Harold Camping Update: Family Radio Website Removes Doomsday Warnings After Failed Predictions
Is the 'Rapture' Radio Network Looking to Change Its Image?
For the past five months, Harold Camping's Family Radio website had posted on its main page an "explanation" of why the world did not end on May 21 and why it would truly end on Oct. 21. Four days after Camping's failed doomsday date, however, that explanation has been removed, suggesting that Family Radio may be out of the rapture prediction business.
The move comes soon after Brandon Tauszik, a documentarian who has been attending Camping's Oakland, Calif., church for eight months, confirmed with The Christian Post in an exclusive interview that the Bible preacher has informed those close to him that he will effectively retire.
Additionally, Tauszik told CP that Camping has changed his views about the possibility that one can know the exact date of the end of the world, a notion that Camping has maintained for at least 20 years; the doomsday prophet made his first public end of the world prediction in 1992, claiming the world would end in 1994.
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There has been evidence of a "softer" apocalypse message from Family Radio, with more emphasis placed on perpetual readiness for judgment from God rather than a specific date on a calendar to prepare for.
Recently, a host on the station told listeners, "I know that many of us are deeply disappointed that Christ did not come. And I said something like this back in May, but please try to keep in mind that all of us who are believers, all of us who are Christians, are to live in such a way that we are to pray with the apostle John: 'Come quickly Lord Jesus.'"
The network also released an official statement that promotes a similar message:
"Thy command is still to occupy until he comes," Family Radio said. "We are still to go teach and tell. We are to share his word by reading it, teaching it, and singing it. We still have a unique tool and that tool is radio on which we can bring comfort and encouragement. Every day we, who are Christians, live in attention. We are to live so that we are ready for the return of Christ, and even pray for it. But we also rejoice in every new day, that we've been given another day to occupy and serve our Lord."
If it is true that Family Radio is looking to change its image as an end-times predictor, it would be in line with many of its employees.
"I don't believe in any of this stuff that's going on, and I plan on being here next week," a receptionist at Family Radio's Oakland headquarters told CNNMoney during the May doomsday prediction.
In fact, the receptionist said at the time that 80 percent of her co-workers do not believe in Camping's predictions.
