May 21, 2011 was, according to Harold Camping, supposed to be the day the righteous were to be raptured into heaven.
His radio station, Family Christian Radio, had their website devoted to the end coming on May 21st. Now, the site is just back to business as usual.
Camping himself, who spent hundreds of thousands on dollars on over 2000 billboards and bus adverts across the nation, has not said much other than that, "It has been a very tough weekend." and that he is "flabbergasted" that the Rapture did not take place.
I'm not here to judge Camping or his followers. That does not return dignity to anyone. What I am here to do is ask; "What happens now to those who believed?"
I have been following this whole thing for many months now since I read an article about a 32 year old woman who quit her job to follow Camping and to spread the word of the impending Rapture. Since then, I have read other stories of families who have stopped saving for their children's colleges and quit their jobs. Who have flat out told their children that they will be denied heaven because they don't believe as their parents do. And even a story about a CA woman who was so afraid of the upcoming tribulation that she attempted to kill her two children and herself.
Now can you chalk all these people up to just being fanatics or disturbed. However, it is not as easy as that.
It is more about the fact that Camping's campaign was driven out of fear and not our of love. A campaign that in many ways told people that their faith was not enough.
As I have said before, people do not need to be told that they are broken or in pain. They already know that. what they do need to be told is that they are worthwhile and loved.
Part of the mission of The Returning Dignity Project, is to interact with those who feel ignored and left behind.
Camping's campaign has not only rocked his faith, but the faiths of countless people. People who said goodbye to their jobs, and families and daily lives. People who are now left to figure out if they are going to throw out the baby Jesus with the bath water.
Christians are told to have faith like little children. To have simple faith and be pure of heart. Things like the Judgement Day campaign took that simple faith and twisted it and drove that faith with fear. Now there are people left with broken faith.
I hope in Camping's mind and heart he believed he was doing a good thing. He wanted people to turn away from bad and look towards the good of God. However, it turned into a fear campaign that caused shame to reign down on people and caused a blow to the Christian community as a whole. Even though many Christians are not in the same group as Camping, many non-Christians will lump everyone together.
So what can we do?
Whatever your faith is, we can do our best not to judge. Instead of looking at someone as crazy for having faith in the May 21st prediction, we can lift them up and have hope for healing in them. We can hope for any brokenness that came from this to be small and for them to find new direction in their faith and that it be one of love and not of fear. However you pray, pray for these folks. Pray that they will find love, real divine love. The kind of love that comes with peace and joy and reassurance.
I'm not here to tell you how to believe, but I am here and the RDP is here to lift up people and to changes peoples lives for the better with simple interactions. Ask yourself how you might feel if something you believed was true was exposed to be a lie. Something like your marriage falling apart after years of thinking you were in a loving, committed relationship. Where would that leave you? Where has this left them?
You may not know any of these folks personally, but with our own words and actions we can help keep more shame, different shame and fear from being further heaped on the heads of these people. When others talk about this and mock these believers, don't join in and encourage them to lift these people up as well.
My heart is heavy with this, and that's why I chose to write about it today. But in my faith, I know that God can do more healing and rebuilding than we as people can ever destroy.
Have a great Monday. May it be full of grace and love for those you know and those you don't.
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