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| Harold Camping | |
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| Born | July 19, 1921 Boulder, CO, U.S. |
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| Occupation | Civil Engineer, Christian author, and television and talk radio personality. |
| Website Family Stations, Inc |
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Harold Egbert Camping 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 teachings of the Bible as the sole and authoritative word of God; of the imminent end of the world,[1] to occur 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 the election of individuals to be saved. A number of his doctrines are considered erroneous by various Christian denominations[3], especially since his doctrine of the "end of the church age" includes the ideas that Christian churches are currently ruled by Satan and that believers should leave the churches and pursue a Christian life through study of the Bible and conducting their lives in accordance with it.[2] Camping does not consider his own movement a church and does not claim ordained or hierarchical authority within a church or institution.
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] 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.[4] [5]
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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]
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, or Internet broadcast.
In 1961, Family Radio began the Open Forum program, a live weeknight call-in program that he 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 programing is broadcast worldwide via shortwave station WYFR, a network of AM and FM radio stations, a cable television station, and the Internet.
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, as stated. 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 publication, We are Almost There!, he states that certain Biblical passages point unquestionably to May 21, 2011 as the date of Rapture, and October 21, 2011 as the end of the world.[6]
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:
Examples of how Camping's teachings vary from past conventional doctrines are:
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.[8]
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.[8]
Camping's Biblical study regarding time and Christ's second coming is based on the cycles of:
He projects these into modern times and combines the results with other information in the Bible.[9][10][11][12]
Camping stated that he had, and that his calculations showed the crucifixion of Christ taking place on April 1, 33 AD.[6].
However, when comparing the events of Christ's childhood with the known times for the reign of Herod the Great, some individuals might speculate that the crucifixion may have taken place in either 29 or 30 AD. According to the Biblical evidence presented in Camping's publications[9], 33 AD is the year of Christ's crucifixion.
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 suggested his publication was "date-setting."[13] Camping's latest 2008 publication, We are Almost There!, provides his, and other individuals', understanding of additional Biblical evidence establishing 2011 as the year in which both the Rapture and the end of the world will occur.
Camping's publication The End of the Church Age and After has also generated controversy.[14][15]