Harold Camping

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Harold Camping
Born	July 19, 1921 (1921-07-19) (age 88) Boulder, Colorado, United States
Occupation	Civil engineer, Christian author, and television and talk radio personality.
Website Family Stations, Inc

Harold Egbert Camping (born July 19, 1921) is an American radio and television broadcast host teaching an interpretation of Biblical and Christian doctrines.^[1] He is also the president of Family Stations, Inc., a California-based ministry with worldwide broadcast facilities, including more than 150 outlets in the United States,^[1] as well a Web site.

He is known especially for his distinctive voice and his particular teachings.^[1] Camping teaches the Bible as the sole and authoritative word of God; of the imminent end of the world (his most recent prediction has the world ending on October 21 in the year 2011); of the "end of the church age" (which asserts that churches are no longer the vehicle of God for salvation);^[2] and of predestination, according to which God determined before the beginning of the world which individuals are to be saved.

A number of his doctrines are considered erroneous by various Christian denominations,^[3] Camping does not consider his own movement a church and does not claim ordained or hierarchical authority within a church or institution. Camping, however, does not give his critics much credence and believes the bible manifestly states that the end of times will occur at 2011. However, his critics retort that he had also predicted the end was near by 1994^[4].

Harold Camping came from a Dutch Reformed Church background and owned a construction company before founding Family Stations, Inc. (also informally known as "Family Radio") in 1958.^[1] KEAR, San Francisco, was the first Family Station. Richard "Dick" Palmquist met with Camping in April 1958, persuading Camping to help support fundraising efforts to raise the $20,000 down payment on that station.^[5] Family Stations, Inc. began obtaining FM licenses on commercial frequencies before many Americans owned FM radios and now has affiliates in the New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore/Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco radio markets which are on prime commercial frequencies.^[6][7]

Contents 1 Biography 2 Family Radio 2.1 Camping's distinctive voice 2.2 Family Radio's programming 3 Teachings & Beliefs 4 Calendar of History 5 Controversy 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Biography

Camping was born in Colorado and moved at an early age to California. He earned a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley (1942).^[1] He and his family were members of the Christian Reformed Church until the year 1988. During this time he served as an Elder and Sunday school teacher at the Alameda Bible Fellowship. Camping earned his living from his own construction business, Camping Construction, which he began shortly after the end of World War II. In 1958, together with two others, he formed the non-profit ministry of Family Stations, Inc. (Family Radio - a Christian educational network) in which he has served as President.^[1] Eventually he sold his business and became a full-time volunteer executive of Family Radio, serving without pay as President and General Manager.^[1]

[edit] Family Radio

[edit] Camping's distinctive voice

Camping's trademarks include his deep, sonorous voice coupled with a slow cadence. He runs many religious programs on his radio station. These programs can be heard by radio, satellite, television, short wave and Internet broadcasts.

[edit] Family Radio's programming

In 1961, Family Radio began the Open Forum program, a live weeknight call-in program that Mr. Camping hosts.^[1] Listeners call in primarily with questions about the meaning of certain passages from the Bible, and Camping answers them by means of interpretations, often with reference to other Biblical passages. Occasionally the questions pertain to general Christian doctrine, such as the nature of sin and salvation, and to matters of everyday life conduct, such as marriage, sexual morality, and education.^[1] This program has continued to the present time and is broadcast on the more than 150 stations owned by Family Radio in the U.S. The Open Forum is also translated into many foreign languages and together with other Family Radio programming is broadcast worldwide via shortwave station WYFR, a network of AM and FM radio stations, a cable television station, and the Internet.

His organization also utilizes numerous low power television signals, for example WFME-TV digital television channel 66 in the New York City area. As of April, 2009, that transmitter has been configured to send out ten separate sub channels, with the first (66-1) carrying the main video at a low quality 480i, the second and third (66-2 and 66-3) sending out a blank video image and, respectively, carrying the audio of "Family Radio East" and "Family Radio West". The other seven have no video and are a mix of different audio content, mostly of a religious nature, and NOAA Weather Radio on 66-9.

