A US PREACHER who predicted the end of the world twice last year – only for it to keep going – has said he will give up forecasting the apocalypse.
Harold Camping sparked widespread preparations for the Rapture among his followers last year, with hundreds saying their final goodbyes to friends and family.
He first predicted “the Rapture” on May 21, before revising his forecast to October 21 when the world failed to end.
But Camping, the head of Christian broadcasting service Family Radio in California, was then proved wrong a second time – prompting him to admit that he was “embarrassed” by the mix-up.
And in a new letter to his followers on the Family Radio site, Camping has now announced his retirement from the forecasting business.
“We must also openly acknowledge that we have no new evidence pointing to another date for the end of the world,” Camping wrote, continuing:
Though many dates are circulating, Family Radio has no interest in even considering another date [...] We have learned the very painful lesson that all of creation is in God’s hands and He will end time in His time, not ours!
Camping had initially predicted the apocalypse based on a belief that God was angry about human behaviours including homosexuality, and that May 21 2011 was exactly 7,000 years after the date of Noah’s flood.
