Harold Camping’s end-of-the-world prediction date is around the corner and scheduled to occur Oct. 21. But after his failed May 21 Rapture prediction, many are expected to simply ignore Camping this time around.
Glenn W. Shuck, an assistant professor of religion at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., told The Christian Post we are bound by our faith to ignore people like the eccentric Camping.
Camping, founder of Family Radio Network, predicted that Judgment Day and the Rapture would occur on May 21, 2011. When spring passed without a Rapture, Camping stood by his prediction but tweaked it to say it was not a “physical” Rapture.
A stroke this summer that left Camping struggling to speak was not enough to silence the radio preacher. Through his slurred speech, sounding decidedly less certain, he still said that the Rapture would occur Oct. 21.
Shuck said he is surprised, not by the Camping prediction of the end of the world, but that people believed the radio host at all, especially since the May flop was not the first one. Camping had already predicted the Second Coming of Christ in 1994.
"It seems to me that people have forgotten about his previous prophecies," Shuck told CP.
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Professor Shuck's studies have looked at new religious movements in the United States. He is the author of Marks of the Beast: The Left Behind Novels and the Struggle for Evangelical Identity.
"It surprises me that he (Camping) was able to continue this for this long," Shuck said.
Shuck doubts that the Christian community – or anyone else for that matter – will pay much attention to Camping after the May media hype. Still, there are still devout Camping followers who expect to see the Lord on Oct. 21.
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