First Orthodox Presbyterian Church of San Francisco

May 13, 2002

Mr. Harold Camping
Family Radio Stations
290 Hegenberger Rd

Oakland, CA 94621-1436

Dear Mr. Camping:

It is with great sorrow and greater loyalty to Christ and His Church that I must call you to repentance for your forthright denial of Christ and His Church.

As you know, I’ve been quite intimately involved with the radio ministry by my own participation in “Pastor’s Study”, “Noontime Meditations”, and working with Tom Schaff on WYFR. It’s with this grief that I must say that your recent statements and instruction on Family Radio are wholly apostate. You have finally excommunicated yourself from Christ and His Body, the Church. You have denied “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” You have become the heresy that you’ve harangued against all these years. You wouldn’t call yours prophetic special revelation, but the effect is the same. You have come up with a “new” word from God, different than what is already in the Bible—a “new” understanding of God’s church, which the church in all 2000 years of history never knew. “You that would keep the law, don’t you hear what it is saying….”(Gal. 4:21)

You claim that God is through with the church even though Christ promised to sanctify and cleanse the church, His Bride. Your false and unscriptural distinction between the so-called “eternal” church and the organized/institutional church has no foundation in scripture. The church that He died for to cleanse
and sanctify—is that the so-called eternal church or the organized/institutional church? Which church did He come to save? It obviously couldn’t have been the “eternal” church that is perfect—that was predestined to endure anyway. It obviously couldn’t be the organized church that, according to you, had no promise—that would never persevere anyway! How do you decide which church, and which passage is speaking about which church? Which church is in need of salvation?

In which foundation is Christ the cornerstone—the foundation of the “eternal church” without officers, or the foundation of the organized church with the officers of apostles and prophets? Which church did He give gifts to for the perfecting of the saints—the eternal church or the organized church? Are the offices of apostles, prophets, pastors and teachers for the eternal church or organized church?

I call upon you to turn from your wicked teaching and condemnation of the Bride of Christ, the Church, His Body, before the judgment of God falls upon you and brings down the years of work which Family Radio has labored in.

I am stunned by your statements that “to accept Christ to be saved” is one of the “high-places” you condemn; that for ministers of the Gospel to remain in the church does great harm to the eternal destiny of souls, especially children of the covenant; that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are no longer relevant as means of grace; that God has changed his mind about the “gates of hell” not prevailing against the church; and that Satan is ruling the church—even over Bible-teaching churches. You have no more scriptural authority to state that God is through with the Church than that God is through with Christians because they are sinful, or that God is through with marriage because there are so many divorces, or that God is through with the Lord’s Day because so many Christians ignore it, or that God is through with the sacraments because so many Christians abuse them, or even that God is through with His second coming because so few believe it.

I am also aghast that you have the nerve to solicit funds from church members—even pastors like myself—to support a ministry that openly condemns their membership and the churches they faithfully support. To be consistent you ought not to expect any funding from any church or church members, seeing how you teach that God has cursed Her.

To be consistent with your unscriptural view, you should also filter out historic hymns of the faith about the church—such as “Onward Christian Soldiers…like a mighty army moves the church of God…,” “The Church’s one Foundation,” “Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken,” “Blest Be the Tie that Binds,” “I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord!” “Rise Up, O Men of God,” “Jerusalem, the Golden,” “O Zion Haste,” “Faith of Our Fathers,” and on and on….

Therefore, I can no longer recommend Family Radio as an edifying God-glorifying listening tool for the members of my church and for our Presbytery. You have joined the class of cultists–William Miller, Ellen G. White, Joseph Smith, Charles Taze Russell, Mary Baker Eddy, etc.—and cut yourself off from the historic orthodox and reformed faith by your unscriptural teachings and so-called Bible lessons.

Your so-called pleadings that “I’m just following the Bible” is perhaps the most hollow and offensive excuse that somehow you’ve been “anointed” to reveal this new message: that it is your radio station that has been promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail against. The height of your arrogance is terrifying before the Lord God and so detrimental to the evangelical portion of the Christian faith. Once you were a stalwart for the faith but how far you have fallen – God have mercy on your soul and on all that support Family Radio.

For Christ’s Kingdom and Church.

Pastor Charles A. McIlhenny