American TV evangelist Harold Camping led the world on a merry dance with his claims that the world would end on Saturday, May 21 . . . and South Africans were among those who suffered as a result of their support.
Camping incorrectly predicted that there would be a massive earthquake and the faithful would be taken away on May 21, 2011.
Johannes Coetzee, a South African supporter of Camping’s Family Radio, who, along with his fellow believers booked into a Johannesburg hotel to wait for the end of the world, said they would look to the scriptures to see where they got it wrong. Coetzee remains convinced that the final end of the world will arrive on October 21, when the Earth will be consumed by “fire and sulphur”.
Coetzee, who burst into tears, saying he took the blame for misinterpreting the Bible, said that his followers were disappointed, but they were still well.
According to TimesLive, when asked if he would be hosting a press conference again on October 22, Coetzee replied: “No. Let’s see what happens.”
He also told Beeld that he will never go back to church – as he is enduring terrible judgment and ridicule from churchgoers.
Camping had previously predicted that the “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.
Now he says that May 21 was a “spiritual event”, an “invisible judgment day”, but the main event will be on October 21.
While the supposed hour of reckoning came and went in relative peace and obscurity, there’s no peace or rapture for his believers and followers, who now have to endure an agonising five months’ wait before their hopes are dashed or celebrated.