Oh, yeah, I remember. It was in the Bible. You see, as I detailed in the study "The Time Has Come," Jesus was preaching that God's day of Judgement was coming very soon too. With Judgement Day coming at very soon, what is the point of having possessions? None, really. So just like some of the unfortunate people who are deceived by Mr. Camping, those who were deceived by the early promoters of the Christian Church did likewise. It's true! Check out Acts 2:44-45 and Acts 4:32-37.
And people still ask "what motivation would the early church leaders have had to lie about the Gospel?" Traditionally, people giving you large sums of money for lying has always been good motivator to continue (Acts 4:36-37).
Heck, the early church leaders even created a story to further motivate people to give everything. You'll find that in Acts 5:1-11, where God supposedly kills Ananias and Sapphira for lying about how completely they gave the church. The story stinks of greed, but beyond the supposed greed of Ananias and Sapphira.
Anyway, it seems that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The followers of the early church never saw the Day of Judgement. Generation after generation just continued on. Camping's followers are in the same boat.
However, in a way, Camping's followers are in a better position. They at least have a defined date. They are not going to be strung along forever like the rest of Christianity...
Call me a socialist, but Acts 4:32-37 sounds pretty great to me! We obviously disagree about theology, but I think we might disagree about economics, also. While capitalism has made our country incredibly wealthy, it's hard to overlook the millions who struggle from day to day because they haven't succeeded financially the way others have. The early Christians who sold their possessions and redistributed their money to those in need had the right idea. And it wasn't like communism--they *chose* to give away their wealth.
ReplyDeleteI think you have misunderstood the angle of my dangle, Ollie. I was not making a comment about the act of communal living of the believers being good or bad in and of itself. Actually, I would agree that the arrangement does sound pretty nice overall.
ReplyDeleteWhat I was pointing out was the parallel with the Camping cult. Some Camping cult members have sold their possessions and quit their jobs to focus on spreading the Doomsday word. If you quit bringing in more income, you have to be confident that you have enough funds to survive until the end. Camping's cult clearly does.
In Acts, along with selling their possessions, they were selling their lands. Lands are a means of making additional money, through grazing, through farm field, through orchards, etc. The parallel here is that (consistent with Jesus' message) the end was coming very soon. If that is the case, they would not need to worry about making any more money, as long as they had enough to survive until the end (or as long as they could keep up the chain of people selling all that they had and redistributing the wealth).
Obviously, you would not believe that early believers honestly thought the end was near, but I think you could at least gleam from Scripture why that belief was possible in defense of my argument here. :-)
I would prefer to never again discuss your dangle. [LOL] Yes, I do see the point you were making, and it was indeed a good one.
ReplyDeleteI saw Camping on the news not long ago, incidentally, after his prediction had failed, and his embarrassed, goofy grin all but said, "I love all this attention, but I don't know what to say!"