Religion News: Believers warn the Rapture is Saturday
Five buses that look like the one shown here were seen in New Orleans recently.
Harold Camping, president and broadcaster for the nonprofit evangelical Christian group called Family Radio, which is based in Oakland, Calif., has been warning of “the Rapture,” which he believes is on May 21, 2011.
Camping, 89, predicts the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur Saturday, and those who have accepted Christ as their savior will ascend into heaven. Camping says those left behind will experience the wrath of God until the world is completely destroyed by fire on Oct. 21, 2011.
"Many people in today's culture are fascinated by the end of the world," said Miguel De La Torre, professor of social ethics at Iliff School of Theology. "If you give enough leeway and imagination and you provide enough Scripture, you can predict almost anything. Whether or not it will happen on a particular day is a different story."
According to ReligiousTolerance.org, Camping once predicted the end of the world would occur on Sept. 6, 1994. After the world did not end, Camping said he miscalculated, and he said this time his calculations, based on the numbers five, 10 and 17, are correct.
"In this case, individuals have determined that May 21 (2011) is 7,000 years after the flood in the story of Noah's ark. It's pure speculation, since there is no way to determine exactly when the flood mentioned in the Bible (occurred) ..." said De La Torre. "It doesn't take a lot to look at dates and times to construct these types of scenarios. It's been going on before there was a Jesus."
According to the Canadian Press, Family Radio has erected 20,000 billboards around the world to spread the word of the Rapture. Some believers have abandoned their possessions or sold them off in order to have enough money for advertising to warn others.
-- ReligionNews.com
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