Harold Camping - "Leave the Churches"

[OrovilleTim]

I listened to Family Radio years ago and really liked it. It had nice music when I felt like traditional hymns, it seemed to have great teaching, I liked the open forums, and had even enrolled in a correspondence course with them. But, it seemed like Harold Camping started going beyond a strict adherence to scripture, to almost an extreme interpretation. I'd let this all leave my mind until I was reminded of it all the other day.

Well, I'd met a new friend and we met on a non-Christian pretense and were excited to discover we were both believers. In discussion though, I discovered he left his church at the urging of Harold Camping, although he had another initial reason for wanting to leave.

I was totally amazed that this guy is actually urging (commanding?) his listeners to leave churches. In addition, Baptists are among some of his specific denominations he specifically targets due to "free will".

So I started thinking about this. At first I thought "well, they are gathering in groups on Sunday to listen to the radio which includes singing hymns, and hearing preaching." But, something hit me... if they leave a Church, they are no longer tithing or offering gifts, where do these money and resources go? Do you starting tithing to Family Radio?

The more I think about this situation, the more uneasy I feel that Camping is getting so powerful and progressing past teaching. It's almost like an assault on the Church, with a specific campaign against certain denominations. Does anyone have anymore insight/feelings on this situation?

 

[James_Newman]

It is certainly an assault on church authority. Its true that there are many churches that are out of God's will, and I would say a person should leave a church if it is not following the Bible and find one that does. But leaving church alltogether is about the worst thing a believer could decide to do.

 

[Eric B]

I too often feel the organized Church (which is basically set up as a corporation, with often highly paid "officers" or CEO's, instead of just a more informal fellowship) is not biblical, but I don't trust Camping because he seems to think it once was legitimate, but "fallen" now only because of typical pet peeves like Arminianism, and other standard concervative "we've turned from our traditional heritage" issues. Yet he still seems to have his organization and position! Diametrically opposite of my concern.
Yet I wonder how many fundamentalists who so criticize the modern church over "separation from error" continued to listen to his stations just because of the music.

 

[Marcia]

Harold Camping is a false teacher. I have no compunction saying this because he predicted that Jesus would come back in 1994. Well, guess what happened?

Now he's telling people to leave the churches. He's gone haywire in his theology. I used to listen to him when I was a new believer but stopped after he started saying weird things. It's beyond me why anyone would follow him since 1994, or even before then. Jesus said no one would know when he's coming back, but Camping thought he did.

When someone asked me in 1993 about Camping's book, 1994, I told her that for sure Jesus would not come back in 1994 since that is when Camping said he would.

Also, Family Radio would not play the Unshackled show of my testimony because they said they didn't play anything related to the occult. I got this by telephone around 1992 or so. I told them it was the testimony of how God delivered me from the occult and New Age, but they refused to air it.

 

[OrovilleTim]

Does anyone know if he requests people to still tithe after leaving their churches? More specifically, tithe to Family Radio.

 

[KenH]

I have liked Harold Camping through the years, starting around 1990, but I think telling people to leave organized churches goes too far. Does anyone know how old is he? I figure about 85.

I found Family Radio on my portable radio with shortwave bands and it was the first time that I had gave the Doctrines of Grace a honest hearing. This opened the door for me to come to understand the Biblical soundness of these doctrines and to cease being an Arminian member of the Church of Christ and to become a Calvinistic Southern Baptist.

 

[OrovilleTim]

I couldn't find any reference to tithing on his website, but there were plenty of donation buttons for a variety of methods.

But, I did find this tidbit on leaving churches:

If we can still find or still are a part of a church that is reasonably true to the Bible, should we remain there? What are we to do if we could find a church where it appears that each and every doctrine they hold and teach is faithful to the Word of God?
As we consider these questions, let us re-examine God’s commands to ancient Israel when Babylon had destroyed Jerusalem.

<scriptural references snipped for brevity sake>

In fact, some did remain and their leaders were murdered. Following this, the remnant went into Egypt where they were under the judgment of God.
In other words, it was God’s plan that no one was to remain in Jerusalem. The only way they could come under the blessing of God was to be captives under the care of Babylon, which represents the whole kingdom of Satan. But God would watch over them utilizing Babylon to give them protection. They could receive no help or guidance from Jerusalem.

I would take that Jerusalem analogy to mean that you should not stay in ANY church. Wow!

 

[Eric B]

And "under the care of Babylon"? "protection"? We're to be under the care of this world? What are we protected from by the world? (I thought it was the world we needed protection from).
Face it, this guy's gone off the deep end.

 

[OrovilleTim]

Face it, this guy's gone off the deep end.

I'd seen something like this before. There was an aging preacher of a church I attended. While I subscribe to the possibility of Jesus returning "any day", I don't subscribe to centering everything around it being today or tomorrow and living like "the end is near, so I'm not doing anything for the future." It got really strange, and the guy was so obsessed that he was making strange demands on people (yep, I said demands.) He wanted to add additional services throughout the week as he wanted everyone to be in the church when Jesus returned.

My theory was that he knew that he was nearing the end of his time on earth. But, I think he was afraid of physical death and the hope that Jesus would return and save him from a physical death was consuming him. He no longer talked about preaching to the lost, or anything other then the "any day now". Of course, that was just my theory based on my personal impressions.

I wonder if the same thing could apply to Mr. Camping. Maybe since he's up there in years, he's afraid of a physical death so he is consumed with the return of Christ in hope he can avoid it.

Slight change in gears here... I have discovered a wealth of critiques of HC on the net, all with very strong scriptual based arguments. The guy just hadn't come to my mind in years, but it appears he obviously hasn't slipped the minds of many others.

 

[OrovilleTim]

After a little reading, I've come to a couple conclusions:

First being that since his failed 1994 prophesy, he is using the "end of the church" to rectify that. "Oh, the timeline didn't end, it was just the timeline of the church... yeah, that's the ticket."

Second, while I don't personally beleive he's telling people to leave the church strictly for financial reasons, I do think he is after money based on the following taken from an "Open Forum" answer on tithing:

As a matter of fact, in the New Testament, God does not want ten percent of our money, He wants it all. [...] We are to live very modestly and make everything possible available to help send out the Gospel so that people can become saved. Those who become saved are like tithes brought into the storehouse.

And how, Harold, do we send out the gospel since we aren't supposed to support churches and or church organizations? Well... give all that money to Family Stations, Inc. of course!