Harold Camping, the evangelical broadcaster who created a media frenzy in 2011 when he predicted Doomsday, has died at age 92.
Camping’s death was confirmed by Family Radio, the Oakland-based company he founded, reports the Washington Post. He died Sunday at his Alameda, Calif. home.
He was born in Boulder, Colorado in 1921. In the 1950s, he began Christian gospel and dominated the San Francisco area. But in the early 1990s, his focus became predicting the end of the world and when Judgement Day would come. In 1992, he wrote 1994? and Are You Ready?, which both suggested that Judgement Day was in September 1994.
But it didn’t happen. The next date he was dedicated to was May 21, 2011. He spent millions of dollars promoting the date and his followers used social media to get the message out. When May 21 came without the world being engulfed in flames, he then decided that Oct. 21, 2011 was the real Judgement Day. It didn’t happen then, either.
As Reuters notes, a month later, he suffered a stroke and dropped from public view. His Open Forum radio program was cancelled. It was reported earlier this year that Family Radio was in financial straits after spending millions promoting the MAy 21 Doomsday date.
Among Camping’s survivors is Shirley Vander Schuur, his wife of 71 years.