Harold Camping Oct. 21 Rapture: God Stopped Saving People in May, Family Radio Says By Nicola Menzie

Family Radio says if you weren’t among those who were saved by May 21, the date of Harold Camping‘s Rapture prediction, then it’s too late.

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  (Photo: AP Images)
  Harold Camping speaks while holding the Bible during his live television broadcast, Dec. 12, 2002, in San Leandro, Calif.

When its general manager Camping made a doomsday prediction back in May that was a “physical” failure, Family Radio informed the world that God actually used the much-publicized event “to warn the whole world that on May 21 [His] salvation program would be finished on that day.”

According to Camping and Family Radio, the whole world has been “under God’s judgment” since May 21. Everyone, except for the elect, or “true believers,” has been hanging under God’s wrath, which will unfold on Oct. 21.

God was only trying to shake up the world when He “hid” His actual plans from Camping, Family Radio purports in a document published on its website titled “What Happened on May 21?”

Although observers and critics agree that what happened on May 21 was Camping actually proving himself once more to be a poor student of the Bible, the California broadcaster insists that he still had it right, but that God had not been very forthcoming with sharing His judgment plans.

The Family Radio document claims that, to get the world’s attention, “God withheld from the true believers the way in which two phrases were to be understood. Had He not done so, the world would never have been shaken in fear as it was.”

 

The two phrases Family Radio refers to are “the completion of God’s salvation program” and “God’s final judgment.”

Speaking rather unclearly for God, Family Radio explains that the completion of “God’s salvation plan” is concentrated in the word “rapture” and that the phrase “God’s final judgment” is concentrated in the word “earthquake.”

Without explaining its hermeneutics or offering an examination of the original Greek usage of the words “rapture” and “earthquake,” something Bible teachers might do, Family Radio insists that all one needs is a “critical” understanding of “rapture” and “earthquake” to understand why Camping’s doom and gloom May 21 predictions were dead wrong.

In providing that “critical” understanding, Family Radio explains that “earthquake” can also mean “people,” so people, instead of the earth, were shaken on May 21. As for “rapture,” God is no longer in the business of saving people, Family Radio states simply.

The unsaved were not plunged into hell and believers raptured on May 21 because Camping and Family Radio did not understand what God was doing. Now that they do, unbelievers will enter into eternal punishment and believers into eternal bliss on Oct. 21 – because God has finally opened up the Scripture a little more for Camping.

On May 21, “each and every true believer had become eternally safe with God in Heaven” and “no one who had not become saved by that date can ever become saved.”

Instead of a “horrible destruction” of the unsaved, as previously explained, unrepentant sinners can now expect to go “quietly” into eternal damnation, according to a September audio message from Camping.

Camping has revealed that he now believes “that all of our unsaved loved ones will not receive special vengeance of God at all. … We must believe that probably there will be no pain suffered by anyone because of their rebellion against God.”

The 90-year-old California broadcaster added that he found it comforting that the unsaved will “quietly die.”

If Camping and Family Radio and their supporters hand not “warned” the world of God’s impending doom, more people would not have been saved by May 21.

Those who came to belief in Jesus Christ after May 21, however, are out of God’s good graces, according to Camping. The period of salvation is over, so any new believers with genuine faith in Jesus Christ are essentially damned, based on Family Radio’s explanation.

While it purports that “only God knows who His elect are that He saved prior to May 21, Family Radio insists that “anyone can continue to beseech God for mercy because salvation and the election program are entirely in God’s hands.”

Family Radio closes its explanation of Camping’s failed May 21 prediction by noting, “You, too, without your knowledge may have become saved before that date.”

http://www.christianpost.com/news/harold-camping-oct-21-rapture-god-stopped-saving-people-in-may-family-radio-says-58476/

One in Four Believers Are ‘Christians in Name Only,’ According to Survey By Allison Summers

Changing the Face of Christianity Inc., a non-profit corporation dedicated to reversing negative Christian stereotypes, has released the results of a quiz designed to determine how well Christians live the teachings of Jesus Christ. Through the quiz, the organization found that one in four self-proclaimed Christians admit that they do not live according to Christ‘s teachings.

The anonymous assessment consisted of 10 multiple choice questions that returned a score to the participant at the end, which then indicated to that participant if he was ‘Far from Christ,” a “Worldly Christian,” “A Good Christian,” or a “Spiritually Mature Christian,” which was the highest rank possible.

The responses, which were collected over a seven-month period from January 2011 to July 2011, indicated that 23.7 percent of Christians in the pool of over 2,000 questioned were classified as “Worldly Christians” or Christians in name only, as defined by R. Brad White, the founder of Changing the Face of Christianity Inc.

