Harold Camping - Prophet or Prune?

Following on from one of the comments regarding the prophetic utterances of Harold Camping I thought I'd take a look at the man and see whether he's a force to be taken seriously or a foll who needs to be taken away and locked up.

Well, having read about him, I think he's well qualified to tell us when the rapture is going to happen, after all in 1992 he spake forth, saying:

“The results of this study indicate that the month of September of the year 1994 is to be the time for the end of history” (1994, New York: Vantage Press, p. 531).

He's appears to consider that “The work of the church is finished and that those who remain in the church, during the time of the on-coming “tribulation will be destroyed!" A further word of advice from the chap is that if you find a church where “It appears that each and every doctrine they hold is faithful to the Word of God, it should be avoided!" I find this odd as Jesus speaks of believers being one as He and the Father are one. This being one is called 'Church' and it seems to me that Harold is trying to pull this unity down by the application of a skewed mixture of OT Bible and eschatalogical witterings.

The more I read of the man, his words, and his predictions of the rapture the more I get the feeling that there is something awry with him and his teaching. He's into numerology (nothing wrong with that, it's cleaner and tidier than tea leaves), an inexact and pretty flawed practice when used to discern one's future.

He's also an annihilationist, which does away with the concept of hell (and so eternal separation from God for eternity goes out of the window) and therefore makes him just a little more suspect.

So, when all things are added together, my overall assessment is that he's a:

Mind you, if the Rapture does happens on the twenty-first of May, then I will of course be happy to reconsider that view!

Pax