By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist

The world’s most famous doomsday prophet, Harold Camping, has finally emerged from hiding after Saturday’s predicted end failed to materialize to say his calculations were off by five months and the world is now scheduled to be obliterated on October 21.

According to Fox News, Camping, 89, was reportedly so distraught when his long-awaited May 21 doomsday event failed to happen that he left home and took up residence in a hotel with his wife. His ministry, Family Radio International, spent millions advertising the event and hundreds of followers from around the world invested their personal time – and family fortunes in some cases – to trumpet the end-of-the-world to the masses.

Camping made a special appearance before the press at the Oakland headquarters of Family Radio on Monday evening and apologized for not having the dates “worked out as accurately as I could have.” With the help of a friend who coached him through what he described as a difficult weekend, he said it finally 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 real apocalypse will come in five months, on October 21, when the globe will be completely destroyed.

“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.”

As he does every time he makes a prediction, Camping says he’s convinced that this is it. He’s so certain, in fact, that his ministry will no longer warn people about the coming event because, as he says, God’s judgment and salvation were completed on Saturday. The only thing to do between now and October 21 is to play music programs, which is what Family Radio will be doing until the world ends in October.

On 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.

Fox reports that Camping sat before his microphone, clutching a worn Bible in his hands, and calmly answered questions from listeners who were upset about having given away their possessions in anticipation of the predicted Rapture that never came about.

Camping reassured them that Family Radio would never tell anyone what they should do with their belongings.

“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 admitted 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?”

Meanwhile, the fallout among his followers has been heartbreaking.

Perhaps the most tragic is the case of a 14 year-old Russian girl , Nastya Zachinova, who became so distraught over the predicted May 21 cataclysm that she came home from school that day and took her own life. A farewell text message from the girl said she didn’t want to die along with everyone else and wanted to take her life in advance.

“She took this date too close to heart,” her mother, Lyudmila, told LifeNews. 

Many others suffered losses to their finances and pride such as Camping follower Jeff Hopkins who told Fox he spent a good deal of his retirement savings on gas money to power and drive a car that was outfitted with a special sign warning people that the world would end on May 21. In the weeks leading up to the expected event, Hopkins said he made two 100-mile round trips a day from Long Island to New York City.

“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, NY. “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.”

Even Camping’s own employees are disgruntled. Josh Ocasion, who works the teleprompter during Camping’s live broadcasts, said he enjoyed the production work but 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.”

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