The End of the World – Again!
By now there can be few people interested in Bible prophecy who have not heard of Harold Camping. Camping, an 89-year-old retired civil engineer living in California who had built a multi-million-dollar non-profit ministry known as Family Radio, had issued an Apocalyptic warning that God’s Day of Judgement would begin on May 21, 2011, starting with a worldwide earthquake.
Camping also predicted that on this day Jesus Christ would return to the earth to save all true Christian believers, estimated to be some 200 million people, and that those left behind would suffer through a series of catastrophic disasters that would culminate in the destruction of the world by a fireball on October 21, 2011.
This prediction was publicized through Camping’s network of radio stations, TV channels, satellite broadcasts and website. It was also was picked up by the international media because of its sensational content, and ultimately came to the attention of most of the countries of the world.
As May 21 drew nearer, donations grew, allowing Family Radio to spend millions of dollars on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 recreational vehicles plastered with the doomsday message. They also took out full-page adverts in national newspapers, complete with Biblical quotations supporting their predictions.
When the predicted Day of Judgement finally arrived, millions of people around the world waited expectantly. Some of Camping’s more fearful followers shut themselves inside their homes to pray for mercy as they awaited the end.
Others met for tearful last farewells with family as they prepared to leave behind their homes and pets before being swept up into heaven. Camping himself had recommended that followers surround themselves with their loved ones and not meet publicly.
Once it became clear that they had not been rescued by Jesus, and that the predicted earthquakes had failed to occur, Camping and his followers were faced with the realization that their predictions were false, and that they would have to come to terms with a new reality.
Theirs had been an unwavering belief, the sort that had inspired some to quit their jobs, others to simply leave their homes and walk away from family and friends. For Camping himself, this was a case of the past repeating itself, as he had previously predicted that the Rapture would occur in September 1994.
In 1992, Camping had published a book titled 1994?, in which he proclaimed that Christ’s return might be on September 6, 1994. In that publication, he also mentioned that 2011 could be the end of the world. Camping’s predictions used 1988 as a significant year in the events preceding the apocalypse.
In his later publications, We are Almost There! and To God be The Glory, Camping referred to additional Biblical evidence which, in his opinion and that of others mentioned by him, indicated May 21, 2011 as the date for the Rapture and October 21, 2011 as the date for the end of the world.
Meanwhile skeptical observers and critics lampooned Camping and his apocalyptic predictions, pointing out that he himself had not only failed once before, but that he was merely the latest in a long line of would-be date-setters who had all failed in their attempts to predict the time of future Biblical events.
Other Christian preachers and scholars went further. They used scriptural evidence to show that these apocalyptic events could never be predicted in advance, quoting the words of the disciple Mark: “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father“. (Mark 13:32)
Camping was unrepentant. When he emerged from his home on May 22, saying that he was “flabbergasted” that the Rapture had not occurred, he said he was “looking for answers” and would have more to say when he returned to work on May 23. He also added that he had no plans to return the donations given to him by those followers who had believed implicitly in his words.
