Thus vindicating Harold Camping.

I, Chaplain Mike, approved this message.

By Chaplain Mike.

Since we’ve been talking about eschatology, the end times, and Jesus’ return lately, we might as well take a look at one of America’s foremost prophetic prognosticators.

You’ve probably heard something about the enthusiasts who think a great catastrophe that might lead to the end of the world will happen in 2012, based on the Mayan calendar, ancient prophecies, and certain natural phenomena that are predicted for that year.

Not so! says Harold Camping, citing a complete lack of Biblical support for the date. Instead, Camping is convinced the rapture will take place on May 11, 2011, and the end of the world on October 21, 2011.

Who is Harold Camping?

Camping, now 88 years old, has studied the Bible seriously for more than 70 years and  is the founder and president of Family Radio, which describes itself as “a nondenominational, noncommercial, nonprofit, listener-supported, 24-hour, Christian ministry.” He was a member of the Christian Reformed Church until 1988. An engineer by trade, Camping has an affinity for numbers and calculations. In 1970 he published “The Biblical Calendar of History,” which set forth an unconventional dating scheme that put Creation at 11,013 BC. In 1992, he predicted that Jesus would return in 1994.

One of his most controversial teachings, based on intricate calculations and interpretations of prophetic Scriptures, is that the “Church Age” has ended, God’s judgment has begun to fall on the churches, and believers should therefore abandon local congregations, study the Bible for themselves (and, of course, listen to Family Radio).

Now, here we go again. According to Harold Camping, we’re just a little more than a year away from the Rapture. How does he figure this? In a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle, he explains. OK, try to follow now:

By Camping’s understanding, the Bible was dictated by God and every word and number carries a spiritual significance. He noticed that particular numbers appeared in the Bible at the same time particular themes are discussed.

The number 5, Camping concluded, equals “atonement.” Ten is “completeness.” Seventeen means “heaven.” Camping patiently explained how he reached his conclusion for May 21, 2011.

“Christ hung on the cross April 1, 33 A.D.,” he began. “Now go to April 1 of 2011 A.D., and that’s 1,978 years.”

Camping then multiplied 1,978 by 365.2422 days – the number of days in each solar year, not to be confused with a calendar year.

Next, Camping noted that April 1 to May 21 encompasses 51 days. Add 51 to the sum of previous multiplication total, and it equals 722,500.

Camping realized that (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17) = 722,500.

Or put into words: (Atonement x Completeness x Heaven), squared.

“Five times 10 times 17 is telling you a story,” Camping said. “It’s the story from the time Christ made payment for your sins until you’re completely saved.

“I tell ya, I just about fell off my chair when I realized that,” Camping said.

How could I possibly have missed that?

Consider this an Internet Monk public service announcement. I don’t want to hear any of you singing, “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” on May 12 next year.

Noted by Chaplain Mike.

I’ve been distracted lately from my reading of Eugene Peterson’s new book, Practice Resurrection, a conversation about spiritual maturity from Ephesians.

Tonight, I came back to it, and found this story. Sublime illustration.

Two friends, Fred and Cheryl, went to Haiti twenty-five years ago to pick up a child they had adopted. Addie was five years old. Her parents had been killed in a traffic accident that left her without a family. As she walked across the tarmac to board the plane, the tiny orphan reached up and slipped her hands into the hands of her new parents whom she had just met. Later they told us of this “birth” moment, how the innocent, fearless trust expressed in that physical act of grasping their hands seemed almost as miraculous as the times their two sons slipped out of the birth canal 15 and 13 years earlier.

That evening, back home in Arizona, they sat down to their first supper together with their new daughter. There was a platter of pork chops and a bowl of mashed potatoes on the table. After the first serving, the two teenage boys kept refilling their plates. Soon the pork chops had disappeared and the potatoes were gone. Addie had never seen so much food on one table in her whole life. Her eyes were big as she watched her new brothers, Thatcher and Graham, satisfy their ravenous teenage appetites.

Fred and Cheryl noticed that Addie had become very quiet and realized that something was wrong—agitation…bewilderment…insecurity? Cheryl guessed that it was the disappearing food. She suspected that because Addie had grown up hungry, when food was gone from the table she might be thinking would be a day or more before there was more to eat. Cheryl had guessed right. She took Addie’s hand and led her to the bread drawer and pulled it out, showing her a back-up of three loaves. She took her to the refrigerator, opened the door, and showed her the bottles of milk and orange juice, the fresh vegetables, jars of jelly and jam and peanut butter, a carton of eggs, and a package of bacon. She took her to the pantry with its bins of potatoes, onions, and squash, and the shelves of canned goods—tomatoes and peaches and pickles. She opened the freezer and showed Addie three or four chickens, a few packages of fish, and two cartons of ice cream. All the time she was reassuring Addie that there was lots of food in the house, that no matter how much Thatcher and Graham ate and how fast they ate it, there was a lot more where that came from, she would never go hungry again.