[edit] Teachings & Beliefs

Central to Camping's teaching is the belief that the Bible is the Word of God and completely true. However, he emphasizes, this does not mean that each sentence in the Bible is to be understood only literally. Rather, the meaning of individual Biblical passages also needs to be interpreted in the light of two factors. The first is the context of the Bible as a whole. The second is its spiritual meaning: in Camping's words, "the Bible is an earthly story with a Heavenly meaning." In Camping's latest publications, We are Almost There! and To God be the Glory, he states that certain Biblical passages point unquestionably to May 21, 2011 as the date of the Rapture, and October 21, 2011 for the end of the world.^[8] Some people point to Camping as a "date-setter" following his own method of Biblical interpretation. Camping maintains that he follows the Bible's method of Biblical interpretation.^[9]

Since leaving the Reformed Church in 1988, Camping has taught doctrines that may conflict with doctrines of the Reformed Church and other church denominations. The principles of Biblical hermeneutics upon which Camping frames his present teachings are:

1. The Bible alone is the Word of God.
2. Every Biblical passage must be interpreted in the light of the Bible as a whole.
3. The Bible normally conveys multiple levels of meaning or significance.^[10]

Examples of how Camping's teachings vary from conventional doctrines are:

• Departing from Calvinist doctrine, Camping teaches relative free will of humanity, and that humans are not totally depraved.^[11] However, he subscribes to the idea that salvation is unmerited, cannot be achieved by good works or prayer, and is a pure act of God's grace.
• Departing from the doctrine of eternal torment for the unsaved in a place called Hell, Camping teaches annihilationism; that life will end and existence will cease for the unsaved soul.^[12]
• Departing from doctrines stating no one can know the time of Christ's second coming, he teaches that the exact times of the Rapture and the End of the World are to be revealed sometime towards the end of time: (Daniel 12:9-13) prophecy.
• Camping teaches that all churches have become apostate and thus must be abandoned. In the place of church he encourages personal Bible study and listening to his Family Radio broadcasts.

[edit] Calendar of History

In 1970, Camping published The Biblical Calendar of History in which, by some unconventional calculations, he dated the Creation of the world to the year 11,013 BC and the Flood to 4990 BC. This was in stark contrast to Bishop James Ussher's popular chronology, which placed creation at 4004 BC and the Flood at 2348 BC. Camping argued that Ussher's dates "agree neither with the Biblical nor the secular evidence" and thus Ussher's methodology was flawed.^[13]

Camping reasoned that "begat" did not necessarily imply an immediate father-son relationship, as was assumed by Ussher. Camping noted the use of the phrase "called his name" (Hebrew qara'), found three times in Genesis 4-5, which he characterized as a "clue phrase" to indicate an immediate father-son relationship.^[13]

[edit] Controversy

Camping's Biblical study regarding time and Christ's second coming is based on the cycles of:

• Jewish feast days in the Hebrew calendar, as described in the Old Testament,
• the lunar month calendar (1 month = 29.53059 days), and
• the Gregorian calendar (1 year = 365.2422 days).

He projects these into modern times and combines the results with other information in the Bible.^{[14][15][16][17]}

Camping calculates that the crucifixion of Christ took place on April 1, 33 AD.^[8][14] However, when comparing the events of Christ's childhood with the known times for the reign of Herod the Great, some individuals speculate that the crucifixion took place in either 29 or 30 AD.

In 1992, Camping published a book titled 1994?, in which he proclaimed that Christ's return might be on September 6, 1994. In that publication, he also mentioned 2011 could be the end. As a result, some individuals criticize his publication for "date-setting."^[18] Camping's latest publications, We are Almost There! and To God be The Glory, provides his, and other individuals', understanding of additional Biblical evidence establishing May 21, 2011 as the date for the Rapture and October 21, 2011 as the date for the end of the world.

Camping's publication The End of the Church Age and After has also generated controversy.^[19][20]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Harold Camping biography at Family Radio official website
• Harold Camping's publications at Family Radio