As the end of the world is predicted for the second time this year, an expert has explained why so many people choose to believe the claims.
Harold Camping, leader of Family Radio Worldwide, was left a laughing stock after claiming “the Rapture” would happen on May 21.
The 90-year-old retired civil engineer from Oakland, California, was adamant he had got it right, despite already having made a failed prediction in 1994.
And then he predicted the real end of the world was to come on Friday.
After the failed prediction he said that on May 21 Christ did put all of the “unsaved” into judgement, but “that universal judgment will not be physically seen until the last day of the five month judgement period, on October 21, 2011”.
Once his prediction did not come true, an Oxford University academic has explored the world of premillennial Rapture movements such as Camping’s, in a bid to shed light on why the claims are believed by so many.
Premillennialism is the view that at the second coming of Christ, living saints are raptured and dead saints are raised from the dead
Anbara Khalidi, from Oxford University’s Faculty of Theology, studied the Left Behind series of novels to find out why people choose to believe in The Rapture.
Her studies suggest premillenial movements that preach the coming of the Rapture use media to play on human fears, and over the last 50 years people’s removal from the process of dying means such predictions are more effective and common.
“Considering the blanket media coverage of Camping’s last prediction and that even The Simpsons have been Raptured, there is no doubt that premillennialism has entered mainstream consciousness,” she said.
“Nowhere is this clearer than in the Left Behind series, written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B Jenkins, novels which have sold over 63 million copies in 25 languages since 1995. “The books play on the most basic of human fears and anxieties, manipulating our horror of bodily corruption with gory images like people’s eyes popping out, then reassuring the reader that to avoid this happening to them, they need only believe in the Rapture.”
People have been predicting the Rapture since the 1600s, using various forms of numerology, and such predictions have become more salient because of the movements’ use of the media, she said.
“Even though much of the media commentary on Camping’s prediction was gently mocking him, it nonetheless established the subject as a mainstream topic of discussion.
“Premillennial movements have also effectively used the internet and publications to get their message across.” She said such movements had developed an “alternate world “I have met lots of American Rapture believers who were perfectly nice and normal, and it should be remembered that their aim is to save people from going to hell, so we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss them.
“Their belief system is quite coherent and, after all, belief in the end of the world is a commonly held Christian belief.
“This alternate world of premillennialism holds academic conferences, meetings and hosts chairs at Evangelical universities.