False May 21, 2011 Doomsday prophet Harold Camping “deserts” devastated followers, church offers solace
Doomsday prophet Harold Camping, who predicted that the End of the World would come on May 21, 2011, has gone missing ever since it became increasingly clear that his prediction is going to fail, even as local churches willingly stepped in to provide counseling and help to Camping’s devastated followers.
Camping, the head of the Family Radio, had predicted that the selected number of people on earth, approximately 200 million, would Rapture to heaven on May 21, 2011 while those left behind would witness the destruction of the earth which would come about on October 21, 2011.
He has based his predictions on Bible verses, namely Genesis 7:4 (“Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth”) and 2 Peter 3:8 (“With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day”), and concluded that May 21, 2011 is 7000 years after the Great Flood (4990 B.C.), concluding that it indeed is the Doomsday.
4990 + 2011 – 1 = 7000 (the subtraction of “1″ is necessary because year 1 B.C. is followed by 1 A.D., skipping year 0).
Because Camping was certain “without any shadow of a doubt it (Doomsday) is going to happen,” many of his followers sold their possessions and quit their jobs.
Adrienne Martinez, a follower of Camping, and her husband have reportedly quit their jobs and spent the last penny in their bank account towards a rented house in Orlando. “We budgeted everything so that, on May 21, we won’t have anything left,” said Adrienne.
Now that Camping’s prediction is proven to be a complete failure, attention has been shifted to his devastated followers. Previously when Doomsday prophecies have failed, some misled followers have turned violent, even leading up to murders and committing suicides.
In order to prevent this, church groups are actively providing counseling and advice for the damaged souls.
On May 21, 2011, around 4 p.m. (local time), a group of rescuers, led by Pastor Jacob Denys of Calvary Bible Church in Milpitas, CA, came in front of Camping’s Family Radio headquarter in Oakland, CA, with signs and banners, and offered to provide counseling and spiritual support to the dejected followers of Camping. Camping and his staff were nowhere to be seen. However, a few of Camping’s followers who were there, avoided the crowd and refused to offer any comment. One of the followers even tried to assault the IBTimes reporter when approached, saying, “I want to be left alone.”
“We are here to reach out to those people who might have bought the lie (of Camping),” said Denys. He, adding that they are not to condemn anyone, said, “What we are hoping is that we would be able to invite people who might have been affected to our church in Milpitas and hold a special service that would embrace them and reach out to them.”
The service, Denys said, will be at 10 a.m. on May 22, 2011, the day after the failed Doomsday.
“Churches like ours, he (Camping) says, are of the devil, that the Holy Spirit has left the church and all is left now is a shell. Even though this is what they’ve been believing and they’ve been teaching, we love them and we care about them. We don’t want them to be hurt. Today is a hard day for them,” James Bynum, a deacon of the church, said.
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