Harold Camping, radio host who predicted world’s end, dies at 92
¶(RNS)
Harold Camping, the radio preacher who convinced thousands of followers
that Jesus would return on May 21, 2011, to usher in the end of the the
world, has died, according to a statement released late Monday (Dec. 16) by his Family Radio network. He was 92.
¶(RNS)
California radio evangelist Harold Camping said the world would end on
May 21, 2011 — a date he based, in part, on when he believes Noah
entered the ark. RNS file photo by Kimberly Winston
¶Camping
died Sunday evening, an employee at Family Radio confirmed. He had
fallen at his home on Nov. 30 and had been in weak health due to a
stroke since 2011.
¶Camping first predicted Jesus’ return in 1994, but his most recent forecasts gained national attention
through advertisements and the Family Radio network of stations he
founded. He warned that “judgment day” would occur in May 2011 and said
the world would end in October 2011.
¶When his prophecies turned out to be false, he declared in March 2012 that his May 21 prediction had been “incorrect and sinful” and said his ministry would get out of the predictions business.
¶The ministry sold its prominent stations and laid off staffers, with assets dropping from $135 million in 2007 to $29.2 million in 2011.
¶Pressed
by reporters after his May 21 prediction failed to materialize, Camping
said he had miscalculated — it must be Oct. 21, he said. “I’m not a
genius,” he said. “I pray all the time for wisdom.”
¶Starting
in the 1950s, Camping broadcast his views via Family Radio, a global
network of Christian stations for which he served as unpaid president
and primary on-air talent. His teachings aired worldwide five nights a
week via “Open Forum,” a call-in show that draws listeners as far away
as China and Ghana.
¶“Thank
you for calling ‘Open Forum,’ ” Camping said countless times in his
trademark baritone, “and shall we take our next call, please?”
¶Camping
was once well-regarded in among evangelicals, both for his encyclopedic
knowledge of Scripture and his radio network. But in the late 1980s,
when he began teaching that churches had strayed from the Bible
embracing a false doctrine, he lost much previous support.
¶He
also discouraged his listeners from joining a church, saying modern
churches were heretical and that the “church age” had ended as the end
of the world was near. He had no formal religious training beyond his
tattered copies of the King James Version of the Bible and couldn’t read
or speak Greek, Hebrew or Jesus’ native Aramaic.
¶Bob
James of Morristown, N.J., organized a grass-roots campaign to fund
billboards about a pending judgment day on May 21, 2011. RNS photo by
Noah K. Murray/The Star Ledger
¶His
2011 prophecy got widespread attention, including “Rapture Parties”
hosted by atheists who wanted to “ridicule and poke fun at the fools.”
It gave one man the opportunity to create a fake business that offered
to care for the pets of believers swept up by the Rapture.
¶His
March 2012 statement, which in many ways amounted to the final time
many people heard from Camping, expressed regret for the predictions,
which had led many followers to sell all their possessions in
anticipation of the end of the world.
¶Camping
said people continued to wish for another prediction, but he had become
convinced that critics were correct about the biblical admonition that
“of that day and hour knoweth no man.”
¶“We
must also openly acknowledge that we have no new evidence pointing to
another date for the end of the world,” he wrote at the time. “Though
many dates are circulating, Family Radio has no interest in even
considering another date.”
¶Camping is survived by his wife of 71 years, the statement says.
Also read:
Harold Camping's Stroke Punishment From God? A Biblical Response
Un like the Unrepentant False Prophet Harold Camping, Ugandan doomsday pastor apologizes to Christians
No shame, no apologies: Harold
Camping says new Judgment Day is on October 21
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/150713/20110524/harold-camping-may-21st-doomsday-wrong-prediction-october-21-2011-judgment-day-rapture-false-prophet.htm
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/150713/20110524/harold-camping-may-21st-doomsday-wrong-prediction-october-21-2011-judgment-day-rapture-false-prophet.htm
The world is ending on October,
21st, 2011 and Judgment day is on May, 21st 2011: Do not believe this Utter
Nonsense and Stupidity
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2011/03/world-is-ending-on-october-21st-2011.html
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2011/03/world-is-ending-on-october-21st-2011.html
