OAKLAND, California (AP) — As crestfallen followers of a
California preacher who foresaw the world's end strained to find
meaning in their lives, Harold Camping revised his apocalyptic
prophecy, saying he was off by five months and the Earth actually
will be obliterated on Oct. 21.
Camping, who predicted that 200 million Christians would be
taken to heaven Saturday before global cataclysm struck the planet,
said Monday that he felt so terrible when his doomsday message 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 recreational vehicles plastered with
the Judgment Day message.
Follower Jeff Hopkins also spent a good deal of his own
retirement savings on gas money to power his car so people would
see its ominous lighted sign showcasing Camping's May 21 warning.
As the appointed day drew nearer, Hopkins started making the
100-mile (160-kilometer) round trip from Long Island to New York
City twice a day, spending at least $15 on gas each trip.
"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
Hopkins, 52, a former television producer who lives in Great River,
New York. "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."
Camping, who made a special appearance before the press at the
Oakland headquarters of the media empire Monday evening, apologized
for not having the dates "worked out as accurately as I could
have." Through chatting with a friend over what he acknowledged was
a very difficult weekend, the light dawned on him that instead of
the biblical Rapture in which the faithful would be swept up to the
heavens, May 21 had instead been a "spiritual" Judgment Day, which
places the entire world under Christ's judgment, he said.
The globe will be completely destroyed in five months, he said,
when the apocalypse comes. But because God's judgment and salvation
were completed on Saturday, there's no point in continuing to warn
people about it, so his network will now just play Christian music
and programs until the final end on Oct. 21.
"We've always said May 21 was the day, but we didn't understand
altogether the spiritual meaning," he said. "The fact is there is
only one kind of people who will ascend into heaven ... if God has
saved them they're going to be caught up."
It's not the first time the 89-year-old retired civil engineer
has been dismissed by the Christian mainstream and has been forced
to explain when his prediction didn't come to pass. Camping also
prophesied the Apocalypse would come in 1994, but said later that
didn't happen then because of a mathematical error.
Monday, rather than give his normal daily broadcast, Camping
took questions as a part of his show, "Open Forum," which transmits
his biblical interpretations via the group's radio stations, TV
channels, satellite broadcasts and website.
Camping's hands shook slightly as he pinned his microphone to
his lapel, and as he clutched a worn Bible he spoke in a quivery
monotone about some listeners' earthly concerns after giving away
possessions in expectation of the Rapture.
Family Radio would never tell anyone what they should do with
their belongings, and those who had fewer would cope, Camping
said.
"We're not in the business of financial advice," he said. "We're
in the business of telling people there's someone who you can maybe
talk to, maybe pray to, and that's God."
But he also said that he wouldn't give away all his possessions
ahead of Oct 21.
"I still have to live in a house, I still have to drive a car,"
he said. "What would be the value of that? If it is Judgment Day
why would I give it away?"
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 best-selling "Left Behind" novels
about the end times, recently called Camping's prediction "not only
bizarre but 100 percent 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," LaHaye wrote on his website,
leftbehind.com.
Signs of disappointment also 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.
Camping offered no clues about Family Radio's finances Monday,
saying he could not estimate how much had been spent on getting out
his prediction nor how much money the nonprofit had taken in as a
result. In 2009, the nonprofit 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.
Josh Ocasion, who works the teleprompter during Camping's live
broadcasts in the group's threadbare studio sandwiched between an
auto shop and a palm reader's business, said he enjoyed the
production work but he had never fully believed the May 21 prophecy
would come true.
"I thought he would show some more human decency in admitting he
made a mistake," he said. "We didn't really see that."
___
Associated Press writer Tom Breen in Raleigh, North Carolina,
and Videographer Ted Shaffrey and AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll in
New York, contributed to this report.
Garance Burke can be followed on Twitter at
http://twitter.com/garanceburke.