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California preacher Harold Camping said Monday his prophecy that the world would end was off by five months because Judgment Day actually will come on Oct. 21.
Mr. Camping, who predicted that 200 million Christians would be taken to heaven Saturday before the Earth was destroyed, said he felt so terrible when his doomsday prediction did not come true that he left home and took refuge in a motel with his wife. His independent ministry, Family Radio International, spent millions – some of it from donations made by followers – on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 RVs plastered with the Judgment Day message.
MORE RELATED TO THIS STORYBut Mr. Camping said that he's now realized the apocalypse will come five months after May 21, the original date he predicted. He had earlier said Oct. 21 was when the globe would be consumed by a fireball.
Saturday was “an invisible judgment day” in which a spiritual judgment took place, he said. But the timing and the structure is the same as it has always been, he said.
“We've always said May 21 was the day, but we didn't understand altogether the spiritual meaning,” he said. “May 21 is the day that Christ came and put the world under judgment.”
It's not the first time the independent Christian radio host has been forced to explain when his prediction didn't come to pass. He also predicted the Apocalypse would come in 1994, but said it didn't happen then because of a mathematical error.
Rather than give his normal daily broadcast on Monday, Mr. Camping made a special statement before the press at the Oakland headquarters of the media empire that has broadcast his message. His show, “Open Forum,” has for months headlined his doomsday message via the group's radio stations, TV channels, satellite broadcasts and website.
When the Rapture didn't arrive Saturday, crestfallen followers began turning their attention to more earthly concerns.
Jeff Hopkins had figured the gas money he spent driving back and forth from Long Island to New York City would be worth it, as long as people could see the ominous sign atop his car warning that the End of the World was nigh.
“I've been mocked and scoffed and cursed at and I've been through a lot with this lighted sign on top of my car,” said Mr. Hopkins, 52, a former television producer who lives on Long Island. “I was doing what I've been instructed to do through the Bible, but now I've been stymied. It's like getting slapped in the face.”
Mr. Camping, a retired civil engineer, had forecast that some 200 million people would be saved, and warned that those left behind would die in earthquakes, plagues and other scourges until Earth until the globe was consumed by a fireball on Oct. 21.
His earlier apocalyptic prediction in 1994 also was a bust, but he said it didn't happen because of a mathematical error.
Mr. Camping told the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday he was “flabbergasted” his latest doomsday prophecy did not come true.
Family Radio spent millions – some of it from donations made by followers – on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 recreational vehicles plastered with the doomsday message. In 2009, the non-profit reported in IRS filings that it received $18.3-million in donations, and had assets of more than $104 million, including $34-million in stocks or other publicly traded securities.
Gunther Von Harringa, who heads a religious organization that produces content for Mr. Camping's media enterprise, said he was “very surprised” the Rapture did not happen as predicted, but said he and other believers were in good spirits.
“We're still searching the Scriptures to understand why it did not happen,” said Von Harringa, president of Bible Ministries International, which he operates from his home in Delaware, Ohio. “It's just a matter of OK, Lord, where do we go from here?”
Apocalyptic thinking has always been part of American religious life and popular culture. Teachings about the end of the world vary dramatically – even within faith traditions – about how they will occur.
Still, the overwhelming majority of Christians reject the idea that the exact date or time of Jesus' return can be predicted.
Tim LaHaye, co-author of the bestselling “Left Behind” novels about the end times, recently called Camping's prediction “not only bizarre but 100 per cent wrong!” He cited the bible verse Matthew 24:36, ‘but about that day or hour no one knows“ except God.
“While it may be in the near future, many signs of our times certainly indicate so, but anyone who thinks they ‘know' the day and the hour is flat out wrong,” Mr. LaHaye wrote on his Web site, leftbehind.com.
Signs of disappointment were evident online, where groups that had confidently predicted the Rapture – and, in some cases, had spent money to help spread the word through advertisements – took tentative steps to re-establish Internet presences in the face of widespread mockery.
The Pennsylvania-based group eBible Fellowship still has a website with images of May 21 billboards all over the world, but its Twitter feed has changed over from the increasingly confident predictions before the date to circumspect Bible verses that seem to speak to the confusion and hurt many members likely feel.
“For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee,” the group tweeted on Sunday, quoting the book of Isaiah.
Family Radio's special projects co-ordinator, Michael Garcia has said he believed the delay was God's way of separating true believers from those willing to doubt what he said were clear biblical warnings.
“Maybe this had to happen for there to be a separation between those who have faith and those who don't,” he said. “It's highly possible that our Lord is delaying his coming.”
