Wow. This is just how the Seventh-Day Adventist church got started.
I was raised a Seventh-Day Adventist. My father was a church theologian and evangelist and professor of religion.
The early Adventists expected the world to end on Oct. 22, 1844.
Didn’t quite happen. So they decided that that was the date that Jesus began his final work of judging humanity prior to his imminent arrival.
This is like the early Christians who expected God to appear and take them to Heaven. They expected Jesus to make a magnificent return and chastise sinners and reward those who believed in him.
Hasn’t happened yet either.
Idiots will keep falling for this stuff because they don’t want to face the drudgery of ordinary life. They prefer excitement, even when it is false excitement.
The WP says: Radio evangelist Harold Camping said in a special broadcast Monday night on his radio program Open Forum that his predicted May 21, 2011 Rapture was “an invisible judgment day“ that he has come to understand as a spiritual, rather than physical event.
“We had all of our dates correct,” Camping insisted, clarifying that he now understands that Christ’s May 21 arrival was “a spiritual coming” ushering in the last five months before the final judgment and destruction.
In an hour and a half broadcast, Camping walked listeners through his numerological timeline, insisting that his teaching has not changed and that the world will still end on October 21, 2011.
“It wont be spiritual on October 21st,” Camping said, adding, “the world is going to be destroyed all together, but it will be very quick.”
Camping had previously pointed to October 21 as the last day on earth for all humanity.
His former assertion was that a faithful three percent would be physically pulled into heaven by God through the Rapture on May 21, to be followed by a five month period of great suffering known as the Tribulation, ending, finally, on October 21. On Monday’s broadcast, Camping speculated that perhaps a merciful God decided to spare humanity five months of “hell on earth.”