Cheryl didn’t just tell her that she would never go hungry again. She showed her what was in those drawers and behind those doors, named the meats and vegetables, placed them in her hands. It was enough. Food was there, whether she could see it or not. Her brothers were no longer rivals at the table. She was home. She would never go hungry again.

My wife and I were told that story twenty-five years ago. Ever since, whenever I read and pray this prayer of Paul’s [Eph 3:14-21], I think of Cheryl gently leading Addie by the hand through a food tour of the kitchen and pantry, reassuring her of the “boundless riches” (Eph 3:8) and “all the fullness” (3:19) inherent in the household in which she now lives.

Practicing the Resurrection, pp. 159-160

And that’s how a pastor teaches and illustrates the Scriptures.

From iMonk in March, 2009. Replayed by Chaplain Mike.

David Wilkerson (Cross and the Switchblade, Times Square Church) is predicting a world changing disaster, and advises that you dust off those cans of Spam you still have from Y2k. It’s getting serious coverage by the unhinged conservative media.

I wrote about Evangelical anxiety about the end of the world in the “Evangelical Anxieties” series in February of 07. Not only have I not changed my mind, I’m more bothered by this than ever.

If eschatology were a multiple choice question, with answers like this:

a) be Christ centered
b) proclaim the Gospel
c) do missions and evangelism
d) look forward to the new heaven and the new earth
e) be idiots

…guess what a large chunk of Evangelicalism would choose?

Evangelicals really can’t get enough of this stuff. Wilkerson- and a thousand other end times prophets like Kim CLement- have predicted similar events before. The “end of the world” section of the bookstore is only the front end of the “end of the world warehouse” that stores all the books that have been predicting the end of the world as long as evangelical authors could find a pen.

In no other area of Christian belief are Evangelicals more irresponsible and bizarrely repetitive. If doing the same thing, over and over and over again with no result, qualifies as a form of mental illness, then we can fill up an entire chain of hospitals. We’re talking about people who will take their eschatology and turn it into a VIDEO GAME here.

The Bible is obviously too simple for Evangelicals at this point. The instincts of some Christians tell them that it never can just mean what it says. So when Jesus says “no one knows, not even the Son,” or “don’t believe people who say they know,” it actually means “Oh yeah, we can know ALL about future events. Just get the right teacher with a big chart and you’re in there.”

Maybe it’s the fact that weird eschatology is the closest thing Christianity has to the kind of material that shows up on the Sci-Fi channel late at night. Bad acting. Cheap special effects. Teenagers caught having sex. Maybe rapture anxiety just plays like a bad B-movie, so Evangelicals get it.

The history of Christian apocalyticism is a story in and of itself. I recommend Jason Boyett’s Pocket Guide To The Apocalypse. Seriously. Get it. Good book with lots of humor and even more information.

I am never more envious of Catholics/Orthodox than on the subjects of evolution and eschatology. Catholics simply don’t lose their minds over this sort of thing. The catechism is calm. If the pope has anything to say about the end of the world, it must be edited out. You’d never hear Benedict going on like Tim Lahaye. (Too bad Art Bell isn’t on Christian radio.)

I’m sure Catholics and Orthodox have their hysterical eschatology committees like every other religion, and I’m sure Fr. So and So is out there in the road with a placard proclaiming the end, but you just get the impression that Catholics are in the “it will all work out” camp, and they aren’t going to get in the bunker with Ned Flanders. Have a beer. Go to a Barbeque. Don’t start screaming. No one likes a religion with people screaming.

Evangelicals don’t seem to blink when they realize that the business of various apocalyptic scenarios is making millions of dollars for people convinced it’s all about to be over. They don’t mind that the people making these prophecies either abuse, don’t use, or no longer need to use a Bible. No, from Thief in the Night to 89 Reasons Christ Will Return in 1989, we just keep on keepin’ on.

