Doomsday Prophet Camping Leaves Radio Show

The voice of prophetic doom is silenced, sort of.

Harold Camping, the 89-year-old Christian radio broadcaster who three times predicted the world would end—most recently on May 21—is putting an end to his weekday segment called Open Forum on Family Radio.

Camping suffered a stroke on June 9, and Family Radio has been playing reruns of earlier recorded episodes on the radio station he founded since then. Specifically, Camping’s staff aired 20 segments he recorded between May 23 and June 9, according to the Oakland Tribune.

“When those are completed, we will have other programming that is scheduled to run in that time slot,” Program Department Secretary Judi Rathbone wrote in a published e-mail. “Mr. Camping is still in the hospital and continues to recover.”

Like many whose prophecies fail, Camping did not admit that he was wrong. In fact, he said that Judgment Day was May 21—in a spiritual sense. Although we didn’t see Jesus crack open the sky and rapture the church, Camping is nevertheless convinced his prediction was accurate.

“On May 21, this last weekend, this is where the spiritual aspect of it really comes through,” Camping said. “God again brought judgment on the world. We didn’t see any difference but God brought Judgment Day to bear upon the whole world. The whole world is under Judgment Day and it will continue right up until Oct. 21, 2011, and by that time the whole world will be destroyed.”