THE END OF THE WORLD PART II

We have billboards all over San Diego, one within like 200 yards of our church that read, "Judgment Day. May 21".

My friend Trevor suggested that we rent a billboard and put this on it on May 22.   

Ha!  

I found this particularly funny because I've actually had some personal interaction with the man primarily behind the May 21 end of the world prediction thing.  Seriously... he called me.  His name is Harold Camping and he predicted the end of the world at least once before.   

At the time, I was in college at UC. Davis and I was a junior there and the president of an organization called Truth Seekers.  We were a club on campus that brought in apologetic debates: things like creation vs evolution, does God exist, and stuff like that.  Our events were pretty well attended and even some professors from the campus would come listen because we brought in big name mucky mucks with lots of Ph. D's after their name. 

Anyway, it was May of 1994 when Harold contacted us and wanted us to bring him to the campus to tell people the world was going to end on Sept. 6, 1994- or at least to debate about if he was right.   I didn't want to bring him but I wasn't sure what to say and then I had my aha moment.  I said, "It takes at least 6 weeks to pull off one of these events and that will be just about when school gets out for summer break.  So as a result, we can't bring you until the fall.  But since we were on the quarter system, instead of our school starting up in August, we don't begin until mid to late September and by then, the world would be over and there would be no point. So, guess we can't pull it off.  Sorry."  

So we didn't book him and now he's at it again. 

I'm thinking maybe I'll have him come talk to my high school students about the value of humility, learning from your own mistakes, a community of believers and a good hermeneutic for the right interpretation of the Bible, and doing wise research before spending massive amounts of money.  I think I'll bring him in early June this year.  :)

On a less silly note... Harold could accidentally be right.  Jesus is coming back.  Might be today.  Might not.  I'd say we should spend less time worrying about when and more time thinking about "what if"today.