“When posed with a real world situation which tests their faith, they tend to do what the rest of the world does, instead of living as Jesus instructs,” White said about “Worldly Christians.”

“To be clear, these aren’t ‘bad’ people. The score results suggest they think much more about themselves than they think about God and other people. Reading the Bible and praying aren’t a common practice. These are people that you would probably be surprised to find are Christian, if it weren’t for the cross around their neck. These people are in the sweet spot of where we need to do our work. We are here to walk along side them, love them, educate them, mentor them, and guide them into living their faith through their words and actions.”

White said this is the group his organization is particularly eager to help to put them back on the path to righteousness.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/one-in-four-believers-are-christians-in-name-only-according-to-survey-58496/

Open Doors USA: Extremists Want to Eliminate Christians From Iraq By Alex Murashko

SANTA ANA, Calif. – Ongoing violence against Christians in Iraq has produced an accelerated exodus of believers recently and numbering in the hundreds of thousands over the last 10 years, said Open Doors USA officials.

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  (Photo: REUTERS / Ako Rasheed)
  A man stands among debris inside a church after a bomb attack in central Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad August 2, 2011. A car bomb and two attempted bombs targeted three churches in northern Iraq on Tuesday in coordinated attacks that wounded at least 16 people in the ethnically and religiously mixed city of Kirkuk, a senior police official said.

Members of the Orange County, Calif.-based organization that provides help to persecuted believers in Jesus worldwide say that while the world’s attention has shifted to such countries as Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the mass movement of Christians in Iraq continues unabated.

Before the Gulf War in 1991, the number of Christians was about one million, stated Open Doors in a news release. “That number fell to an estimated 850,000 in 2003 at the start of the U.S.-led invasion that ended the Saddam Hussein regime. Since then the numbers have plummeted.

“At the beginning of the summer, Open Doors estimated the number of Christians remaining in Iraq at 345,000. However, the number decreases every month,” officials stated.

“It is an estimation; some even think there are less Christians left in the country than that,” another Open Doors member said.

Bassam Isho, 30, who was killed by unknown gunmen on Oct. 1 is considered a martyr by Christians in Mosul. The gunmen entered the restaurant where Isho worked and opened fire, killing him instantly, according to Open Doors.

 

During the same week, two more Christians were killed in Kirkuk. It is this type of violence, including the continuing harassment from Muslim extremists that has many Christians in Iraq seeking refuge.

“Iraqi Christians feel that the government fails to give them the security and freedom to worship in peace,” Open Doors USA spokesman Jerry Dykstra told The Christian Post. “Countless Christians have been threatened, robbed, raped, kidnapped or killed.”

“I think we need to pray that the Christians who have fled the country or live in the Kurdish area can come back home in the near future – with complete freedom of religion,” Dykstra said. “We need to keep the pressure on the U.S. government to speak out for minority faith groups in Iraq. Just because the U.S. troops are leaving, does not mean we can ignore the ongoing violence and lack of protection of Christians inside Iraq.”

The anniversary of one of the bloodiest attacks on the country’s dwindling Christian community is on Oct. 31, Dykstra said. Last year, 58 people were killed when Islamic extremists assaulted a Syrian Catholic Church in Baghdad.

“The attacks on Christians continue and the world remains totally silent. It’s as if we’ve been swallowed up by the night,” AsiaNews quotes one anonymous Christian as saying.

Dr. Carl Moeller, Open Doors USA President/CEO, has labeled the attacks against Christians in Iraq as “religicide.”

“Christians in cities like Baghdad and Mosul are gripped by terrorism. They are fleeing in droves. Their families are threatened. Extremists want to eliminate Christians from Iraq,” Moeller said.

Christians are leaving the south and center of the country and attempting to build new lives in the far north, according to Open Doors.

“But today not only are Christians fleeing from the far southern cities of Baghdad and Basra, they also are moving from the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul that not long ago had large Christian communities,” Open Doors officials state. “The Iraqis who leave their cities often flee to the relatively secure and most northern Kurdish part of Iraq. That’s why a vast majority of Iraqi Christians now live in this part of the country. Many of them are now Internally Displaced Persons.”

Open Doors estimates the number of IDP to be at least 186,000.

The number of Christians moving into the Kurdish areas such as Ankawa is growing, but they are also struggling with the effects of displacement. Loss of income, high unemployment, adequate housing, schooling for children, and medical care are some of the problems coming as the result of the exodus into new areas.

“Because many of the Iraqi Christians that have fled Mosul or Baghdad speak Arabic, they often have no access to a Christian community that speaks their language as in the north traditional Chaldean or Assyrian languages are spoken,” said an Open Doors worker who is a specialist on Iraq.

