57 thoughts on “Fearing The End Of The World”

  2. I, for one, am hopeful that the Rapture will occur and I won’t have to pay back the money I borrowed from Jimmy “The Kunckles.”

    Fingers crossed!

  5. At first, I thought this one – Fearing the End of the World – didn’t apply to my IFB circle because we don’t believe in Camping-like stupidity that names dates and times.

    However, having listened to the video, I see that, yes, my circles DID often live in fear, not of a particular day, but of the end times in general, of one-world government, of communists, of persecution. It’s truly a depressing way to live. I’m so glad that now I choose to trust the God Who has told us again and again, “Fear not! Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.”

    I too want to choose to believe that hope walks with me.

    2. The ones that are anticipating the rapture have quit their jobs, sold all their stuff 2 years ago, and used up all their life savings promoting this non sense. And the stuff they had in their fundy bunkers wasn’t worth much anyway, unless that 7 years worth of Welches grape juice for communion has some value! 🙂

      1. true, but i’m bound to find some pretty sweet guitars. and i’ve always wanted a gun.

        and maybe, after 7 years, that grape juice turns into something useful 😀

    3. For years, my daughter has had a bumper sticker on her car: “After the Rapture, Can I Have Your Stuff?”

    1. {numerology} Congratulations on making the post of completion! {/numerology} 😆

  8. Sadly, this strikes so close to home. No one that I personally know, fundamentalist or otherwise, takes Camping’s date setting seriously. However, every news item about Israel (especially that “Obama is the Antichrist” article that I stopped my dad from telling me about) is taken as an indication that the rapture will happen “imminently,” which means in a year or two.

    Meh, crazy stuff has happened before, people have hyperventilated about this before, and we’re still here… I’m planning for the long term, saving for retirement in 40 years, and trying to live life without getting an ulcer from others’ fears… 🙄

    1. Here’s what gets me about fundies. If we know that we’ll be raptured, then why the need for the fear factor? Isn’t that something we were supposed to look forward to?

      If the rapture does take place, I’ll get to see my Father, something that I’d give my right arm to do. My Mother, too.

      Mom did make me laugh today on the phone when she said, “Exactly what time is it supposed to happen, so I know when to be on a mountain-top?”

      I get my humor from her.

    2. I would also add that most of this “end of the world” crap is arrogantly myopic. Just look at other times and places (1st century Rome would be a good place to start) and it becomes clear that this is hardly our darkest hour.

    3. Yup, ever since I can remember, we were always in “the end times”. Every natural disaster, every political upheaval, every cultural change…it all meant the rapture was fast approaching. It really was a constant state of fear. However, I always used to wonder “why are we scared, we’re going to be taken to heaven, that’s good, right?” For some reason, to the adults around me, they didn’t seem to see it as good, based on their reactions. It’s like they didn’t want to go or something…

  9. Where’s Shoes? I’d love to have a good dose of his numerology about now.

    1. I haven’t seen my favorite genuis post all day. I’m beginning to think the good Lord took him a day early to help do some last second math issues the day before the big rapture…

  10. This past Monday, I tuned a the organ at a large (non-IFB) church… wonder if I should’ve waited – – especially as the cheques aren’t cut for another week… 🙄

  11. When I was younger, I had a (thankfully brief) phase of conspiracies and whatnot. I’m very thankful that I grew out of it pretty quickly, but looking back on it I realized how silly the whole thing was. Sure, the world’s going to end one day, and no matter what your Biblical eschatology is, I think we all agree it’s not going to be pretty. But as long as God’s there and He loves me–and he’s promised both to us–what do I have to fear?

    1. I have not however ridden in a hot air balloon or got to go on a ride along with the Blue Angels, either of which I would love to do.

    2. I love that the main reason you believe you’ve had sex is that there are kids that call you dad, that came from somewhere! 🙂

  15. This is SO. Full. of. WIN.

    I too feared the end of the world–until it dawned on me one day as an adult: we get the good part of the story (though I suppose that depends on when the rapture takes place vis-a-vis the tribulation).

    I also feared a lot of other things, and not just things I heard at church. Sadly, I lived in fear of my father’s disapproval…but–that’s a whole other blog.

    1. And, the fundies fill us with all this fear and then we run across the verse about God not giving us the spirit of fear. And, then we get all confused.

      Or we start seeing the real truth… hopefully.

  16. I think these people are crazy. But I guess I pity them more than feel like laughing at them. I’m not trying to Jesus juke or anything. I think the world laughs at Christians already, and it saddens me that I’ve worked so hard to separate from the IFB just to get lumped in with this group of nutcases. 😐

  17. When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that [is] the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, [but] the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him. Deuteronomy 18:22 KJV

  19. Awesome.
    I grew up in the same religious morass this guy did (IFB). Thankfully, I, too, got delivered.

    What a great video.! 🙂

  20. Dr. Olinger at BJ used to say he was pretrib so he had the most chances to change his mind.

  21. Honestly, I used to be scared as a kid too. I remember being my son’s age and having bad dreams about it and everything. But I haven’t stopped thinking that there will possibly be a rapture. And I will never scare my kids with this, or any church I may end up pastoring in the future.

    But it has led to several good witnessing opportunities at work this week!

  24. I love the word ineffable. I first came upon it when I was reading T.S. Eliots poem, “The Naming of Cats.”

    When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
    The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
    His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
    Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
    His ineffable effable
    Effanineffable
    Deep and inscrutable singular Name. -T.S. Eliot

    http://www.heatercats.com/poems/naming.html

  25. This whole uproar today is so sad, because it trivializes something that really is going to happen one day. At some point, there really will be a judgment day and an end to this world, but with Camping and his followers making everybody giggle at the very thought of the Rapture, the tendency is to diss any thought of ultimate accountability. I’m guessing this whole thing makes the Lord want to pound His head against a wall.

  26. The fundamentalist message:

    I’m telling you all this stuff to make you afraid, yet when you’re afraid I’ll tell you that you have very little faith because you are afraid.

  27. When I was a kid, every year the last sermon before New Year’s was about how God could come back that next year (usually with statements about how He could come back even before New Year’s). Most of the time a Biblical :mrgreen: timeline was given that demonstrated why that year was the perfect year combined with a demonstration of how bad and profane the world had become over the past few years.
    Now I see how strange that was, but back then I had this smug feeling of assurance that God would take care of me, and that everyone else just deserved what they were going to get.

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