Every false end-times prophet has to come to terms with what happens when the predictions fail to come to pass. the well-worn track of excuses fall into two categories:

1. Oops! I made a mistake the real date is…

2. It really did happen, but it was a spiritual occurrence which we can't see with physical eyes. That's the path taken by groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses.

I was sort of hoping that Harold Camping would follow the truly christian approach of acknowledging his mistake, repenting of his pride and seeking correction.

He has apprently chosen option 2. <sigh>

From The Christian Post:

Harold Camping Insists: Judgment Day Did Come on May 21
By Katherine T. Phan | Christian Post Reporter
 
"On May 21, this last weekend, this is where the spiritual aspect of it really comes through. God again brought judgment on the world. We didn’t see any difference but God brought Judgment Day to bear upon the whole world. The whole world is under Judgment Day and it will continue right up until Oct. 21, 2011 and by that time the whole wolrld will be destroyed," he proclaimed.

May 21 was a spiritual coming, he insisted.

Camping spoke publicly Monday for the first time since his failed May 21 Judgment Day prediction, offering no apology but going on to speak of his "difficult time" over the weekend and further push his judgment message with a new angle.

The president of Family Radio said he agreed to speak because many people have been asking and that he had to "honorably" face that.

"Are you ready to shoot yourself or go on booze trip or whatever?" Camping said of people's questions to him.

"I can tell you very candidly that when May 21 came and went, it was a very difficult time for me, a very difficult time. I was wondering, 'What is going on?'" he said, speaking from the organization's headquarters in Oakland, Calif.

The 89-year-old radio broadcaster said he prayed and reviewed the Bible and concluded that he had been looking at the Bible more factually than spiritually.

"The Bible is a very spiritual book. There are a lot of things that are very factual, very factual, of course, but there are a lot of things that are very spiritual. How to know whether to look at it with a spiritual understanding or a factual understanding is hard to know," said Camping.

"The fact is when we look at it more spiritually then we find that He did come."

He went on to suggest that Oct. 21 is still the date of the End of the World but was vague on how the period until then would play out.

It was Camping's first official statement to be released since Friday, the day that he predicted to be the beginning of the end of the world.

His comments Monday were broadcast live, beginning 8:30 p.m. ET during the Family Radio's "Open Forum" program, by radio through the organization’s FM stations and by television on KFTL Channel 28. Members of the press were allowed to sit inside the Family Radio office and listen as Camping delivered his statement.

Prior to Monday's address, Camping had refused to grant any interviews to respond to his failed prediction. To the few media outlets that managed to reach him, Camping said very few words and indicated he needed time to think before responding.

On Sunday, he told the San Francisco Chronicle that he was "flabbergasted" the Rapture didn't happen. Speaking to International Business Times, which caught him at his Alameda home, Camping called the fallout over the May 21 date a "big, big deal" and something he had to “live with."

Leading up to his Judgment Day date, Camping had boldly predicted that the Rapture would occur at 6 p.m. at May 21, 2011 and that the world would be destroyed five months later on Oct. 21, 2011.

A regular speaker on Family Radio programs, Camping claimed that he had decoded numbers in the Bible to predict the End of Days. Based on his calculations, he concluded that the Rapture would take place 722,500 days after Jesus was crucified on Golgotha.

The co-founder of the Christian radio network with 66 stations across the country also predicted that on May 21 there would be earthquakes around the world and that approximately three percent of the world’s population would be raptured while the rest of the world would endure the tribulation until Oct. 21, when the whole world would be destroyed.

The network’s broadcasts are available in 61 languages online.