The end of the world that ended up not happening

 
 
Every time we begin a new year comes to mind the episode provoked by a well-known Evangelical leader in Maringá (PR), who announced for some months that the world was going to end between the December 24-31, 1999, when then Jesus would take his faithful followers.

When the subject became public in the state, the Spiritist means of communication warned the society about the dangers and hazards related to this kind of forecast. Of course that wasn’t the first time it happened in the world, and probably won’t be the last either, since naïve people are also persuaded by those who have the gift of speech. Many followers of this or that religion can’t read or write and, if they can, don’t do it very often and become, then, easy prey for leaders who aim, in fact, something else and not what their followers thought.

Jesus warned, in the so-called prophetical sermon, that many false prophets would come, and so it’s true.

December 1999, the Pastor, evidently, didn’t wait for the untoward day announce with so much pride, claiming to be a revelation received by the Holy Ghost. At the beginning of the month, weeks before the “end of the world” predicted by him, the Pastor was gone, taking his wife with him and leaving his faithful followers with no leader.

Some days later, he sent from London a letter resigning from the role he performed for 25 years. Spread the news, several followers wanted to know information about the Pastor, whose attitude surprised everybody in Church, who didn’t know, at first, if the finances had been affected.

Troubled, mainly after they found out the money had also gone, the Pastor’s successors tried to exclude any responsibility attributed to the Church about the prediction. “At least, we have to apologize for such a disastrous attitude, which was claimed to be a prophecy”, one of the leaders said.

The Order of Evangelical Pastors of Maringá also condemned the attitude of the runaway Pastor. “It’s an outrage what he did to people”, said Nilton Tuller, one of the founders of the Order. “The Bible says that at the end of times there would be false prophets and he was one of them.”

In the following year the Pastor came back from the UK and tried to take over the Church again, but he couldn’t. He didn’t accept and went to justice, unsuccessfully. He then settled a new church, and as if nothing ever happened, has also spread in the same region where many were fooled. There were no apologies nor did anyone pay for the loss of those who sold houses, farms and cars, getting ready for the “end of the world” that ended up not happening.