Preachers Line Up Against May 21 Leader

Talk about defending the brand: Christian writers are coming down on Harold Camping with the fervor of Disney lawyers quashing a Mickey Mouse painting at a daycare center.

Camping is the self-taught biblical scholar and radio mogul who says the Rapture is happening on Saturday, May 21, at exactly 6 p.m. local time, whatever your local time is. He’s been delivering this prediction for several years, a recalibration from his earlier prediction that the Rapture would happen in 1994. 

He’s been spreading the word via the 66 stations in his Family Radio Network, on his website www.familynetwork.com, and through billboards in several major cities. His prediction is based on some tangled algebra that sets numerical values for concepts such as "atonement" and "completeness," assumes that Jesus was crucified on April 1, 33 AD, and figures that these numbers actually represent something of importance.

Camping has also declared that every church in the world is false. One might expect that mainstream Christians would either dismiss Camping or ignore him. One would be wrong.

From seminaries, pulpits and personal websites, the condemnation of Camping’s prediction is almost universal. Why are they bothering?

“There is some branding differentiation going on, in that traditional Christians would not want to be lumped in with Camping,” said Mara Einstein a media studies professor at Queens University and the author of "Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age."

“You might compare this to most Muslims not wanting to be associated with the 9/11 hijackers — an extreme case, for sure, but in the same vein,” she said. “Another example you might use is the Susan G. Komen [Foundation] going after anyone that uses the term 'for the cure'" when discussing breast cancer.

While the reactions to Camping are accumulating as the predicted date draws nigh, the rebuttals started years ago. The website for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals has a point-by-point response written in 2004 by a pastor and a philosophy professor.

"We had people writing the organization asking for a thorough evaluation of Camping's thought and, being the organization we were, we felt that we ought to provide it,” said Mark Talbot, a philosophy professor at Wheaton College.

The theological equivalent of brand confusion was a factor in choosing to respond, he said. “His exegesis somewhat took the form of better exegesis, if someone didn't know enough to see the differences."