How "End Times" Beliefs Harm Children

I am one of the many people who chuckled at news stories about Harold Camping's prediction that the world was going to end on May 21st. I heard about the rapture parties and the planned celebratory post-rapture looting. And I, like so many others, found myself often shaking my head, wondering how could so many Americans buy into a nonsensical idea.

But I have noticed something else that is not a laughing matter: how the actions of certain rapture-seized parents have harmed their children.

Think about it. How many news stories have you heard where people said they were convinced that they no longer needed earthly goods, and so they gave away everything they owned? In an NPR News story, Barbara Bradley Hagerty reports how Harold Camping's predictions have inspired people to quit their jobs and leave their families. As one 27-year-old mother told NPR, "Knowing the date of the end of the world changes all your future plans."

That mother, Adrienne Martinez, went on to say that, based on her belief about the impending rapture, she canceled plans to go to medical school. Instead, she and her husband quit their jobs and moved from New York City to Orlando to devote their lives to worshiping, proselytizing, and spending time with their two-year-old daughter. The couple is expecting another child next month, whom one can assume the Martinez's believed would be born in heaven.

"My mentality was, why are we going to work for more money? It just seemed kind of greedy to me. And unnecessary," Martinez told NPR. Her husband added, "God just made it possible—he opened doors. He allowed us to quit our jobs, and we just moved, and here we are." Said his wife, "We budgeted everything so that, on May 21, we won't have anything left."

Now that the prophesy has failed to come true, what is to become of this family and the countless others who also bet away their futures? In this economy, we can only assume that they will have a difficult, long read ahead, as they try to rebuild their lives. But, of most importance to me, how will the choice to risk flinging a family into a state of poverty affect their children? Furthermore, how will those children be affected, as their parents potentially suffer with psychological trauma, trying to come to grips with the realization that their high-stakes belief is untrue?

Two other children will suffer in even more extreme ways.

On Friday evening, a southern California mother allegedly slit her daughters throats and wrists and then her own to avoid what she believed was the coming "tribulation."  Lyn Benedetto, 47, reportedly used a box cutter and paring knife to kill her 11- and 14-year old daughters and then herself. Thankfully, the three survived. The daughters were released to child protective services and their mother was taken to jail.

We can wonder what kind of mental health syndromes or problems plague parents who jeopardize their children's lives based on religious beliefs. We can blame Harold Camping and some media outlets for propagating a potentially harmful idea. But, as I point out in my book Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment, perhaps it's also important to step back and question all religious ideas that are generated by, and spread, fear.

Some religious ideas sound ludicrous and even make us laugh. But, given humans' propensity for believing just about anything, we should also consider that certain religious beliefs can lead to child abuse and neglect.