 due to shrinking enrollment. Pastor Okubo has expressed an interest in having VO's congregation participate in joint services and activities as we do with Grace Alliance and our Vietnamese fellowship on Thanksgiving.

Like with Grace Alliance, there are some differences in doctrine and worship between IFL and Victory Outreach. As a Pentecostal church, VO believes in and practices the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit, including speaking in tongues, words of knowledge, and laying on of hands for physical healing of the sick. But unfortunately, some Pentecostal preachers have perverted or distorted those gifts by deliberately taking Scripture out of context, seeking their own glory instead of God's, or both, and as a result all Pentecostals have been unfairly stereotyped and ridiculed by other Christians and the secular media.

VO's worship services are lively and exuberant, and the contemporary praise music literally rocks the house, speaking to the heart language of people who come from the streets or live in urban settings. Lifelong Lutherans who swear by the liturgy of the Divine Service II, Second Setting (never the First Setting!) from the blue Lutheran Hymnal (the new, burgundy Lutheran Service Book is too contemporary) may find VO's worship a little too much for them. In the same vain, perhaps some VO members used to lively worship may find Lutheran liturgy slow, cold, stuffy and full of tradition, reminding them too much of the out-of-touch judgmental church that showed them no grace in their time of need.

I grew up Roman Catholic as a grade schooler and in the Church of the Nazarene as a teenager, then went through the very liberal Disciples of Christ church, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Calvary Chapel, an independent storefront church and finally back to the LCMS where I've been for the past ten years. I've worshiped in historic cathedrals, megachurch auditoriums, rented senior citizen centers, and outdoors in a park. I've sang traditional hymns, modern praise and worship songs (translation: rock music), and Pentecostal anthems with melodies inspired by Jewish kletzmer music and rabbinical chants. And no, I'm not a theological psychopath or schizophrenic as a result. While some churches I attended were disturbingly off-center (and found me running out the door after only a few weeks), the majority of them have been sound and biblical regardless of the setting. Let me explain.

The body of Christ is not a monolith. It doesn't subscribe to only one set-in-stone method of worship or preaching, as much as some of us wish it would. That is in part because we are a world of many cultures, languages, ethnic groups and traditions. We are also from the country, the big city, suburbia, the beach, the mountains, the desert, and wherever people live. As a result, the one-size-fits-all approach to worship and evangelism doesn't work and must adapt to the people we are trying to win to Jesus. As Pastor Okubo has often said, the church must share the Good News in the heart language of the people, otherwise it will fall on deaf ears.

And to that end, within the LCMS there are churches in Hawaii that have graceful hula dancing to worship songs as part of their services, others in The OC that incorporate modern worship songs and rocked-out arrangements of classic hymns, still others on Native American reservations that praise God through drum chants and circle dances, and yet others that have all-German liturgy to serve a congregation that wishes to stay connected to the heritage and language of the old country. These are Lutheran churches, folks! And they are growing!

As for theological differences such as speaking in tongues, divine healing, eschatology and so forth, they are secondary issues that fellow Christians can disagree and debate over, and vigorously, but we must never divide, judge, or ridicule each other over them. I used to believe in a pre-tribulational rapture and a literal millennial reign by Christ on earth afterward, but after the Y2K prophecy madness and reading the Old Testament for myself, I am now an amillennialist (like most Lutherans) and believe most of the OT prophecies actually refer to the Jewish exile to Babylon, their return to the Holy Land, and their redemption through Jesus Christ. I do not judge or condemn people who are still rapturists like I once was.

But there is a line in the sand that I will never cross, and that is one that denies or compromises the core doctrines of the historic Christian faith, the beliefs that the early church fathers fought and gave their lives to defend:

• The existence of God
• The Holy Trinity (God in three co-eternal and co-existent Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit)
• God's justice and His perfect law
• The depravity of man, his sinful nature, and inability to make himself right with God
• Our need for a savior or redeemer outside ourselves to make us right with a perfect and holy God
• The inerrancy of the Holy Bible as God's revealed word to us
• The virgin birth of Jesus Christ
• Christ's dual nature of God and man (theanthropos in Greek)
• Christ's sinless life, death and resurrection
• The death of Christ as a sacrifice for our sins
• Christ's second coming
• Eternal life in heaven for those who accept and have faith in Christ and eternal damnation in hell for those who reject it

All of the above are encapsulated in the historic creeds of the church--the Apostles' Creed, the Athanasian Creed and the Nicene Creed. Any church or congregation that fudges, compromises or rejects these barebones essentials cannot rightly call itself a Christian church and often is off the wall theologically in everything else.

Victory Outreach of West Covina upholds and defends all of the above essentials, and as such I welcome them to our campus as fellow laborers in Christ. Despite our outward differences in worship and preaching, we can stand shoulder to shoulder and arm in arm in getting out there and rescuing the lost. So let's serve God together and see what happens.