Harold Camping Very Skeptical of His Own Oct. 21 Rapture Prediction, Source Says
Harold Camping was even more skeptical about his own doomsday prediction for Oct. 21 than he seemed during the only radio broadcast on the subject, a church member told The Christian Post.
The Sunday before Oct. 21, Camping, the Oakland, Calif.-based minister and radio host, expressed doubt that the rapture would happen on the said day, according to Brandon Tauszik, a member of Camping’s church, who spoke with the Bible teacher in person.
"He told me: 'I’ve done the best I can," Tauszik told CP Sunday in a phone interview.
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Asked if he was sure the end of the world would come on Friday, Oct. 21, Camping reportedly said "No."
"He clearly expressed doubt in the fact that Oct. 21 is going to happen," Tauszik said.
Camping’s interlocutor has been attending the church for the past eight months. But Camping has not, ever since a stroke he experienced in June. Monday, as CP reported, it emerged that Camping has retired.
The last time listeners of Family Radio heard Camping’s voice was in a pre-recorded message uploaded onto the station’s website some time after the radio host recovered from the stroke. In the message, Camping asserted that the end would "probably" come on Oct. 21.
Meanwhile, during an Oct. 23 service at Camping’s church, after the rapture did not happen, the congregation was trying to make sense of the facts, Tauszik told CP. Most people there apparently still believe that Christ will return very soon. During that first sermon after the failed doomsday, Camping’s church also declared that God's judgment did occur, but was, once again, "spiritual."
Tauszik also told CP in a phone interview, that the congregation is divided. Some seem to believe there is no way of determining when the end of the world will come. Some, on the other hand, believe that doomsday will come at the end of the moon cycle, meaning this Wednesday, he said.
"The whole service was about that [Camping's doomsday predictions], and about how to move forward since the second date didn’t happen," Tauszik told CP on Oct. 23, right after the service. "Everybody was discussing and trying to get to the bottom of it; figure out where they went wrong, where Camping went wrong."
