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May 23rd, 2011
05:04 PM ET
Preacher now says end of the world will happen in 5 monthsBy Kim Hutcherson and Dan Gilgoff, CNN (CNN) - Harold Camping is sticking to his apocalyptic guns. In his first radio broadcast since his doomsday prediction failed to pan out in a spectacularly public fashion, the California preacher insisted his was an error of interpretation, not fact. What's more, he has another calculation for the day the world will end - October 21, 2011. Camping had kept a low-profile since Saturday, the day he had forecast for the return of Jesus Christ to Earth. He and his devoted followers have been warning for months that on May 21, a select 2% to 3% of the world's population would be taken to heaven. Those left behind would face months of tribulation before perishing in the Earth's destruction, which Camping said would happen on October 21. This is the basis for his new prediction, which Camping claims is not new at all. He told listeners on his Family Radio broadcast Monday that God is "loving and merciful," and had decided not to punish the humanity with five months of destruction. But he maintains that the end of the world is still coming. "We've always said October 21 was the day," Camping said during his show. "The only thing we didn't understand was the spirituality of May 21. We're seeing this as a spiritual thing happening rather than a physical thing happening. The timing, the structure, the proofs, none of that has changed at all." However, Camping said his group would not be mounting another advertising push. In the months leading up to May 21, Family Radio billboards popped up across the country, warning that the end was near. "We're not going to be passing out tracts," Camping said. "We're not going to put up any more billboards. We're not going to be advertising in any way. The world has been warned. We did our little share and the media picked it up. But now the world has been told, it's under judgment." Fred Store, who led one of four RV caravans that toured the country in recent months to spread the word about judgment day, said he and other followers heard Camping's broadcast "and we were quite happy - it will be interesting to see what the next couple of months will bring." "It appears as though this whole [rapture] thing happened in a spiritual, rather than a physical way," said Store, 66. The retired electrician said that he and the other nine members of his five-RV caravan were still at an RV park where they waited for the rapture to arrive on Saturday. He said the park was within 100 miles of Boston, Massachusetts, but didn't want to disclose the specific location. He said the caravan was waiting for word from Camping's ministry, Family Radio, about arranging the return of the vehicles to the broadcaster's Oakland, California, headquarters. Store said he and the others in his caravan were not disappointed that the dramatic events associated with the rapture had not come to pass. "We think that judgment day did happen," he said. "It didn’t result in an earthquake, and there were a number of things that weren't exactly the way we said they would be, but we were only reading from the Bible. We’ve been humbled by the whole experience." Camping founded Family Radio, a nonprofit Christian radio network with about 65 stations across the country, in 1958. It received $80 million in contributions between 2005 and 2009. He first inaccurately predicted the world would end in 1994. Despite his poor track record, he has gathered many followers. Some gave up their homes, entire life savings and jobs because they believed the world was ending. Reporters who were allowed to ask questions during the broadcast Monday pressed Camping on this issue, but he would not admit that he bore any blame for his followers' predicaments. "I don't have any responsibility," Camping said. "I'm only teaching the Bible. I'm telling ... this is what the Bible says. I don't have spiritual rule over anybody ... except my wife as the head of the household." Experts in apocalyptic movements said that reinterpretations like Camping's are not uncommon in the wake of failed doomsday predictions. “Historically, failed prophecies tend to result in disillusionment, with members deserting the group, or, more typically, a faith-saving (and face-saving) statement to the effect that while divine revelation remains infallible, human calculation is not,” said Lorenzo DiTommaso, author of the forthcoming book “The Architecture of Apocalypticism” and an associate professor of religion at Concordia University in Montréal, Canada. “In short: The math was off, and it’s back to the drawing board,” he said. “If the logic seems a bit self-serving, recall that in the apocalyptic mindset, faith precedes theory, and theory informs the evidence." –CNN's Jessica Ravitz contributed to this report. soundoff (4,998 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 Next »
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He should be put in jail, and every dime of the millions he's bilked off his ignorant followers should be given away to deserving charities.
I cannot believe people are SO stupid as to listen and believe the rantings from a senile old man with $72 million in his back pocket. This so-called 'Family Church' should be torn down brick by brick – then again, I feel the same way about the Catholic church. Organized religion is evil to the core and should be abolished.
andrew is a ch0de sucker
Someone please forward this to Mr. Camping...
Matthew 24:36
“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father..."
Yes a myth to disprove a myth.
Someone please forward this to all Christians: Matthew 24:34 Mark 13:30 and Luke 21:32? That seems pretty clear. Maybe Jesus needs to redefine his own predictions.
Jamesgang: Do you really think that Camping never saw these verses, never addressed them in any of his writings?
