Post by godfirstmelast on May 12, 2011 12:21:59 GMT -5
Excuse my French, but what BS.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40885541/ns/us_news-life/t/end-days-may-believers-enter-final-stretch/
End of Days in May? Believers enter final stretch
'A lot of people might think, 'The end's coming, let's go party.' But we're commanded by God to warn people'
By TOM BREEN
updated 1/3/2011 6:08:55 AM ET
RALEIGH, N.C.— If there had been time, Marie
Exley would have liked to start a family.
Instead, the 32-year-old Army veteran has
less than six months left, which she'll spend
spreading a stark warning: Judgment Day is
almost here.
Exley is part of a movement of Christians
loosely organized by radio broadcasts and
websites, independent of churches and
convinced by their reading of the Bible that the
end of the world will begin on May 21, 2011.
To get the word out, they're using billboards
and bus stop benches, traveling caravans of
RVs and volunteers passing out pamphlets on
street corners. Cities from Bridgeport, Conn.,
to Little Rock, Ark., now have billboards with
the ominous message, and mission groups are
traveling in countries from Latin America to
Africa to spread the news outside the U.S.
"A lot of people might think, 'The end's
coming, let's go party,'" said Exley, a veteran of
two deployments in Iraq. "But we're
commanded by God to warn people. I wish I
could just be like everybody else, but it's so
much better to know that when the end
comes, you'll be safe."
In August, Exley left her home in Colorado
Springs, Colo., to work with Oakland, Calif.-
based Family Radio Worldwide, the
independent Christian ministry whose leader,
Harold Camping, has calculated the May 21
date based on his reading of the Bible.
She is organizing traveling columns of RVs
carrying the message from city to city, a
logistics challenge that her military experience
has helped solve. The vehicles are scheduled
to be in five North Carolina cities between now
and the second week of January, but Exley will
shortly be gone: overseas, where she hopes to
eventually make it back to Iraq.
"I don't really have plans to come back," she
said. "Time is short."
'Definitely against the grain'
Not everyone who's heard Camping's message
is taking such a dramatic step. They're
remaining in their day-to-day lives, but
helping publicize the prophecy in other ways.
Allison Warden, of Raleigh, has been helping
organize a campaign using billboards,
postcards and other media in cities across the
U.S. through a website, We Can Know.
The 29-year-old payroll clerk laughs when
asked about reactions to the message, which
is plastered all over her car.
"It's definitely against the grain, I know that,"
she said. "We're hoping people won't take our
word for it, or Harold Camping's word for it.
We're hoping that people will search the
scriptures for themselves."
Camping, 89, believes the Bible essentially
functions as a cosmic calendar explaining
exactly when various prophecies will be
fulfilled.
The retired civil engineer said all his
calculations come from close readings of the
Bible, but that external events like the
foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 are
signs confirming the date.
"Beyond the shadow of a doubt, May 21 will be
the date of the Rapture and the day of
judgment," he said.
The doctrine known as the Rapture teaches
that believers will be taken up to heaven, while
everyone else will remain on earth for a period
of torment, concluding with the end of time.
Camping believes that will happen in October.
"If May 21 passes and I'm still here, that means
I wasn't saved. Does that mean God's word is
inaccurate or untrue? Not at all," Warden said.
Great Disappointment
The belief that Christ will return to earth and
bring an end to history has been a basic
element of Christian belief since the first
century. The Book of Revelation, which comes
last in the New Testament, describes this
conclusion in vivid language that has inspired
Christians for centuries.
But few churches are willing to set a date for
the end of the world, heeding Jesus' words in
the gospels of Mark and Matthew that no one
can know the day or hour it will happen.
Predictions like Camping's, though, aren't new.
One of the most famous in history was by the
Baptist leader William Miller, who predicted the
end for Oct. 22, 1844, which came to be
known as the Great Disappointment among his
followers, some of who subsequently founded
the Seventh Day Adventist church.
"In the U.S., there is still a significant
population, mostly Protestant, who look at the
advertisement
Bible as kind of a puzzle, and the puzzle is
God's word and it's predicting when the end
times will come," said Catherine Wessinger, a
professor at Loyola University in New Orleans
who studies millennialism, the belief in
pending apocalypse.
"A lot of times these prophecies gain traction
when difficulties are happening in society," she
said. "Right now, there's a lot of insecurity, and
this is a promise that says it's not all random,
it's part of God's plan."
Past predictions that failed to come true don't
have any bearing on the current calculation,
believers maintain.
"It would be like telling the Wright Brothers
that every other attempt to fly has failed, so
you shouldn't even try," said Chris McCann,
who works with eBible Fellowship, one of the
groups spreading the message.
For believers like McCann, theirs is actually a
message of hope and compassion: God's
compassion for people, and the hope that
there's still time to be saved.
That, ultimately, is what spurs on Exley, who
said her beliefs have alienated her from most
of her friends and family. Her hope is that not
everyone who hears her message will mock it,
and that even people who dismiss her now
might still come to believe.
