Rebecca Bradley has the scoop:
“[The World is Going to End] according to one Chris McCann of eBible Fellowship, the never-say-die spiritual heir of the infamous failed prophet Harold Camping, who entertained us all greatly in 2011. Who could forget the billboards and wild pictorial vehicles paid for by Camping’s followers, spreading the news that the world would end in May 2011? Whoops—he meant October 2011. And whoops again. After the second great disappointment in a year, Camping had the grace to admit he was wrong, that maybe it was not such a good idea to try and pin God down, and then he had a stroke and died at the age of 93.
“But some of his believers, in a dazzling display of cognitive dissonance, found a way to believe Camping was right all along, though perhaps a bit naive in expecting the cosmic symptoms of apocalypse to look like they do in the movie 2012. Chris McCann, the most vocal of these believers, has come out with a complex apologia for Camping’s apparent failure, plus a new date for the fiery destruction of the sin-soiled old world: 7th October 2015.”
This isn’t the first time that all this has played out. In Christian history, we see the failed prediction:
“For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”
-Jesus Christ, Matthew 16:27-28.
…Followed by the embarrassed butt-covering rationalization later on:
“Scoffers will come in the last days… saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’ …. But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”
-Forgery written c. 150 AD, known as 2 Peter 3:3-9.
Translation: Don’t listen to those evil ‘scoffers’ calling us out on our end of the world predictions! God’s just giving people more time so they can repent! Too bad the Apostle Paul wasn’t in on this, he preached that the end of the world was so near that people shouldn’t even bother getting married (1 Cor. 7:25-31). Whoops. So there you have it: Christian apocalypticism is a delusion that has been going on for two thousand years.
