Failed Doomsday Pastor Has Change of Heart -- Calls His Predictions 'Sinful

Ninety-year-old Harold Camping created a stir last year when he proclaimed that the world would be coming to a disastrous end on May 21, 2011. Some people spent their life's savings in preparation for the purported day of reckoning, while others simply laughed him off. When the event didn't come to pass, Camping doubled down, saying that his estimates were off and that the end times would come, instead, on October 21. Again, he was wrong.

Following the insanity and false predictions, in November, The Blaze reported about a half-hearted apology that the leader offered. Now, Camping has come forward to fully admit his "sin" and to say that he will no longer be making Doomsday predictions. In essence, this was the first true apology offered, it seems, to those who believed his predictions would come to pass.

While apologies are presented, the letter opens with Camping and his staff looking at the bright side of the failed campaigns to warn the world that the earth was coming to an end.

"The May 21 campaign was an astounding event if you think about its impact upon this world. There is no question that millions, if not billions of people heard for the first time the Bible’s warning that Jesus Christ will return," Camping and his staff wrote. "Huge portions of this world that had never read or seen a Bible heard the message the Christ Jesus is coming to rapture His people and destroy this natural world."

The letter goes on to say that Camping and his company, Family Radio, have "no interest in even considering another date." Additionally, the text claims that "God has humbled" the company through the events of May 21.

"We humbly recognize that God may not tell His people the date when Christ will return, any more than He tells anyone the date they will die physically," the letter reads, continuing:

Even as God used sinful Balaam to accomplish His purposes, so He used our sin to accomplish His purpose of making the whole world acquainted with the Bible. However, even so, that does not excuse us. We tremble before God as we humbly ask Him for forgiveness for making that sinful statement. We are so thankful that God is so loving that He will forgive even this sin.

Oddly, the letter doesn't mention the October 2011 date, at which point Camping said the world would be destroyed. And while it does look at the good that may have inadvertently come from the predictions, nowhere are the lives of those individuals who sold their possessions and bought into Camping's ideology mentioned. Read the entire letter here.

(H/T: Christian Post)