And You Shall Know Them By Their Fruits....

October 21st passed by rather quietly. You may ask what the significance of that date is. I only ask that you please indulge me and it will all be clear. Harold Camping is a preacher who predicted that on May 21st of this year the rapture would occur and that on October 21st, after five months of plagues, fire, disease and war that the end of the world would come about. Camping had previously made the same prediction about the rapture in 1988 and 1994 but after the world continued as usual he went back to the drawing board and claimed that he had made a mathematical error when he determined the date. This time he swore that no such error could occur. His numbers were solid and there was absolutely zero chance that he was wrong.

Over the years despite his incorrect predictions Camping had attracted a large following and had even established Family Radio, a radio station that broadcasted to over one hundred and fifty markets. This of course was very prosperous for him. Many of his followers quit their jobs, sold their possessions and went abroad to spread the word of the coming end of the world. Only it didn't happen. Again. Some had even donated their money to the church although why it would need it if the world was ending soon was a question left unanswered. Camping was puzzled as to why the rapture had not occurred so he decided to study some more. When asked if the church would give back the donated money or help those who had gotten rid of everything he said "We're not at the end. Why would we return it?"

Two days later Camping announced that after reinterpreting his prophecy that a "spiritual" judgment had happened and that the physical rapture would now occur on October 21st simultaneously as the world would be destroyed. There was no definition of what the "spiritual" judgment had been and indeed nothing appeared to have changed. Since this had been at least three times he had made this prophecy and every time it did not come about Camping lost many of his followers. He had retired from his post at Family Radio five days before his next predicted date of October 21st but true to form, it also passed without notice. He has remained in seclusion ever since.

The thing that puzzles me is that his followers professed to be Christians. Yet even when he claimed to know the date of the end of humanity, which goes against what the scriptures say (no man shall know the time), they continued to believe him and what he said. Time after time. Indeed, until this last debacle his ministry kept growing. Many have called Camping a fraud, a charlatan or just a plain fake but I have a different name to consider for him. False Prophet, that is a person who makes claims not backed up the scriptures and lures others to his side. One that opens up Christians to mockery and ridicule (something they seem to be able to do quite well on their own) and makes a nice chunk of change doing it. Someone who claims to know what no man knows. Sounds like a false prophet to me.

Perhaps it's simply because people want to believe so badly that they are willing to let little things like details slip aside in favor of their desires. Or perhaps Camping was a clever, silver tongued speaker who was able to deceive them and separate them from their finances. Clearly there are a lot of problems in the world that many would like to escape from to a more loving and peaceful place where there won't be any pain and suffering. There have been false prophets before (anyone remember David Koresh?) and more shall come before it's all over. That is of course if you believe in God in some fashion or another. If you don't then you have probably been laughing derisively at this whole thing content and secure in your knowledge. Belief is a funny thing though.

Perhaps it's a good idea to actually read the source material so that when a false prophet does start preaching you can identify him or her for what they are. Then we could eliminate all of the messy problems that they bring forth. But then again, they wouldn't be worth their salt at the old False Prophet Club if they couldn't get a few people to believe them, could they? It's their job, it's what they do. And we just keep on believing what we believe, for better or worse.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

I just finished reading "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy and it left a very large impression on me. The story is about a father and his young son walking the road after an apocalypse has destroyed most of humanity and the way we live. Gone are all the simple things that we take for granted every day of our existence like electricity, going to the store and basic civility. The son was born after the event happened (the mother ends up committing suicide) so he doesn't actually know what the world was like before this happened. The pair are walking the road trying to find food and a reason to go on for another day and it really encapsulates the monotony of trying to make it day after day in a world where even living and breathing is a struggle and nothing comes easy.

What really got me about this book is that I have a four year old son and I immediately began to think about what I would do if I were in this situation. Even though they are ostensibly looking for other "good people" the father consistently stays away from any other people on the rare occasions that they come across them and doesn't seem to want to interact with anyone else. The only thing that seems to drive him and keep him going is the fact that he has to take care of his young son who cannot take care of himself. Otherwise it seems like he would have given up long before.

I know we all like to think that in extreme circumstances we would do the right thing and not lose our humanity and try to take care of others but I have to honestly question whether that would happen. More than likely people would quickly revert to an animalistic attitude of taking what they want no matter what it would do to others, even if it meant that by doing so they were condemning those others to sure death. More simply they would resort to killing others by their own hands with no conscience simply because they wanted to exert some form of control over someone else. A few years ago there was a bad ice storm that caused us to lose power for six days and it was a struggle for a lot of people in Tulsa to last that long without all of our daily conveniences so I understand a bit of how quickly things can spiral out of control.

If there was a world changing event would I be any different than the father in the book? I know for a fact that my first priority would the the health and safety of my family but how far and to what extent would I go? What if a friend was starving and I only had food to last for a few days. Would I share with him or keep it all for my family? What if I came across somebody else's food and supplies, would I try to steal them so that my family had plenty and whoever owned them would be left with nothing? By trying to keep my humanity and civility I might condemn my family to death by starvation themselves. Living a life that way might actually not be worth living. It's not always the end result that is the most important thing, sometimes it's how you got there, but then again sometimes the end result is the only important thing. I have no answers to these questions because I've never been put in that situation before. It's a lot to think about, that's the best I can say.

Published by Don Leach