My evangelical students read Left Behind with far more interest than they read scripture. If everyone who read Left Behind read ONE other decent Christian book, a Great Awakening would arrive. My students also assume that all Christians buy into this approach to the future. I haven’t met one yet, in 17 years, that has a pastor who even sent clue one that we might not be on the verge of the great tribulation because the stock market is zonked. Judgment house. Hell house. Rapture house. We really need an amusement park to get the whole show together.

Does it occur to most Evangelicals that their brothers and sisters around the world sort of LIVE in the Apocalypse? If we have a Columbine or a Katrina, John Hagee is on TV the next night with a chart so big you can see it behind him. Meanwhile, in Sudan, it’s all just another day at the office.

Americans are afraid of the end. They are afraid of losing their life here. They don’t want II Thessalonians 1 to happen. They want to keep running up their credit cards and driving the leased SUV.

Kingdom? New world? End of old world? Resurrection? Christ all in all?

Missional hope? Reach the nations? Gospel to every people group? Bible in every language?

Don’t be bothered by earthquakes, rumors of wars, bank collapses, elections, etc?

Nah. Put in the next Left Behind movie. The one where Kirk Cameron sings “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” to Carpathia.

[Comment ideas: 1) Catholics and Orthodox are allowed one comment to make fun of evangelicals. 2) What's your best story about Evangelicals and Apocalypse fever?]

The Middle East is front page news again this week, and agreement and peace are nowhere in sight. Watch the following video and get a whole new angle on the story.

Is this man and the movement he represents the ones you want influencing the Prime Minister of Israel and U.S. policy in the Middle East? It’s happening.

Pastor Hagee in Jerusalem 3/8/10 (Part II) from Max J Blumenthal on Vimeo.

Here’s a Jewish report and opinion on the “new breed of Christian Zionists” who are not content to wait on God’s timing to see the future come to pass, but who feel that they are divinely called to move the hands of the prophetic clock: http://zeek.forward.com/articles/116518/.

Culture war Christianity was scary enough, and IMHO, deeply harmful to the true cause of Christ in the world. What shall we say about this radical combination of prosperity gospel and dispensationalism being applied to foreign policy?

I say it’s ludicrous theology, and dangerous intervention by careless zealots.

A word from Chaplain Mike.

Friend of Internet Monk, Michael Buckley, has graciously offered to auction some of his art pieces as a way of raising some funds to support Michael Spencer with his medical bills and needs at this time.

Michael is the artist who did the banner art for the masthead on the IM website.

Here is a good way to get some nice art for yourself while helping a friend.

Click on the picture next to the “Donate” link on the right side of the page. You will be able to preview the art on Michael’s Flickr page.

Thanks for your support!

By Chaplain Mike

OK, so I’m out driving in the country today, on my way home from seeing a patient, minding my own business. I come around a corner where a large Baptist church sits. It’s known as a conservative, no nonsense, indeeeeeependent funnnndamental King James ONLY church.

Been there, done that. I’m a million miles away from that culture now. I’ve forgotten what it’s like.

Until I see the church sign.

Of all the verses in the Bible to pick…

And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.

Come again?

You did not put that verse on your church sign, did you?

Wow.

A classic IM post by Michael Spencer (4/07), presented by Chaplain Mike.

Every time I feel like I have lost my way in the Christian life, I find myself back looking at monasticism, and the lessons I learned in two decades of reading Thomas Merton.

I’m not attracted to Catholicism, but I am very much attracted to the tradition of self-conscious, disciplined spiritual formation into a disciple of Jesus Christ. This is a great failing of our side of the church.

As much as we Protestants talk about being shaped by the Bible alone, most evangelicals are thoroughly formed and shaped by the communities where the Bible is handled, taught and practiced according to a “rule” or accepted authority, and by the media that supports and communicates the values of that community.

It is, without a doubt, one of the most appealing and positive aspects of Catholicism that it is self-conscious about its “rules” and authorities for spiritual formation. (Rule as in “way,” as in The Rule of Benedict.) It surely must be humorous to knowledgeable catholics to look at the various sects, denominations and varieties of evangelicalism and fundamentalism, all claiming to “just read the Bible.”

For a large portion of my recent evangelical journey, I have found myself wandering between three varieties of evangelicalism:

1) Southern Baptist fundamentalism
2) Evangelical Calvinism
3) Generic contemporary evangelical revivalism

All of these communities could be characterized as shaping the spiritualities of believers according to largely unwritten rules and authorities.

The closest thing you get to self-conscious spiritual formation among most evangelicals: Jabez, PDL, or an evangelism course. Or a cruise.

