The End Times remain, as always, imminent, and those who study the signs find plenty that can be interpreted as pointing to the end of the world being just around the corner (as long as you don’t apply reason or sound principles of assessment – and if you study eschatology, you don’t). Scott Clarke of ERF Ministries sees plenty of signs. He even – somewhat unusually for these people – set a specific date: The Rapture will occur with an astronomical alignment on September 23, 2017, and Clarke produced plenty of Bible interpretation and attempts to shoehorn various astronomical (or, mostly, astrological) events to fit those interpretations. Apparently the alignment, which was termed “The Great Sign of Revelation 12”, involves various constellations – Virgo and Leo – along with a number of planets, and on September 23, 2017, Jupiter would exit the lower part of Virgo (the virgin) in a way that Clarke says fulfills the “man child” of Revelation 12 being birthed by the woman. (We might have missed some details.) He even achieved some degree of Internet virality with his nonsense, and more sympathizers and followers than those of us who try to retain some faith in humanity would have hoped for (Lex Cullen at the website What the Bible Says, for instance (google it yourself) – though then again, Cullen seems to giddily endorse absolutely any End Time prophecy he comes across; and one Don Koenig tied the prophecy to planet X and Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accords and the rejection of the “bogus” science behind global warming, which is a lie like “the science of evolution” and really “all about global governance and wealth redistribution”).
But yeah, it’s astrology. Not wishing to jeopardize their credentials as serious scholars, Clarke and his followers deny being engaged in astrology, but rather “biblical astronomy”. Apparently astrology “is the study that assumes and attempts to interpret the influence of the heavenly bodies on human affairs. Biblical astronomy recognizes that God created the heavens and they are for signs to us. They are also the origin of our marking of time.” So there you go.
Well, Clarke’s prediction ran into a bit of trouble on September 23, 2017. But Scott Clarke was unfazed, and enthusiastically returned to youtube two days later, excited by a “new interpretation” of, well, we are reluctant to call them “data”. He even – also unusually – explained his error, namely embracing the original Hewbrew language in his Bible studies: But Hebrew is, according to changed Scott Clarke, a “garbage” language. He should have gone with King James Only from the start and the technique of “Right[ly] Dividing”. Clarke and fellow deranged loon Pastor Rodney Beaulieu promptly set out to explore their new framework. (They were also promptly criticized by other lunatic dingbats with different interpretations, such as Carl Gallups, who seemed to miss the more obvious problems with Clarke’s framework and predictions). Apparently the astrological configuration of September 23 was only the heavenly sign announcing the beginning of the events in question, not providing any timeline for how quickly these events would develop.
Diagnosis: Oh yeah, they’re still around, putting great efforts into unintentionally giving fundamentalism all the bad light it deserves. What’s most fascinating, perhaps, is the incoherent justifications and levels of motivated reasoning exhibited by their (many) followers.
Even Jesus himself made a faulty "prediction," saying some of the men in the room with him would not be dying until after he "returns." Mark 9: verse 1
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