This Non-Religious Life Episode 53: When Prophets Fail

A year later, the May 21st movement has either ceased to be or has moved into other areas of theological speculation. The late Harold Camping has recanted his statements and publicly apologized and I haven’t heard anything from Brother Mike in a while. However, this seems to be the norm for  apocalyptic cults. The Millerites of the 19th century predicted the world in March of 1844 and when it failed to occur the remaining members doubled-down, claimed miscalculation, returned to hardened exegesis and came up with October 1944. The Great Disappointment which followed led to the splintering of the group. Out of the wreckage arose the Second Adventists, a group which would later become the Seventh-Day Adventists. They (and fringe groups in their midst) made predictions for the end times in 1845, 1846, 1849, 1851, 1874, 1999, and 2001. Each time, the date came and went without so much as a whimper. The Mormons too made predictions in 1891, and 2001 as well as 1969 by the Morrisites, a Mormon fringe group.

Even popular Christian evangelists have been caught with their eschatological pants down so to speak. In 1950 a very youthful Rev. Billy Graham made the comment that we had perhaps a year or two before the end and that he was very sure of this fact. In 1982, Pat Robertson guaranteed that the world would end that fall. We want to cover this subject again because doomsayers were the reason this show began. Our discussion with Brother Mike spurred us to start a program dedicated to the subject and spurred me on to become ever more studious.

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