Megachurch Preacher to Harold Camping: 'Go Away'
One of the youngest megachurch pastors in the country on Tuesday told discredited doomsday preacher Harold Camping to "go away."
"It's over, Harold. Like, you've got to go away now. For good, man. Off you go," Steven Furtick, pastor of Elevation Church in Charlotte, N.C., said via Twitter Tuesday.
Furtick's comments come one day after radio preacher Camping took to the Family Radio airwaves predicting that the new date for the rapture is October 21, 2011, instead of May 21, 2011, as he originally touted.
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The Judgment Day on May 21 was "spiritual" but on Oct. 21 the world will literally be obliterated and come to an end, said Camping on Monday in his first public statement since the May 21 rapture dud.
"It won't be spiritual on Oct. 21 because the Bible clearly teaches that the world will be destroyed altogether. It will be very quick," the 89-year-old said.
The 31-year-old pastor of Elevation Church, which has over 8,000 weekly attendants throughout its four campuses, also poked fun at Camping's failed prediction in another tweet Tuesday.
"Harold! Harold! Harold! My man Harold! The score is functional unraptured universe 6 billion you 0. The clock says 0:00," tweeted Furtick.
Carl Lentz, pastor of Hillsong Church in New York City, also tweeted his own jab to Camping Tuesday.
"From now on, if somebody says something is ON but then it doesn't happen? They 'pulled a camping.' 'this party stinks. It's a camping.'" Lentz wrote via Twitter.
For the May 21 prediction, Camping used an elaborate formula to calculate the date of the rapture. Based on his calculations, he concluded that the rapture would take place 722,500 days after Jesus was crucified on Golgotha.
Many Christian pastors had quickly dismissed Camping's prediction, pointing to Bible verses indicating that the time and date of the End cannot be known.
"'NO ONE knows the day when these things will happen;not the angels nor THE SON HIMSELF! Only the Father knows' Mk.13:32," Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren tweeted on May 21.
