When I have money, I get rid of it quickly, lest it find a way into my heart. ~John Wesley

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TWW is making a couple of changes to its format. 

We will now post on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. However, on Thursdays, we will be doing something a bit different. TWW has been given a unique opportunity. Julie Boone has been writing Sunday school materials for Baptist churches for years. While teaching adult Sunday school she became concerned when she realized that most people, who passed through her classes, had very little knowledge of the history of the faith. She recently finished her final draft of a church history manual and graciously offered to allow TWW to reproduce it, in its entirety, on our blog. We plan to start this week and look forward to our readers input. We will convey all comments and suggestions to her. Julie, who is in her 80s, recently suffered a stroke but is still active and looking forward to hearing your feedback.

Secondly, we need to slightly change how we post. Due to the length of our posts, some readers find that our web page takes too long to load. Therefore, we will post the first couple of paragraphs of the post and then the reader can click the "read more" button to continue reading the rest of the post. We will start this today. We apologize for any confusion.

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May 21, 2011 is now HISTORY, and it seems that neither Harold Camping nor any of his loyalists were raptured. Is anyone surprised?

The International Business Times has confirmed that Camping is indeed still among us, although he is “somewhat bewildered” and “mystified” that his prediction proved to be wrong. You can read about it here.

The articles states:

“It's been confirmed that Camping did not rapture to heaven as he had predicted. Nor did around 200 million people from across the world — the selected believers whose time had come to be reunited with Jesus Christ.

Harold Camping is at his Oakland home, and his wife has said the preacher is healthy and safe. A board member of Camping's Family Radio International cited Camping as saying that the preacher would issue a statement on the mother of all goof-ups.

Camping's wife said her husband was "somewhat bewildered" and "mystified" after his prediction proved a dud, said Tom Evans, who belongs to the inner circle of Camping followers.”

According to a recent CNN Money article, Family Radio took in $80 million in donations between 2005 and 2009. In 2009 alone this Christian radio network took in $18 million according to IRS reports (see CNN Money link). There was so much hype leading up to May 21, 2011 that there’s no telling how much the radio ministry bilked out of its followers.

It’s too bad that some of Camping’s supporters didn’t scrutinize Family Radio before making substantial monetary contributions. Ministry Watch gives the Oakland based ministry a “C” transparency rating. Furthermore, the Family Radio financials reported to MinistryWatch are extremely out of date, spanning all the way back to 2007.
 

Not surprising, a Contra Costa Times article indicates that the “Day of Reckoning” date was the hottest Google search last Tuesday. The article further states:

"In September, Family Radio's board members made a final push, dedicating all "extra dollars" to billboards and the Caravan project, which sent volunteers across the country in RVs painted with Apocalypse warnings, Evans said. The outreach has paid off.

"Donations have picked up, but not enough to offset the amount of money we're spending," said Evans, adding that the organization's money comes only from listener donations, not corporate or church sponsors. "The only reason we had those assets in '09 was God had been very generous to Family Radio."

In 2009, in the last Family Radio tax return that was made public, the group collected $18.4 million in contributions, and earned more than $1 million in investment and other income. That year the group spent $36.7 million, and $41.2 million the previous year.

In 2009, Family Radio also reported employing 348 people earning more than $9 million in wages and benefits.

Camping, however, said he has been a full-time volunteer for five decades.

‘I've never taken one nickel out of Family Radio,’ said its president, who lives with his wife in Alameda. ‘Many evangelists have become very rich, but my wife and I live very modestly.’ ”

Whether Camping and his wife live “modestly” or not, we wonder how some loyal followers will live at all now that they have put all their eggs in Camping’s basket.  Last week Fox News reported on a New York man who spent his entire life savings on billboards warning of the impending doom.  Here’s an excerpt from that heartbreaking story:  

“A New York man spent his entire $140,000 life savings advertising his prediction that the world will end May 21, the New York Post reported Friday.

Robert Fitzpatrick, a 60-year-old Staten Island resident, said he spent at least that sum on 1,000 subway-car placards and ads on bus kiosks and subway cars."