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Apocalypse believers hang on to faith
AP
Photo
Caroline Dennewith, co-owner of Dorky's Arcade in Tacoma, Wash., poses for a photo, Friday, May 20, 2011 with a poster advertising her business' "Rapture Party," which will be held Saturday, May 21, 2011, the day on which a loosely organized Christian movement believes Jesus will return to Earth to gather the faithful. Dennewith says she has received international media attention and some isolated local criticism for what started out as a low-key party in response to predictions of the rapture.
Associated Press
OAKLAND, Calif.
They spent months warning the world of the apocalypse, some giving away belongings or draining their savings accounts. And so they waited, vigilantly, Saturday for the appointed hour to arrive.
When 6 p.m. came and went across the continental U.S. and various spots around the globe, and no extraordinary cataclysm occurred, some believers expressed confusion, while others reassured each of their faith. Still, some others took it in stride.
“I had some skepticism but I was trying to push the skepticism away because I believe in God,” said Keith Bauer — who hopped in his minivan in Maryland and drove his family 3,000 miles to California for the Rapture.
He started his day in the bright morning sun outside the gated Oakland headquarters of Family Radio International, whose founder, Harold Camping, has been broadcasting the apocalyptic prediction for years. “I was hoping for it because I think heaven would be a lot better than this earth.”
But he added, “It’s God who leads you, not Harold Camping.”
Bauer, a tractor-trailer driver, began the voyage west last week, figuring that if he “worked last week, I wouldn’t have gotten paid anyway, if the Rapture did happen.” After seeing the nonprofit ministry’s base of operations, Bauer planned to take a day trip to the Pacific Ocean and then start the cross-country drive back home today with his wife, young son and another relative.
The May 21 doomsday message was sent far and wide via broadcasts and web sites by Camping, an 89-year-old retired civil engineer who has built a multimillion-dollar Christian media empire that publicizes his apocalyptic prediction. According to Camping, the destruction was likely to have begun its worldwide march as it became 6 p.m. in the various time zones, although believers said Saturday the exact timing was never written in stone.
In New York’s Times Square, Robert Fitzpatrick, of Staten Island, said he was surprised when 6 p.m. simply came and went. He had spent his own money to put up advertising about the end of the world.
“I can’t tell you what I feel right now,” he said, surrounded by tourists. “I don’t understand it. I don’t know. I don’t understand what happened.
“Obviously, I haven’t understood it correctly because we’re still here,” he said.
Many followers said the delay was a further test from God to persevere in their faith.