Sunday Sermonette: Confidence

[bill_sheehan]

This is a minor update of a post I wrote three years ago. Hey, it's summertime and I'm a beach bum on Cape Cod.

In all the hullabaloo of the 2016 presidential convention season, we might be forgiven for having missed a couple people leaving the party.  On July 25th, 2016, evangelist Tim LaHaye died. On July 26th, he was followed into oblivion or

Comments

[fairy69]

Ha. Speaking of cons....I can not for the life of me remember the guy's name but perhaps you would. in 1994, there was a Born-Again Christian with his own radio station who managed to convert and convince many that September of 1994 was when the big apocalypse would take place and that unless the others would repent and convert, they would burn in Hell, dying horrible deaths. I know this because at the time, I was working in a mom and pop camera repair shop and we had a guy who did our film to VHS transfers among other things of that nature. One minute, he was an awesomely cool guy with a pregnant wife, next he was yelling at me for being a sinner and threatening me that if I didn't become one of "them", I was going to burn in Hell. I was 25 years old at the time and had already experienced an ex-boyfriend who also had been convinced by his sister and her Born-Again Christian pastor lover to become "one of them". So, September 1994 came and went as well as the video transfer guy's wife with their kid. I think the radio DJ mysteriously

[bill_sheehan]

You’re thinking of Harold Camping and his Family Radio. Camping predicted that the Final Judgement would occur on or about our second wedding anniversary, September 6, 1994. When that failed to happen, he changed the date to September 29th. Then October 6th. In 2005, he predicted the Second Coming of Christ would happen on May 21, 2011. The saved would be Raptured, but for the next five months there would be fire and brimstone and plagues with millions dying every day, until the final destruction of Earth on October 21, 2011. When the first date passed and everybody was still here, he decided that a “spiritual” judgement had already taken place, and the world would really, truly end on October 21st. He retired from his broadcast ministry on October 16, 2011. When the world failed to end, Family Radio suffered a significant loss of revenue, staff, assets, and prestige

[fairy69]

yep that was him. I wonder sometimes what happened to that guy I knew as well as all the others that believed in all of that. I can honestly imagine some committing suicide, to be honest. When minds are weak enough to get absorbed into things like that, they are usually troubled to begin with.