Undestroyed Earth Defies Oakland Ministry (Again)

The Oakland minister who predicted the end of the world would take place on Friday, Oct. 21, was confronted by the continuation of the world instead. It marks the second time this year that the ministry led by Harold Camping, 90, has settled on a doomsday date, only to have it tick by in quotidian fashion.

But to be fair, Camping has said that "the end is going to come very, very quietly," as Mark reported last week.

The AP reports:

Family Radio International stirred a global frenzy when it predicted the rapture would take 200 million Christians to heaven on May 21. Its most recent pronouncement said natural disasters would destroy the globe on Friday.

Though two moderate quakes did jolt the San Francisco Bay area on Thursday, the planet remained intact.

The ministry and its 90-year-old leader, Harold Camping, are avoiding the media this time and perhaps a repeat of the international mockery that followed the previous prediction.

Calls to the ministry went to voicemail and were unreturned.

After the earlier date elapsed, a message on the Family Radio site announced that the "day" of May 21, 2011, would last for five months — or until Oct. 21, 2011.

The folks over at the Family Radio International website were evidently confident in the Oct. 21 date: As of Friday afternoon, the "What's New" section had not been updated since Oct. 16.

Copyright 2011 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.