It's somewhat gratifying to see James White going off on Harold Camping. The longsuffering White put himself through the brain-scraping misery of listening to some of Camping's hamfisted and ruthless mangling of Scripture, almost setting off his car's air bag as he pounded the steering-wheel in frustration. (Been there, done that! )
As I mused on the interminably-droning, ever-maddening and always-embarrassing Camping, this tangential thought came to mind:
"Date-setters!" This is a common gibe of some my anti-dispensationalists Calvinistic brethren. Because some dispensationalists have been date-setters, we're all guilty of the crime.
Historically and factually this is a shell without an egg -- or what egg there is in fact bespatters faces in all prophetic camps. Still, one hears it often enough, as if it's a damning finger pointed at dispensationalists alone.
It strikes me, though, that one response to any amillennialist leveling this charge might be, "Tell you what, bro. I'll carry guilt for Dr. JoeBob Dispie-datesetter, if you will take the rap for amill/Christ-is-coming-in-1994/the-church-age-is-over-so-flee-your-church-NOW Harold Camping. Deal?"
I'm thinking we'd see a big "NO SALE" come up on that cash register.
Which is good! Maybe then we can move towards sweeping aside date-setting and some of the other red herrings that bog down this discussion, and actually discuss principles of exegesis, specifics, and whether or not the work of reformation was really completed for all time by the end of the seventeenth century.
Wouldn't that be a win/win for everyone?
Saturday, March 05, 2005
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Being a usenet debator on a Polish religious group I came across this name today. One crazy person was constantly doing some rabid mathemathics of sorts, adding and subtracting numbers in all possible combinations, trying to prove some even more rabid prophecies. He then used Camping's name as his foremost authority.
When does it stop? This craziness of embracing one horrid theology after another, instead of believing in what Bible teaches?
On the other hand, I must admit, that these end-times (according to those date-setters we are there) are very fascinating, sort of... As long as one puts his trust in Christ and not in a man, that is...
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