It’s occurred to me that at least two of these streams have done much to shape me in the belief that pursuing polemic argument is a primary expression of discipleship. I have been affected by this kind of spiritual “rule,” and when I step away from it, the effects are very obvious.

Lots of time is taken up in finding error, pointing out error, justifying the seriousness of the error (even if it is in a non-essential area), and responding to the error with the proper arrangement of Biblical material.

It’s amazing how many Christians conceive of almost the entirety of discipleship in terms of argumentation. This is seen in the pastoral models they choose, the books/blogs they write and the spiritual activities they value most (debate and classroom lecture.)

These largely unarticulated forms of spiritual formation can be seen in what is not important. I note with interest that one simply cannot say enough bad about most kinds of contemplative prayer, and any sort of silence among many of the reformed particularly. Any kind of intentional approach to spiritual formation, and any kind of intentional approach to discipleship (Dallas Willard, for example) is undertaken amidst a barrage of criticism. If the imagination is mentioned, all fire alarms are pulled and a search for Oprah Winfrey ensues.

Me thinks the lady doth protest too much.

The “fully formed” Christian in these traditions is not a person of silence, but of much talking, talking and more talking. Worship is lecture, a rally, or an emotion-centered event. The primary encounter with the Bible is exposition and lecture. Correcting theological error, moral error and ecclesiastical error is the main business of the church.

In other forms of evangelicalism spiritual formation is done under the guise of church growth and using ones “gifts” to grow the church. Or perhaps in the cause of righteous, upright living in the culture war. Again, the kinds of prayer, worship, community life and worship that are generated by these priorities are obvious to most observers, but largely invisible to the participants.

In all the years I was reading Merton’s spiritual direction writings, I can’t recall anything I would call polemic of any kind. He simply didn’t waste his life arguing with others. He read scripture constantly, but as the stuff of prayer, liturgy and meditation, not as the raw material for debate. He went through the “political years” when he was critical of his church for not living up to his standards of peacemaking and justice, but in the end it was the ancient life, the deep life of monastic rhythms that sustained Merton and made him a man and a monk. He worked on himself for a lifetime. Some will say because he didn’t believe in the reformation doctrine of justification. Perhaps. Maybe, however, the path of personal spiritual formation isn’t as instant, passive or automatic as we’ve been told.

I’m not holding Merton up as an ideal. Far from it. I’m simply saying that when one’s spirituality is formed by the pronouncements of pastors who are constantly chasing church growth, the culture war or the latest challenge to Calvinism, you are going to get one result, and when you go back to the sources, find the value of the ancient paths of formation, value silence, read, meditate, contemplate and seek to grow in love, you will get another result.

I can’t help but think there is an “internet Christian” spirituality as well. Formed by reading blogs. Expressing itself in writing. Concerned with all the perceptions of reality that run rampant on the net. I’m sure this isn’t a good thing either.

Spiritual formation happens in the real world. It’s not just reading, but it’s discussion and asking questions of those further down the road. It’s having leaders who are humble before the Word, and not leaders who take the word and become the pictures of arrogance. It’s seeing your sin in the light of holiness, not excusing your sin in the light of the latest crisis.

Much evangelical spirituality has become like fantasy baseball. We have our own league, our own team, our own statistics, our own insulated world in which all of this matters. We can give great speeches and write long posts (and I am the chief of sinners here) on what doesn’t matter much at all. These days, we don’t all get our 15 minutes of fame, but we can all worship a pastor, go to a winning church, opine on a blog, imagine our arguments are significant in the world.

Meanwhile, we start to look and act more like a fantasy league junky, and fewer and fewer people have any idea what we are talking about.

Here’s where I have come out on this:

Get the devotional books out. The old ones.

Read Peterson, and Nouwen, and Groeshel, and Bonhoeffer and Whitney. With a group of others who care about the same things.

Turn it all off for a couple of hours every day.

Find the silence.

Chew up, meditate over, digest the scriptures.

Repent of living in the community of unaware evangelicals who devalue spirituality and overvalue polemic, argument and debate.

Look for the sins that grow in this mess, and root them up.

By Chaplain Mike.

In addition to the practice of “long wandering prayer” to which David Hansen introduced me, I find keeping set times of “saying my prayers” important.

For much of my pastoral career, I found that people in evangelical churches avoided, disdained, and even spoke against set forms of prayer. It has heartened me to see a revival of interest in using such forms in recent years, as many have rediscovered the ancient practices, such as praying the liturgy of the hours.

