SIGN OF THE TIMES

Mose Macdonald was working on cars in his Whiteaker neighborhood tow yard Thursday like there’s no tomorrow.

OK, he wasn’t working that hard, and he believes tomorrow will come and go just like Thursday came and went, and that everything will be as it is. And was.

And he wants nothing to do with the billboard that’s been hanging over the yard on Van Buren Street, between West First and West Second avenues, for more than a month now.

The one that says Saturday is “Judgment Day,” when the Rapture occurs and Jesus Christ comes back to Earth and takes those souls worth saving back to the heavens, while the rest of humanity is left behind to deal with five months of shame and torment that, according to believers, will literally be hell on Earth.

“It’s ridiculous, all this religious stuff,” said Macdonald, who runs Stealth Recovery & Towing with business partner Richard Clink. “They’ve been doing it for centuries, buying into people’s fear and capitalizing off worries about going to hell.”

If you’ve seen the billboards around Eugene-Springfield, or noticed the full-page ads in this week’s USA Today, or have been yucking it up all week as Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau has dared to poke fun at the bold prediction, maybe you’ve wondered what this is all about.

It’s about a multimillion-dollar Christian radio network based in Oakland, Calif., called Family Radio that has paid for the “Judgment Day” ads on more than 1,200 billboards across the country, and more than 2,000 overseas, as well as advertising in newspapers, on the sides of trucks and even on taxicabs in Italy, all in the hopes of spreading the word.

“We are not doing this for publicity or money,” Family Radio special projects coordinator Michael Garcia said Thursday by telephone from his home in Alameda, Calif. “We are here to get the word out. And every soul is worth every penny.”

And for those of us in Oregon, the end does not come on Saturday, but tonight! That’s because the man who has made the claim, 89-year-old Family Radio founder and owner Harold Camping, says it all begins with a global earthquake that will hit New Zealand about 6 p.m. on May 21, 2011, according to Garcia. Since New Zealand is 19 hours ahead of West Coast time, that would be 11 p.m. today here in Eugene-Springfield.

Yikes.

Family Radio, which owns Christian radio stations across the country, including KQFE 88.9 FM in Springfield, has not disclosed what it has spent on the ad campaign that began last year. At least four of the billboards are up in the Eugene-Springfield area, including on Highway 126 just east of Interstate 5, and on the Randy Papé Beltline just east of Highway 99.

Camping also predicted that Sept. 6, 1994, would be the end of the world, then later said he made an error by misunderstanding a verse in the Bible. Camping is not giving interviews to the media, Garcia said. But the radio evangelist has figured out the date of the Rapture by correctly interpreting the Bible this time, Garcia said.

But Camping’s prediction is not embraced by mainstream Christianity, said University of Oregon English and folklore studies professor Daniel Wojcik, who specializes in doomsday culture. In fact, it has upset many Christians, Wojcik said. Christians often quote Matthew 25:13 in the Bible, in which Jesus himself said: “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.”

There are plenty of people making fun of Camping’s (second) end-of-the-world prediction, including Trudeau, who has lampooned it since Monday.

A character named Chester has been giving away all of his possessions, including his Mercedes, to neighbor Zonker Harris. “You can scoff if you like, but come May 21, I’ll be sitting in heaven. Sadly, you won’t,” Chester tells Zonker.

“Pretty close,” Zonker says. “I’ll be sitting in my new Mercedes.”

And there’s a Facebook page called “Post Rapture Looting,” which lists a party on Saturday taking place “Everywhere” and includes the line: “When everyone is gone and god’s not looking, we need to pick up some sweet stereo equipment and maybe some new furniture for the mansion we’re going to squat in.”

As of Thursday, more than 375,000 Facebook users had indicated they were “attending.”

People can make fun all they want, Garcia said. He understands. “I totally empathize with that,” he said. “And only God can open their eyes. The Bible says there will be mockers and scoffers in the final days.”

But isn’t this all a ruse, a way for Camping to get worldwide publicity for Family Radio near the end of his own life? After all, it’s hard to find someone who hasn’t heard about this.

“It is a great way to get the word out, but I think he is sincere,” said Wojcik, author of the 1999 book “The End of the World as We Know It: Faith, Fatalism and Apocalypse in America.”

Apocalyptic beliefs about the end of the world are an ancient and enduring aspect of religious expression and have been an important feature in the founding of many religious traditions, Wojcik said. In the United States, ideas about the Apocalypse have a long legacy, dating back to prophecy beliefs held by Christopher Columbus and the Puritans, and to groups such as the Shakers, the Millerites and the Native American Ghost Dance movement, Wojcik said. And then there are those who believe that Dec. 21, 2012 — the end-date of the Mayan calendar — is when the Apocalypse happens.

Some have accused Camping of trying to one-up those believers, Wojcik said. They say Camping is just tired of waiting for Christ and pushed the date up before his own time on Earth expires. Family Radio RVs and vans, touring the nation earlier this year, including a stop in Eugene in late November, featured “2012” with a slash through it on the side of the vehicles.

Millions in the United States embrace apocalyptic beliefs, Wojcik said, with some studies indicating that more than 30 percent of Americans believe the world will end in their lifetimes.

Back at the Whiteaker tow yard, Macdonald and Clink just shook their heads.

“If I die Saturday, it’ll be the end of the world,” said the cowboy hat-wearing Clink. “Every day’s the end of the world for somebody.”