Harold Camping Prayer Group Dwindles After Failed May 21 Doomsday Prediction

By Allison Summers, Christian Post Reporter Friday, October 21, 2011

Members of Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping's Sunday prayer group have begun to dwindle since his false May 21 doomsday prophecy, according to Reuters. With today, Camping’s re-calculation of when God will come down to pass judgment, progressing and no sign of the world ending just yet, those numbers might begin to decrease even more.

Ron Parshall, a local American Legion officer who belongs to a veterans group that meets in the same building and in a room nearby to Camping's, told Reuters that he sees about 25 followers who attend the prayer group on Sundays and about 20 youngsters who attend Sunday school classes in addition to the prayer group.

"He was a nice man," Parshall said. "He was just too radical for me. Anyone who claims to be that close to God, I take it with a grain of salt."

Camping first made headlines when he published a book in 1992 called 1994? in which he predicted that Christ's second coming could take place on Sept. 6, 1994 or in 2011. After a failed May 21, 2011, prophecy which Camping claimed would be the day when Christ would return to Earth and take the righteous back up to heaven followed by months of fire and disaster on earth, culminating with the end of the world on Oct. 21, Camping claimed it was simply a miscalculation and that these events would "probably" take place on Oct. 21.

In a post on Family Radio's website, the company explained why Judgment Day did not come on May 21, as he predicted.

"What really happened this past May 21st?," the post read. "What really happened is that God accomplished exactly what He wanted to happen. That was to warn the whole world that on May 21 God's salvation program would be finished on that day. For the next five months, except for the elect (the true believers), the whole world is under God’s final judgment. To accomplish this goal God withheld from the true believers the way in which two phrases were to be understood. Had He not done so, the world would never have been shaken in fear as it was."