Open Doors helps train Iraqi church leaders, including methods of delivering Bibles and Christian literature to the Christians in the country. The ministry also facilitates the translation of the Bible into Kurdish dialects. Additionally, the group supports Christian refugees with loans and grants to start small businesses, and says it has proven to be an effective tool to encourage them to stay in Iraq.

The ministry is helping refugees with vocational training and the children of the IDP are being supported through trauma counseling.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/open-doors-usa-extremists-want-to-eliminate-christians-from-iraq-58514/

Christians Speak Out Against Blocking Puberty, Letting Boy Choose His Gender By Jeff Schapiro

A lesbian couple in California has decided to give their 11-year-old son hormone blockers to prevent the onset of puberty, giving the boy time to decide whether or not he wants to switch his gender.

Pauline Moreno and Debra Lobel say their son Tommy wants to be a girl, so they’ve started giving him Hormone Blocking Therapy.  The boy began taking GnRH hormone inhibitors this summer and will continue to do so until he is 14 or 15 years old, when he can determine which gender he wants to be, FoxNews.com reports.

Those who support the couple’s decision say the therapy itself has only minor side effects, but Jeanne Brooks, a psychologist and professor at Liberty University who specializes in child development, told CP via email that she questions the validity of their claim.

Brooks said testosterone plays a key role in the development of bones and muscles, and blocking the hormone could hinder normal physical development.  There is also evidence suggesting testosterone impacts neural development as well, and plays a part in guarding against Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment and depression.

CNN reported on Tommy’s gender crisis in late September.  Moreno and Lobel told reporters Tommy learned sign language as a toddler because of a speech impediment that prevented him from speaking.

When he was only 3 years old, he signed to his parents, “I am a girl.”  The couple responded by signing, “No, no. Thomas is a boy,” but Tommy disagreed.  Now Tommy goes by the name of Tammy, wears dresses to school and lives his life as if he were a little girl.

 

Joel Baum, director of education and training for Gender Spectrum, a nonprofit group based in California, told FoxNews.com the treatment Tommy is undergoing can help transgender children deal with their sexual identity issues.

“This is definitely a changing landscape for transgender youth,” Baum said.  “This is about giving kids and their families the opportunity to make the right decision.”

But Brooks pointed out that adolescents are generally not considered mature enough to take on responsibilities like driving, getting married or drinking alcohol, so Tommy cannot be expected to make such a major decision at such a young age.

“Tommy deserves to learn the truth, he deserves a chance to being exposed to the truth, he deserves someone standing up and saying, ‘No, this is not your decision Tommy, God already decided and loves you just how you are,’” Brooks said.

Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies with the Family Research Council, thinks the use of hormone treatments on Tommy “should be considered a form of child abuse.”

He also questioned the influence of Tommy’s parents in the boy’s desire to be a girl.

“It’s certainly reasonable to ask whether having two mothers and no father in the household has influenced his preference for being female,” Sprigg told CP on Monday.

Sprigg, too, believes the boy will be too young to make a responsible decision about his gender at age 14 or 15.  He also criticized the LBGT movement for what he perceives to be hypocrisy in their reasoning.

“The huge irony of the LBGT movement is that they would claim that a person’s sexual orientation, their choice of sexual partners, is something that is inborn and immutable that can never be changed, and yet a person’s biological sex, which is evident in their anatomy at birth … is something that can be changed at will.  It just flips logic and common sense … completely on its head,” he said.

Jeff Johnston, a social policy analyst for CitizenLink, a Focus on the Family affiliate, says transgender activists have worked hard to convince the world that gender is a social construct, and that a person can transition between being male and female, but that isn’t the case.

“This ideology completely contradicts what the Bible says – that God made humans male and female in His image,” Johnston told CP in an email on Tuesday. “Men and women are different – they’re not interchangeable, and you can’t change from one into the other.”

He also said he knows individuals who once thought of themselves as transgendered but have “found truth and wholeness in Jesus Christ.”  Sometimes children who struggle with gender identity disorder just need some direction, he said.

“It’s not healthy for a little boy to hate his body and disconnect from his masculinity.  It’s not good for a little boy to live in the fantasy that he’s a girl. This is a situation that calls for helping such a boy – not dresses, hormones and surgery.”

http://www.christianpost.com/news/christians-speak-out-against-blocking-puberty-letting-boy-choose-his-gender-58547/

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10 Commandments battle continues (OneNewsNow.com)

10 Commandments battle continues (OneNewsNow.com).

Protecting religious freedom in Illinois (OneNewsNow.com)

Protecting religious freedom in Illinois (OneNewsNow.com).