Church Reaches Out to Disappointed Camping Followers

In the wake of Family Radio founder Harold Camping’s failed rapture predictions, unbelievers are mocking and evangelicals are distancing themselves from the sect whose followers traveled around the world renting billboards and motor homes with signs proclaiming the end of the world on May 21. One billboard playfully reproving Camping—a photo of which quickly went viral—was unveiled on May 22, reading, “That was awkward. ‘No one knows the day or the hour'”

But one church, Calvary Bible Church of Milpitas, Calif., was among the first to extend its hand of support and offer counseling to Camping’s followers. Jacob Denys, Calvary’s pastor, led a group to Family Radio headquarters in Oakland, Calif., on May 21 at around 4 p.m., “to reach out to those people who might have bought the lie.” Members held up signs reading “Don’t despair,” “Calvary Bible Church wants to help you” and “Come see us May 22, Sunday, 10 a.m.”

“We are not here to condemn anyone,” Denys said. “We are just here to talk to (them), to let (them) know that false teaching and deception have always been in the church, and even it says it rises within the church. And so we want to help those people who are going to wake up tomorrow, realizing this was a bad dream for them.”

—International Business Times