Predicting the End Without Predicting the End

by Curtis Crenshaw

 

The Rev. Dr. Curtis Crenshaw is the Dean of Cranmer Theological House, a Seminary of the Reformed Episcopal Church

Review of John Hagee’s Can America Survive?

(Also, regarding Harold Camping, Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye)

(Free to disseminate: Rev. Dr. Curtis I. Crenshaw, Th.M., Th.D.)

(click here to get the free pdf file of the whole article if you want to send it to someone.)

There are various ways Christians have to predict the end of the world. First, there is the absolute nut, Harold Camping, who says May 21^st, 2011 will be the end of the world with judgments, especially earthquakes. I’m not sure how many times he has predicted and been wrong (more than once), but May 21st is just three days from now. He is an embarrassment to all Christians. We rightly distance ourselves from him. Even the end time guru and popular writer of the Left Behind series, Tim LaHaye, rejects Camping’s nonsense. He says:

Is Harold Camping Right This Time? [He has the] well advertised claim that Jesus Christ will come to rapture believers on May 21, 2011―this is not only wrong but dangerous. [He] also claims that God will destroy this world on October 21, 2011―this is not only bizarre but 100% wrong!
Our Lord Jesus Himself said of the time when He will return to rapture His church to Heaven “. . . that no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, but my Father only” (Matthew 24:36). These words were preceded with verse 35, when He also said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” (from:

http://www.leftbehind.com/05_news/is_harold_camping_right_this_time.asp).

Yet, LaHaye also predicts the end. On the same web page just given, LaHaye has this advertizement: Three Signs of the End, by himself and his popular co-writer Jerry Jenkins. LaHaye goes on to say: “In our book Are We Living in the End Times? we list many of the signs of the times apparent in our generation. We believe that while no one knows the day or the hour when Christ will return, we have more reason to believe He could come in our lifetime than any generation before us.”
In one sense, every generation could say that it has “more reason to believe He could come in our lifetime than any generation” because we’re one generation closer to His return. But LaHaye is doing what I call predicting the end without predicting the end. He and Jenkins hype things up, talk about all the so-called prophecies about the end, sell millions of books, and then make a disclaimer, once in a while. The only difference between Camping and LaHaye when it comes to prophecy is that LaHaye is not as specific on the date of His return―Camping says it will be in three days, May 21, 2011, and LaHaye says in our lifetimes. Both are date setters.

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