Harold Camping, a 89 year old Radio Broadcaster has predicted that Jesus will return sometime next Saturday to take all the believers (Some Evangelical Christians) to heaven and leave the rest of us to be sodomized by demons or whatever until October when the earth explodes.
Now as reasonable as this all sounds, let’s all take a minute before we max out our credit cards and yell “fuck you!” to our landlords or mortgage companies. We should take a few things into consideration –
*He’s not the first, second, third or 500th person to predict the end times and be, sadly, incorrect.
*This isn’t the first time he’s predicted the rapture. Seriously. He wrote an entire book about how the world was going to end in 1994.
*HIS WEBSITE IS STILL TAKING DONATIONS. When you open up Family Radio’s page a pop up states “Family Radio’s donation server is currently undergoing security maintenance. The donation page should be back up later today, however, if you would like to make a donation via credit or debit (ATM) card now, please call 1-800-543-1495 (Ext. 376) and a representative will help to process your donation. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
If I were expecting to be sucked up to heaven, I wouldn’t worry about paying off my student loans but perhaps Mr. Camping is worried that Jesus is gonna ask for a few bucks for the ride up. Gas, grass or ass, nobody rides for free to the kingdom of the father.
Now while I know it’s hard arguing with some some seriously confusing math using dates in the bible, somebody once told me about some guy named Matt that wrote a book and said “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” but what does that jackass know, right?
While this debate may rage on for eternity (or until next Saturday), I can predict with certainty that I’ll be telling stand up comedy jokes at the Comedy Corner Underground on May 21st with one of my bestest and funniest friends Phoebe Bottoms! If Jesus does decide to return that day, I’ll let him in for free. You still have to pay $7.
(p.s. I first stumbled upon the info about Millerism and Hal Lindsey reading Everything Dies by Box Brown. Check it out while you still can!)
Matthew 24:36 uses the present tense, “no one KNOWS…”. A simple, literal* reading of this verse clearly reveals that God was just flipping the bird to everyone alive at the time the verse was written. And everyone alive between that point and now. And the angels. And Jesus. Kind of a dick move on the surface, but the divinely unique reading comprehension of Harold Camping is not the sort of thing that comes along every millennium; we’re lucky to have been graced with his exclusive exegesis at this singular point in history.
* the same “literal” reading that sees America and the UN clearly within the psilocybin gibberish of the Scofield-derived Revelation/Ezekiel/Daniel mash-up, but casually dismisses any concept of Christian obligation to the poor.