Monday’s Raptureless Religion News Roundup

“It has been a really tough weekend.” Tracked down at his home in Alameda, Calif., that’s what Harold Camping had to say on Sunday, the day after the earth failed to quake and Jesus failed to meet believers in the air. “I’m looking for answers,” Camping told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I’ll be back to […]

“It has been a really tough weekend.”

Tracked down at his home in Alameda, Calif., that’s what Harold Camping had to say on Sunday, the day after the earth failed to quake and Jesus failed to meet believers in the air.

“I’m looking for answers,” Camping told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I’ll be back to work Monday and will say more then.”


Reaction from the Camping crowd ran from despair to defiance, with some even saying that Judgment Day has indeed come and gone.

Outside the Camping crew, some suggest that the media should don sackcloth and ashes for its role in the Hypeapocalypse. It’s shameful and cruel to laugh at the beliefs of others, TNR said.

I agree that some stories bore cringe-worthy blends of snark and condescension; and that dashed hopes are, at bottom, sad. But the antidote to shoddy journalism is good journalism, not self-censorship.

The Camping Crowd spent hundreds of thousands on billboards and paraded around town squares nationwide, telling one and all that the Rapture was coming on May 21 (in part because of gains in gay rights) and that everyone outside their angelic band was going to hell. All on the word of an 89-year-old civil engineer with a Bible and an abacus.

In fact, a good case could be made that the May 21 stories should have been tougher. A California woman tried to slit her daughters’ throats on Friday because she feared the Tribulation was coming. A man killed himself in 1994 after another of Camping’s failed prophecies. Bank accounts have been drained, reputations ruined and families torn asunder. Point is, Camping’s ideas have human costs, and thus deserve fair but incisive coverage.

Now, in other news.

President Obama tried to ease his tense relationship with American Jews with a speech on Sunday, saying a peace deal with Palestinians must recognize “Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people.”

Reuters reports that prominent Jewish Americans are rethinking their support for Obama’s re-election bid after the president last week called on Israel to return to its 1967 borders.


Chinese security forces have detained about 300 Tibetan monks for a month, according to Reuters. Falun Gong practitioners have filed suit against Cisco Systems, alleging that it provides technology to China that is used to track and persecute the group.

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman says he is, in fact, a Mormon, and doesn’t think his religion will be an issue if he decides to run for president.

Catholic Democrats are asking Archbishop Timothy Dolan to “clarify” comments he made that seem to support the GOP’s 2012 budget plan.

The Catholic Archbishop of Kansas City apologized for not asking the police to conduct an investigation of a priest found with child pornography on his computer. The Dutch Catholic Church and the Salesian order are investigating revelations that a priest served on the board of a group that promotes pedophilia. A former seminarian in Italy was arrested on charges of pimping for a priest accused of sexually assaulting young boys.

Cardinal Wuerl of Washington said the sweeping report on Catholic sex abuse released last week has something to teach all groups that work with children.

Yr hmbl aggregator,

Daniel Burke

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!