I’m about to be a little unchristian.
Even though I’ve never met Harold Camping, I don’t like him very much.
Camping is the Christian radio broadcaster who predicted the rapture would occur on May 21. Obviously the rapture didn’t occur and Camping was forced to make excuses for why his prediction came up empty. Camping now says that a spiritual judgment occurred on May 21 which will culminate with the world’s ultimate destruction on October 21.
Which means there are only five months to undo all the damage caused by Camping’s predictions until the insanity starts again.
I’m not talking about damage like some of Camping’s disciples emptying their life savings.
I’m not talking about damage like worried individuals sending their dogs to rapture doggy care.
I’m not talking about atheists using Camping’s predictions as a reason to mock the Christian faith.
The most damaging part about Camping’s prediction and its widespread media coverage is it furthered the belief that Christians are more concerned about the next life than this life. It furthered the idea that Christians care more about the new earth than this earth. It furthered the idea that Christians care more about escaping this place than redeeming it.
I’m all for spending an eternity in the presence of my Heavenly Father. In fact, I am very much looking forward to it. But just because there is something great waiting for me somewhere “out there” doesn’t mean I should ignore what God has called me to right here.
2 Corinthians 5 says, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”
God is reconciling the world to himself, the whole world. God is making things right between himself and this whole world. As followers of Jesus we get to participate in that work. We’re invited and made worthy to do that work. So even though an eternity with God will be amazing, we get to work alongside God in the here and now, making wrong things right and bearing his kingdom everywhere we go.
It would be great if by October 21 Christians could change the headlines because of the work that we’ve been doing. Instead of being known as people looking to escape this world and leave it to burn, we could be known as people looking to redeem this world and bring wholeness wherever we go.
I know that people bringing wholeness to the world isn’t as headline-worthy as an old man making crazy predictions, but we can still try. And even though the ministry of reconciliation won’t become a trending topic on Twitter, it will make a profound difference on the lives of those we strive to impact.
How would you like to participate in the ministry of reconciling the whole world?
I couldn’t agree more with you, thanks for the great read.
I was a bit wary when you mentioned, “it furthered the belief that Christians are more concerned about the next life than this life.”, and let it appear in a very negative light.
I definitely care more about the afterlife than this one, which is why I seek to share the gospel and attempt to aid in the process of reconciliation in which ever way I can now.
I think the rest of the paragraph explained your point more clearly though.
I I don’t know what happened, I must have missed a decimal point or something as well.