A couple of articles on Internet Monk encouraged me to buy a set of prayer beads (see My Gear, part one and My Gear, part two). I did some searching on the web to find out various ways of using them, and then began to settle on a routine (which I follow as consistently as this lazy, undisciplined man is capable of).

When I go to bed at night, I use the beads to say the Gloria Patri, the Creed, the Beatitudes, Psalm 23, the Lord’s Prayer, the Jesus Prayer, and other scriptures and set prayers. I reserve the final set of beads to utter petitions for myself, my family, my friends, and others that come to mind. And here is what I pray:

• Lord, establish [us] in life

• And Lord, establish [us] in faith

• And Lord, establish [us] in virtue

• And Lord, be to [us] a very present help in times of trouble

• And Lord, help [us] to trust in you with a whole heart, to lean not on [our] own understanding, but in all [our] ways to know you, that you may make [our] paths straight.

This is my prayer for all of you. The Lord be with you.

From Chaplain Mike.

David Hansen has been one of my surest pastoral guides. His book, The Art of Pastoring: Ministry without All the Answers, is in my view one of the wisest manuals for contemplative ministry available, especially for those in smaller churches.

Today, I want to highlight the main concept in another of Hansen’s books, Long Wandering Prayer: An Invitation to Walk with God.

I write this primarily in the light of what our friend Michael Spencer is going through these days, and the inevitable questions that arise about how to pray when we find ourselves facing such circumstances.

Whether you are thinking of Michael, or facing some overwhelming situation in your own life, if you are anything like me, you may be finding it hard to know how to talk to God at a time like this.

Let me introduce you to Hansen’s approach to prayer; one that I find utterly human, authentic, and true to life as it really is.

“Long wandering prayer,” Hansen calls it.

Long wandering prayer involves leaving our normal environment for the express purpose of spending many hours alone with God. It involves walking, or at least moving, and stopping whenever we want, to consider a lily for as long as we desire. Long wandering prayer uses the fact that our minds wander as an advantage to prayer rather than as a disadvantage. In long wandering prayer we recognize that what we want to pray about may not be what God wants us to pray about. Our obsessive drive to control our minds in the presence of God, that is, to pray about one thing or stick to one list, may be a form of hiding from God. In this kind of prayer we recognize the wandering mind as a precious resource for complex and startling dialogue with God.

Pastor Hansen’s “method” grew out of his own experience in ministry, spending long periods of time skateboarding as a youth pastor, taking long walks through snowstorms and down tree-lined lanes in New England, hiking through open lands in Montana and fly-fishing in its rivers and streams, chasing a golf ball on fairways in the Midwest—all the while, thinking about life and ministry, having conversation with God, working through the matters wandering around in his mind.

My morning devotions are a matter of discipline. My long prayers are a matter of appetite. I don’t pray all day unless I want to. I go out and pray long when I am thirsty for God. I pray all day when I need to exchange my anxious thoughts for the peace that passes understanding, when I want to know the truth that sets free, when I am out on a limb and the branch is cracking, when I feel lonely and I want the presence of the Beloved. The Spirit creates the desire in my soul, and I follow my will. God’s open ear is irresistible to me because he has given me a new heart. God’s Spirit speaks to my new heart, compelling me to pray lengthy, bitter prayers of repentance for the old Adam still at work within me. One day of prayer sounds like a psalm of praise, another sounds like Romans 7. Most days sound like a little of both.

Speaking of psalms, it is in the Book of Psalms that David Hansen finds the best examples of this kind of prayer. Observing the variety of emotions that may run through a single psalm, and the way a psalmist may address God, himself, his friends, and his enemies all in one composition, he concludes:

Obviously psalm praying is much more than just talking to God in the second person singular. Psalm praying appears to be a running inner dialogue in the presence of God. Many of the psalms appear to be poetic compositions of hours alone wrestling with God and self and even with enemies and loved ones.

The world is obviously no friend to grace when it comes to prayer and contemplation like this. It requires that we let go of deeply ingrained cultural biases toward activism, self-management, productivity, and efficiency. We must refuse to short-circuit the process of relating to God through extended, in-depth conversation that involves listening, questioning, pondering, wondering, speculating, expressing opinions and feelings, arguing, confessing, disputing, and coming to agreement.

There is so much more to be said. May God use promptings like those in Hansen’s book to raise up a whole generation of contemplatives, who truly walk with God in extended conversation—long wandering prayer.