Harold Camping on Failed Rapture: Uh, 'Embarrassing'

"When it comes to trying to recognize the truth of prophecy, we're finding that it is very, very difficult," says Harold Camping in an audio message recently posted on his Family Radio website. Well, that’s one way of putting it: Camping has now twice predicted a rapture that has twice failed to arrive. (It's actually his third prediction: Doomsday was first supposed to occur on Sept. 6, 1994.) "Why didn't Christ return on Oct. 21? It seems embarrassing for Family Radio," Camping continues. "But God was in charge of everything. We came to that conclusion after quite a careful study of the Bible."

Camping goes on to basically admit he was wrong, albeit in very flowery language. ("We're ready to cry out and weep before God: 'Oh Lord, you have the truth, we don't have it. You have the truth.'") He also apologizes for saying that those who didn’t believe in the original May 21 rapture date "probably had not been saved." Christian Post notes that an explanation of why Oct. 21 was the true doomsday date was scrubbed from the Family Radio website. And in a separate article last week, the Christian Post reported that the 90-year-old Camping is, perhaps not surprisingly, retiring.