October 21st is a Friday, and no one, NO ONE, works that hard on a Friday. Furthemore, if God is a football fan (he is, says it in the Bible..in one of the Appendices) and the NFL lockout is resolved, there's no way He would destroy the Earth in the middle of the season (unless He's a Redskins fan and they have eliminated themselves from the playoffs already)! So lets revise this and say..the third Tuesday in February of 2012. That work for everyone?
This guy is not stupid, he is smart. He has gotten away with raising millions of dollars from stupid people that believe in this nonsense. The people are the stupid ones for believing all this c r a p. The sad thing about it is that even after several false predictions the people STILL believe him! .
ooops, he did it again. The question is who's the bigger fool? The fool, or the fool who follows the fool?
Ah Amy, shad-dup already! You know you're just itching to reach deeply into your purse and write him the biggest check ya can and then run to the bank and withdraw your life's savings to send to him aren't you!
Good thing I didn't quit sniffing glue
This Harold Camping character is a false prophet and absolute phony.
"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is" (Mark 13:32-33).
Read the Bible people and the words of wisdom and truth is directly from the Lord, Jesus Christ and not from some phony who said this specific date.....
@Gary: Why is it that, in spite of the exaggerated example of Camping and how this "read the bible for yourself and see what I'm saying is true" technique failed both him and his followers, many Christians still insist that the answer to everything is precisely this technique?
This verse that you all keep quoting to refute Camping also debunks the notion of the trinity from within christian scripture. But christians are experts at ignoring what they want to ignore, which explains the belief in the trinity AND Camping in one fell swoop. Occam;s razor strikes again!
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
Stop! Please!
You know what, I know what these doomsdayers need: a more accurate end of the world date. So here it is:
The world will end on August 16th at noon, in the year 1,341,043,000 AD. Actually funny thing is it still may actually be there :).
The planet itself will be destroyed in about 3-4 billion years depending on if we get swallowed into a supermassive black hole when 2 galaxies collide or if we get incinerated by the SUN when it cools and expands to a Red Giant. Save the date: 4,00,000,000 AD, end of the world.
this article says he is a preacher but he is not. he is an engineer by trade, a true preacher/pastor wouldnt say things like this. there might not be many common threads in any domination, but one thread is clear throughout all organizations, no man know the day.
If you fail at first, try, try again.
From the looks of him, I think he'll croak before Oct. 21.
The only thing that Harold Camping stated that is correct is: "But he maintains that the end of the world is still coming." The world will end one day but no one can predict that. NO ONE.
At most there are 366 days in the year. There are 24 hours in a day. I can guess both the day and the hour completely at random and have a 1 in 8,784 chance of being correct. If I happen to guess correctly, it doesn't mean I know the day and the hour.
What Camping did with his 5x5x10x10x17x17 = 722,500 is the theological equivalent of guessing at random. If the world did end last Saturday then the scripture that says no man knows the day or the hour would still be true, because Camping didn't "know" anything. Nor does he now know.
Why do you still call it a "preacher". He is a con man, making millions in donations from not-so-educated people. He should go to jail.
So true.
I wish God would do everyone a favor and just rapture this idiot and his wife. I would be happpy with that.
How is he different from any of the thousands of preachers that do that every week? Millions of people get fleeced every week when the collection plate is passed around, yet they willingly go back for more the next week.
Wait a sec....
This just came to me. If the good book states that no Man will know what day the rapture will happen, what happens if someone thinks the rapture will be tomrrow and always tomorrow....that would mean the rapture would never come.....interesting....
If someone thinks it's always "tomorrow," clearly they have no idea when it actually is...
The Bible says no one will *know* when the end will come. But we can still guess. I could say that I think the world will end in 3276. And I could have scriptural reasons for saying that. But I cannot say that it is a fact...I can't claim to *know* that it will happen then. All I can do is theorize. This is where some people go astray...they try to figure it out, and when they think they have, the claim that they can't be wrong. That conflicts with scripture. We cannot know the date. It also denies our own humanity. If we say we can't be wrong, we are saying that we are perfect. Camping needs to take a serious look at what he is teaching.
Beware of FALSE PROPHETS!!!!!!!!
False prophets = redundant
How about just "Beware of prophets."?
@Greg Smith and Rich: You got THAT right!!!
Seriously, people... Why is it that, in spite of the exaggerated example of Camping and how this "read the bible for yourself and see what I'm saying is true" technique failed both him and his followers, many Christians still insist that the answer to everything is precisely this technique?
Because the Bible says no one can know when the end will come; it will come as a thief in the night; and so on. Camping ignored those and other similar sayings and pulled a few verses WAY out of context to pinpoint a date. He tried using the date of Noah's flood (which cannot be dated to a precise year anyway) and extrapolated off that. Obviously, since he misinterpreted Scripture, his misinterpretation didn't pan out.
I don't think his followers really are reading it for themselves. Or, if they are, they are reading verses in isolation, and ignoring context.