Harold Camping Predicts The World Ends 5/21/2011.

If you have never heard of Harold Camping before, then you have never heard of the date the world will end. According the 89 year old retired engineer and self proclaimed prophet-Jesus will return on May 21, 2011 to judge the world, and the world as we know it will come to an end. Per the Camping ministry, living in Hell or Heaven forever is as close as May 21, 2011, in accordance with to his calculation. Camping claims to have come into this knowledge supported by "his" biblical calender calculation founded on the scriptures which is confirmed by the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948.

The Associated Press caught of with one of Campings recruits, Marie Exley, a 32-year-old Army veteran who desires to start a family, but believes that she has no time to do so and therefore, she will spend the remaining months before the end, sending a stark warning across the US and overseas: "Judgment Day is almost here." Ms. Exley believes in the May 21, 2011 judgement and has shown her loyalty to the Camping movement by leaving her home in Colorado Springs, Colo. to work with Oakland, Calif.-based Family Radio Worldwide independent Christian ministry.

According to the AP. "Exley is part of a movement of Christians loosely organized by radio broadcasts and websites, independent of churches and convinced by their reading of the Bible that the end of the world will begin May 21, 2011.To get the word out, they're using billboards and bus stop benches, traveling caravans of RVs and volunteers passing out pamphlets on street corners. Cities from Bridgeport, Conn., to Little Rock, Ark., now have billboards with the ominous message, and mission groups are traveling through Latin America and Africa to spread the news outside the U.S."

Since her move to California in August 2010 veteran Marie Exley has used her military experience in logistic organization to is organizing blocks of RVs carrying the message from city to city before she is deployed overseas again. These vehicles were scheduled to be in five North Carolina cities until January 2011. Exley states about her time away to serve: "I don't really have plans to come back," she said. "Time is short."

As drastic has Marie has been about getting the announcement of the May 21, 2011 judgement date out, she is not alone. Some of Campings followers are carrying out this proclamation in more subtle ways. Raleigh, NC resident Allison Warden, 29 has been helping organize a campaign using billboards, post cards and other media in cities across the U.S. through a website named "We Can Know". I visited http://www.wecanknow.com/ and found an arsenal of biblical text that is used to support this claim of the day of judgement Camping is proclaiming.

The Rapture

Camping states: "Beyond the shadow of a doubt, May 21 will be the date of the Rapture and the day of judgment."

Although it is the most preached and believed sermon amongst Christians, the man made doctrine known as the "Rapture" is no where to found in the bible. It teaches that believers will be taken up (fly upwards) to heaven, while everyone else will remain on earth for a period of torment (the great tribulation), concluding with the end of time, which Camping preaches will happen in October 2011.

So what happens if his prediction does not come true? Well, Camping's follower Warden has an answer for that too "If May 21 passes and I'm still here, that means I wasn't saved. Does that mean God's word is inaccurate or untrue? Not at all," Warden said.

The belief that Christ will return to earth and bring an end to history, is documented in Bible with elaboration in such books as the book of Revelation, the last book in the New Testament. This is the fundamental believes if Christians since the first century Church. However, the date this will take place is not stated in the bible and very few churches are willing to set a date for the end of the world, Jesus' himself states in the gospels of Mark and Matthew that no one will know the day or hour when the Lord will return. Paul, the Apostle speaks to the church on the comming of the Lord in the book of 1 Thessaloninans Chapters 4 and 5 and state in chapter 5 verse 2: "For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night."

So in all logic we know that since Paul likened the coming of the Lord to that of a burglar, how practical is it that the Lord would reveal to his Apostle that the day would be unannounced but later renege and give Camping the formula for the exact date?

Yahoo Press states, "predictions like Camping's, though, aren't new. One of the most famous in history was by the Baptist leader William Miller, who predicted the end for Oct. 22, 1844, which came to be known as the Great Disappointment among his followers, some of whom subsequently founded the Seventh Day Adventist church."

According to Exley, who said her beliefs have estranged her from most of her friends and family. "If you still want to say we're crazy, go ahead," she said. "But it doesn't hurt to look into it."