The doomsday cults have got it wrong again

Revellers release balloons, carrying their wishes, to celebrate the New Year at Prince Park Tower in the Japanese capital Tokyo on December 31, 2016. Given the different time zones, Samoa, Australia, Japan and South Korea are some of the countries that usher in the New Year first. PHOTO | BEHROUZ MEHRI | AFP 

In Summary

• Others spreading the message of a 2017 apocalypse say this is the 70th year since the state of Israel was born.
• A website called Unsealed mentions predictions made by 12th century Rabbi Judah Ben Samuel that the end of the world would come in 2017.
• There was a prediction backed by a YouTube video, stating that all the 66 days between April and June 2016 would spell doom because of an occurrence caused by the molten material deep into the earth’s centre. It did not happen.
• Believers of the Nyandarua-based church leader were convinced that the end of the world would be in September 2006. 

By ELVIS ONDIEKI
More by this Author

If you are reading this, it means the end of the world did not come in 2016. That means all calculations that predicted that the apocalypse would befall the earth in 2016 fell flat. Toast to that.

But wait. Some people say 2017 will be the end for sure, if information they have posted online is anything to go by. Some say it will be in August when the earth witnesses a total solar eclipse.

America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) has confirmed that such an eclipse will occur — and even indicated the places where darkness will be witnessed — but whether that will mean the end of the world, it depends on the theories borne by whomever you ask.

A website run by Michael Parker, who claims to be a Bible prophecy teacher, says such an eclipse will mirror biblical messages about how darkness will precede the second coming of Christ. He posted in March 2015 that a major calamity will happen after the eclipse.

“It passes directly over the tectonic plates of the Pacific Ocean on the coast of Oregon, makes its way through Nevada where scientists have also set off the alarm of the possibility of a large earthquake,” he says on the website named Prophecies of the End Times.

Others spreading the message of a 2017 apocalypse say this is the 70th year since the state of Israel was born.

A website called Unsealed, whose contributors specialise on apocalypse rumours, claims there are predictions that doomsday would come one biblical generation after the creation of Israel, which is 70 years.

FINAL YEAR

The site also mentions predictions made by 12th century Rabbi Judah Ben Samuel that the end of the world would come in 2017.

There are also claims that this may be the final year for the world as we know it because a massive planet called Nibiru is about to smash our planet. Nibiru is an imaginary planet popularised by a fiction writer Zecharia Sitchin in 1976.

“There’s an alarmingly specific date predicted for the ‘rogue planet’ making its fatal rendezvous with our planet: December 2017, according to a prediction on Zetatalks,” Britain’s metro.co.uk reported on December 5. “But they’re not the only ones making this prediction: doomsday bunker mogul Robert Vicino also predicts Nibiru is inbound.”

For 2016, there were at least three apocalypse theories but neither came to pass. One Nora Roth had by December 2015 published reasons why 2016 would be the end.

She posted calculations based on the 70 sevens stated in the prophetic book of Daniel, which is the grace period God gave to humanity to stop sinning. She calculated that the jubilees began in 1416 BC “when God’s children entered Canaan”.

There was also a prediction backed by a YouTube video, stating that all the 66 days between April and June 2016 would spell doom because of an occurrence caused by the molten material deep into the earth’s centre. It did not happen.

Much as they sound superfluous, such apocalypse theories have spread in Kenya before and the results were baffling.

A notable example happened in 2006 with the House of Yahweh church.  The leader of the church, Mr Moshe Sang, who died in 2014, convinced believers to construct underground dwellings where they stocked food and water; all in an effort to avoid destruction of the earth due to nuclear war.

Believers of the Nyandarua-based church leader were convinced that the end of the world would be in September 2006. 

It was later discovered that an American had a hand in the decisions taken by the church members as he was a co-conspirator with Mr Sang.
And in Uganda, there was a mass murder incident that claimed at least 700 lives in March 2000 after cult leader Joseph Kibwetere convinced his followers that that was their final year on earth.
Weighing in on the impact of such theories on humans, Bishop Samuel Munai, who preaches at a Pentecostal Evangelistic Fellowship of All Nations church in Nairobi’s South B, told people to treat them with suspicion.

CONTRADICTION OF SCRIPTURES

“There is no one who can be accurate because that would be a contradiction of the scriptures. In Matthew the Bible says, ‘No one knows the day nor the hour, not even the son himself.’ Any prediction of a day or an hour or a month or a year is false,” said Mr Munai, a theology lecturer.

However, even clergymen differ on interpretation of the scriptures on the apocalypse.

A 2008 book published in the UK says that two Catholic Popes have in the past wrongly predicted the date — Pope Sylvester II who set it at January 1, 1000 and Pope Innocent III who predicted 1284.

According to Mr Munai, the books of Daniel and Revelation — which many people base their doomsday predictions on — are full of symbols.

“You need to understand the symbols. The moment you understand them, you will understand (other aspects).  And if you look at it critically, you don’t see dates being mentioned in Daniel,” he noted.

Prof Jamin Masinde, a professor of sociology at Moi University, said the interests of apocalypse conspirators need to be interrogated.

“People will come out with something that is so convincing and for those who cannot rationalise it, it becomes very attractive. And you see people selling property and all that to join those types of movements because the world is coming to an end,” Prof Masinde said.

“You will note that all the people who join those things, are not very rich people. They are normally very poor, desperate people.”

He said that some of the doomsday prophets could be driven by economic gain.

“Every year, there are people who are saying those types of things. But in those types of situations, there are beneficiaries; people who look forward to benefit from it,” he said.