Dear Editor,

On August 19, 1992, while travelling on the Number 3 Train in New York, I came upon a tract saying, “In 1999, Human History Will End! Prepare for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ!” The tract gave a date for the Rapture – October 28, 1992, a favourite month for these prophets, and reported that it would be a shocking event. The organisation responsible for the tract claimed, “And the Lord revealed the time of Rapture to many different groups of people … through vision, dream, voice and prophecy.” Nineteen years have passed and another American pastor, Harold Camping, spoke of the end of the world for May 21, 2011.

Camping’s Jamaican partner, Michael Lewis, was interviewed on Religious Hard Talk by Ian Boyne. In the interview, Lewis referred to sections of Genesis Chapter 5 to establish a calendar for dating “end time”, a premise that is not historical. Secondly, he identified “women in the pulpit”, and the use of “secular” music as signs of a false church. Clearly, his religious organisation would not agree with modern scholars concerning the injunction, “Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says” (I Corinthians 14.34). This was not written by St Paul, but added as the letter was circulated among early Christians. Mr Lewis also displayed his ignorance of “secular” tunes in Christian hymns, as Anglican clergyman Charles Wesley used the music of beer-drinking songs in English pubs to promote his hymns to converts.

Fundamentalist love to be mendacious when history, science and faith are not held in balance. Even the different literary styles – myths, poetry, narratives, theological interest – must be read within its context.

Dudley McLean

Mandeville, Manchester

dcmduart@yahoo.com