It's Tuesday again, a few days after the "rapture," and it seems we are all still here. Everyone except the Rev. Harold Camping, who is still strangely silent.

Camping publicly declared that the world would end on May 21, beginning at 6 p.m. To have the day pass quietly by must now be excruciatingly embarrassing.

What, we wonder, would cause the 89-year-old preacher to lead his followers to this humiliating end. Was this a publicity stunt designed to draw attention to his radio station and to raise money? Is Camping senile and no longer fit for a leadership position?

Maybe the elderly Camping wanted to get one last good laugh before he passes over to the other side. I can just imagine him in his house right now, rocking in his chair. And every once in a while he blurts out, "PSYCH!" and doubles over with laughter.

But what about the people who gave up so much to follow him and his predictions? How do you go back home after you have sold or given away everything you own and traveled half way around the world for an event that never happened?

While none of Camping's followers are reported to have vanished from the earth, for many of them, their savings and their jobs certainly did. Many will now try to rebuild a life while family and friends question their ability to make sound decisions. Many will indeed face a period of tribulation as they try to return to everyday lives.

Meanwhile, those of us who held on to our 401(k)s and our jobs just in case the world didn't end are now patting ourselves on the back that we weren't foolish enough to join the rapture caravan. Few will admit, however, that they breathed a little easier when 6 p.m. passed or that they checked themselves a few times to ensure that they were ready if Gabriel's trumpet did, indeed, sound.

We all know the warning to beware of wolves wearing sheep’s clothing. What we don't hear often enough is that we also must be wary of sheep in sheep's clothing.

Folks who lead us wrong don't always have evil intentions. Camping may have been truly sincere, but he was sincerely wrong. Those who blindly followed him must now piece together the fragments of their finances and their faith.

My father’s council in my growing-up years was, "You need to have some sense of your own." Though he wasn't an educated man, my Dad read enough that he knew what was true of life and religion.

Many of us want our religion like we want our food -- FAST. We want someone else to prepare it, package it and serve it to us hot as we drive hurriedly by. But when we leave our religious views for others to determine, we also are left to consume the "secret recipe" they also may include. When we don't read for ourselves, we swallow the meal, exclaiming its goodness, never realizing the preparer has thrown in a pinch of this and a tad of that.

Old folks used to say, "You follow a fool, you'll be a fool." I stop short of calling Camping or his followers fools. I suspect most are well-intentioned people who became caught up in their own egos, believing that God had chosen them to be messengers of His apocalypse.

Yet, like Jim Jones in Guyana, Camping and the 2011 rapture-that-never-was should be a cautionary tale -- a tale that breathes life into the warning, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Got news to share with Qcity readers? Email us at editor@qcitymetro.com.
Sign up for our weekly email newsletter below

Sign up for our Weekly Email Newsletter Email: For Email Marketing you can trust

Other Ways to Share Twitter Del.icio.us MySpace

Discussions and Submission Agreement