As we approach the New Church Day celebrations on June 19th, we are publishing this two part essay in which Judah asks what the New Church can offer to the discussion of 'end times.' This subject was most recently invigorated by Harold Camping's May 21st prediction of judgement day. -Editor.
Do you think the world will end in your lifetime?
According to a poll on livecitizen.com, there are three possible answers to this question:
Well? What do you think? You’ve got three options, friend: Doomsday draws nigh! Or maybe the only judgment is that Harold Camping has just hammered the last nail into the coffin of religion. Or maybe we don’t have a clue.
But Harold Camping does: he would pick letter a.
The catalyst for the poll was the ruckus surrounding Harold Camping’s latest Rapture and Judgment Day prediction: that they would happen on May 21st, 2011. Unwilling to brook any doubts such as what if it doesn’t happen, the 89 year-old preacher of FamilyRadio.org was absolutely certain about his mathematical interpretation of Scripture. Of his May 21st prediction Camping said, “The Bible Guarantees It!” But not everyone agreed, and so far, he seems to have been proven wrong: after all, I’m here writing this article—neither raptured nor damned (at least not Camping style).
But beforehand, what did people think? What was the impact of Family Radio’s Judgment Day billboard campaign? The impact is hard to quantify, but the poll I’ve cited above seems to epitomize the public debate in the wake of Harold Camping’s apocalyptic predictions—and their failure to materialize: either people believe in the coming Judgment (just one that can’t be scheduled), or they chortle smugly that Judgment Day May 21st is just another loony manifestation of religious insanity—or they’re just glad to be alive and impatient to leave this weird little episode behind them. In various news stories leading up to May 21st, many people expressed a humorous apathy about the impending rapture—if they’re taken, they’re taken; if not, they’ll have a good time with their friends whatever happens. They didn’t know if Judgment Day would impact them, and they didn’t particularly care.
If I had to choose, I’d say “I don’t know,” because I don’t—a meteorite could hit the earth next year and make us all, I don’t know, freeze to death; the sun could surprise all the solar scientists and turn into a supernova a few billion years early; someone could go crazy and unleash a nuclear hailstorm that ends the world as we know it; there could be a malicious supernatural force out there that I haven’t accounted for that could un-exist planet Earth. I really can’t be certain if any of these things will or won’t happen. I just don’t know.
Now, you’ve already heard about Harold Camping, who believes that the world will end in our lifetime (the final destruction comes on October 21st, 2011). Going back to the poll question, here is someone that I would say represents answer b. (“No, it’s all religious garbage”). The following comment was posted after a nymag.com article entitled, “Harold Camping Insists that Judgment Day Did Actually Happen on Saturday.” (The author of this comment wrote under the pseudonym, “1pycb42,” but for convenience I will refer to him or her as “Jessie”). Jessie writes,
People need to stop worrying about the end of times and how others live their lives. As an [sic] non-believer, I’m more likely to go to “Heaven” than all of you fervent believers. Why? Because I don’t do good things out of fear. I don’t do them because some invisible higher power tells me I have to. I don’t do them because I expect to win a grand prize in the afterlife. I do it because to me, the reward isn’t what I might get when I die, but the happiness I might bring to others with my actions. So, if your judgment day comes and I am judged based on whether I believe what the Bible says or not, or if I care about judgment day or whether I go to church every Sunday or not, then let me burn. I’d rather die being who I am, than “float away” to Heaven as a selfish individual who actually wants the destruction of mankind to come just to be proven right.
Huh. Think about it: Jessie would rather “burn” for being an altruistic atheist than be selfish and heaven-bound. (Whether or not we need God in order to live well is a fascinating subject, but one that deserves its own series).
But notice Jessie’s picture of religious people: they act from fear; they obey something akin to the “force” in Star Wars; they act from compulsion; they expect a “grand prize” in the afterlife; they demand adherence to the Bible; they believe that salvation rests on church attendance; they believe in Heaven as a place in the sky; they thirst for destruction; they want to say, “I told you so”; they believe the Bible tells them these things.
So which side of this debate are you on? Do you scorn the believers? Or would the previous paragraph actually reflect your beliefs if you substituted “I” for “they”:
I act from fear…
I expect a grand prize in the afterlife…
I thirst for your destruction…
I told you so.
With believers like these, who needs devils?
But while I find myself in sympathy with Jessie, I don’t think her view is the only significant alternative to Harold Camping’s. Why do I care about the May 21, 2011 Judgment Day predictions? Because in the raging debates that ensued, rational, practical, and loving religion has been left in the cold, and its advocates largely silent.
The problem is, in the aftermath of the Judgment Day fiasco, the most vocal Christians still believe in a future, material return of Christ and the subsequent establishment of His literal kingdom. They freely admit that “you cannot know the day” (as Camping should have known from Matthew 24, they say), but the Kingdom is coming nonetheless. As one person said in reply to the same article mentioned above, “It’s not that the Bible was proven wrong—only Harold Camping was! Christ will come back and all will stand before him, small and great…”
How do those of us striving for New Church Christianity respond to this message? Do we echo the words of another post—“Harold Camping is nuts, but then again anyone who follows Christianity is nuts anyway”—or do we have another option? Stay posted for Part 2 of this article, where I’ll contrast some traditional Christian views of human resurrection with my attempt at a New Church reading of the Bible.
And stay calm. Like Camping said, Judgment Day has already happened. Or has it?