"If you still want to say we're crazy, go ahead,"
she said. "But it doesn't hurt to look into it."
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40885541/ns/us_news-life/t/end-days-may-believers-enter-final-stretch/
End of Days in May? Believers enter final stretch
'A lot of people might think, 'The end's coming, let's go party.' But we're commanded by God to warn people'
By TOM BREEN
updated 1/3/2011 6:08:55 AM ET
RALEIGH, N.C.— If there had been time, Marie
Exley would have liked to start a family.
Instead, the 32-year-old Army veteran has
less than six months left, which she'll spend
spreading a stark warning: Judgment Day is
almost here.
Exley is part of a movement of Christians
loosely organized by radio broadcasts and
websites, independent of churches and
convinced by their reading of the Bible that the
end of the world will begin on May 21, 2011.
To get the word out, they're using billboards
and bus stop benches, traveling caravans of
RVs and volunteers passing out pamphlets on
street corners. Cities from Bridgeport, Conn.,
to Little Rock, Ark., now have billboards with
the ominous message, and mission groups are
traveling in countries from Latin America to
Africa to spread the news outside the U.S.
"A lot of people might think, 'The end's
coming, let's go party,'" said Exley, a veteran of
two deployments in Iraq. "But we're
commanded by God to warn people. I wish I
could just be like everybody else, but it's so
much better to know that when the end
comes, you'll be safe."
In August, Exley left her home in Colorado
Springs, Colo., to work with Oakland, Calif.-
based Family Radio Worldwide, the
independent Christian ministry whose leader,
Harold Camping, has calculated the May 21
date based on his reading of the Bible.
She is organizing traveling columns of RVs
carrying the message from city to city, a
logistics challenge that her military experience
has helped solve. The vehicles are scheduled
to be in five North Carolina cities between now
and the second week of January, but Exley will
shortly be gone: overseas, where she hopes to
eventually make it back to Iraq.
"I don't really have plans to come back," she
said. "Time is short."
'Definitely against the grain'
Not everyone who's heard Camping's message
is taking such a dramatic step. They're
remaining in their day-to-day lives, but
helping publicize the prophecy in other ways.
Allison Warden, of Raleigh, has been helping
organize a campaign using billboards,
postcards and other media in cities across the
U.S. through a website, We Can Know.
The 29-year-old payroll clerk laughs when
asked about reactions to the message, which
is plastered all over her car.
"It's definitely against the grain, I know that,"
she said. "We're hoping people won't take our
word for it, or Harold Camping's word for it.
We're hoping that people will search the
scriptures for themselves."
Camping, 89, believes the Bible essentially
functions as a cosmic calendar explaining
exactly when various prophecies will be
fulfilled.
The retired civil engineer said all his
calculations come from close readings of the
Bible, but that external events like the
foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 are
signs confirming the date.
"Beyond the shadow of a doubt, May 21 will be
the date of the Rapture and the day of
judgment," he said.
The doctrine known as the Rapture teaches
that believers will be taken up to heaven, while
everyone else will remain on earth for a period
of torment, concluding with the end of time.
Camping believes that will happen in October.
"If May 21 passes and I'm still here, that means
I wasn't saved. Does that mean God's word is
inaccurate or untrue? Not at all," Warden said.
Great Disappointment
The belief that Christ will return to earth and
bring an end to history has been a basic
element of Christian belief since the first
century. The Book of Revelation, which comes
last in the New Testament, describes this
conclusion in vivid language that has inspired
Christians for centuries.
But few churches are willing to set a date for
the end of the world, heeding Jesus' words in
the gospels of Mark and Matthew that no one
can know the day or hour it will happen.
Predictions like Camping's, though, aren't new.
One of the most famous in history was by the
Baptist leader William Miller, who predicted the
end for Oct. 22, 1844, which came to be
known as the Great Disappointment among his
followers, some of who subsequently founded
the Seventh Day Adventist church.
"In the U.S., there is still a significant
population, mostly Protestant, who look at the
advertisement
Bible as kind of a puzzle, and the puzzle is
God's word and it's predicting when the end
times will come," said Catherine Wessinger, a
professor at Loyola University in New Orleans
who studies millennialism, the belief in
pending apocalypse.
"A lot of times these prophecies gain traction
when difficulties are happening in society," she
said. "Right now, there's a lot of insecurity, and
this is a promise that says it's not all random,
it's part of God's plan."
Past predictions that failed to come true don't
have any bearing on the current calculation,
believers maintain.
"It would be like telling the Wright Brothers
that every other attempt to fly has failed, so
you shouldn't even try," said Chris McCann,
who works with eBible Fellowship, one of the
groups spreading the message.
For believers like McCann, theirs is actually a
message of hope and compassion: God's
compassion for people, and the hope that
there's still time to be saved.
That, ultimately, is what spurs on Exley, who
said her beliefs have alienated her from most
of her friends and family. Her hope is that not
everyone who hears her message will mock it,
and that even people who dismiss her now
might still come to believe.
"If you still want to say we're crazy, go ahead,"
she said. "But it doesn't hurt to look into it."
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