OAKLAND, Calif. -- Harold Camping, the 90-year-old Oakland minister who incorrectly predicted the end of the world twice this year, conceded that his latest forecast may have shone an unwanted light on himself and his radio station.
"Why didn't Christ return on October 21?" Camping wondered in a recorded statement released last week after his latest prediction failed to materialize. "It seems embarrassing for Family Radio," Camping's broadcasting outfit.
In the five-minute statement, Camping called on his followers not to feel abandoned by God and said whiffing on both the Oct. 21 date and an earlier prediction of May 21 had left him humbled.
Tom Evans, a Family Radio Inc. employee who has worked for Camping for 25 years, said that media reports Camping had resigned were untrue.
"No, no, and no way," Evans said. "He's still here."
In his recording, Camping also apologized to non-saved Christians for suggesting they would be left behind during the rapture. "I shouldn't have said that," he said.
He said that his reading of the Bible, and deciphering its true meaning, was far from finished.
"I have been checking my own notes more carefully than ever," Camping said. "And I do find that there is other language in the Bible that we still have to look at very carefully."
E-mail Justin Berton at jberton@sfchronicle.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com
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