Family Radio Network preacher Harold Camping, whose prediction for the end of the world on May 21 misfired, now says that his new date of Oct. 21 looks like the real thing -- well, probably.
"A lot of things we didn't have quite right will probably be finished out on Oct. 21," the 90-year-old Camping says in a message on his Family Radio Network website. "That looks like it will be at this point, looks like it will be the final end of everything."
After the May 21 debacle, Camping initially said he was "flabbergasted," but then announced that it had in fact been a "spiritual" End of the World, and that would culminate in the finally, final end on Oct. 21, Time reports.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of followers, including many who had left their jobs, had contributed money for billboards warning of the coming Doomsday. The Los Angeles Times reported that the worldwide campaign cost $100 million, including caravans and advertising, and was financed by the sale and swap of TV and radio stations.
Camping, who had also forecast the Rapture to occur in 1988 and 1994, conceded that it had been "a really tough weekend," The Christian Post notes.
Camping, who lives in Alameda, Calif., suffered a stroke at the time, but says he is now back home, still weak, but steadily improving.
"Maybe God will keep me to the end also, so we can go to be with him forever," he says. "I am very convinced that all of the elect will definitely end up with the Lord Jesus Christ in a very, very few weeks.
In the end, though, Camping's certitude comes ringing through:
"I really am beginning to think as I restudied these matters that there's going to be no big display of any kind," the 90-year-old Camping, who suffered a stroke in June, stated in a recent audio message on his site. "The end is going to come very, very quietly, probably within the next month. It will happen, that is, by Oct. 21."
