Christian doomsday prophet Harold Camping looks likely to be less than rapturous after his prediction that the world would end on Saturday failed to materialise. 
 
 The 89-year-old Californian preacher had prophesied that the Rapture would begin at 6pm in each of the world's time zones, with those "saved" by Jesus ascending to heaven and the non-believers being wiped out by an earthquake rolling from city to city across the planet. 
 
 But as the deadline for the Apocalypse passed in the Pacific islands, New Zealand and Australia, it became apparent that Camping's prediction of the end of the world was to end not with a bang but with a whimper. 
 
 Only on Twitter did the supposed Armageddon sweep the world, with users expressing their mock disappointment at the lack of dead people rising from their graves. 
 
 New Zealander Daniel Boerman tweeted: "I'm from New Zealand, it is 6:06PM, the world has NOT ended. No earthquakes here, all waiting for the rapture can relax for now. #Rapture" 
 
 In Australia, Jon Gall of Melbourne was unimpressed by the lack of fire and brimstone. He tweeted: "#Rapture time here in Melbourne. A rather quiet sort of rapture if you ask me. 
 
 "Well we have had the #Rapture going for 50 minutes now. So far it hasn't interrupted my fish & chips and glass of stout." 
 
 In Brisbane, KillaJeules, was similarly disappointed by the lack of a Hollywood blockbuster ending: "So it's 6:37pm here in Brisbane, Australia. No earthquakes. No beaming up of Christians. No zombie apocalypse. No surprises haha." 
 
 Camping, a retired civil engineer, has built a multimillion-dollar, non-profit ministry based on his apocalyptic predictions. He previously predicted that the world would end in 1994. It is difficult to know how many of his followers took his latest prophecy seriously, though his Family Radio Worldwide reaches millions of listeners in the US and around the world. 
 
 Some have reportedly sold all their possessions and taken to the streets to warn people to prepare for the second coming of Jesus. In recent weeks, callers to Christian radio stations in the US have debated what to do about non-believing friends and neighbours who will be left behind to endure the wrath of God. 
 
 But it looks like it will be atheists and other skeptics celebrating this weekend, with tongue-in-cheek doomsday parties planned across the US. 
 
 TV scientist Professor Brian Cox summed up the mood of the non-believers. He tweeted: "I think we should all pretend the #rapture is happening so that when Harold Camping gets left behind later today he'll be livid." 
 
 But Kieran Healy had a slightly more comforting message for those disappointed at not joining Jesus: "I guess on Sunday when the #Rapture people feel really upset, we can't console them by saying 'Cheer up, it's not the end of the world.'" ||||| Correction appended 
 
 (Photo: Reuters / Romeo Ranoco) 
 
 As the hour approaches closer and closer towards impending judgment, the banter just keeps on coming, with the public continuing to mock Harold Camping, his followers and many professing Christians alike. 
 
 So the question is, can anything good possibly come out of May 21, 2011? 
 
 “Maybe at least people have thought about the second coming of Christ,” said Dr. Barry Levanthal, provost and distinguished professor at Southern Evangelical Seminary, to The Christian Post. 
 
 “God can bring good out of evil, and bring correct direction out of incorrect thinking.” 
 
 But that, by no means, indicates that Camping and his followers are in the right, as they purported to receive “additional” personal revelations through the Holy Spirit about the end times. 
 
 Though believers should in fact be looking for Christ’s coming at any given time, they ought to be under good, sound biblical teaching, Levanthal expressed. 
 
 “When you turn the Christian faith into a primary subjective experience without the objective biblical truth, then the Christian faith is nothing more than one person’s experience against another person’s experience,” he said. 
 
 Sharing that every believer’s response should be objective and rooted in the truth that God provides through the Word, the professor stated, “If God is going to lead us to some kind of inner leading, it will never be opposite to what the Word of God is.” 
 
 He added, “The Christian faith is based on the teaching of Jesus and the apostles and that’s objective and unchanging. You start there. From there, as we walk in faith and obedience, the Lord will lead us to a personal relationship with Him.” 
 
 In concordance with Levanthal, Eric Thoennes, professor of biblical studies and theology at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, affirmed to CP, “We need to go to [God’s] clear teaching to find answers instead of making a side show out of biblical teaching in such an overly detailed and alarmist way that is so unhelpful.” 
 
 Camping, who heads Family Radio, has proclaimed that May 21 is the day of rapture and the start of Judgment Day. 
 
 At around 6 p.m. in each time zone, according to Camping, there will be a “tremendous earthquake” that will alert the world that Judgment Day has begun. Camping estimates that only about three percent of the world’s population will be raptured while the rest witness “horrible” events of destruction until Oct. 21, when the world will come to an end. 
 
 Interestingly, Camping told New York Magazine that “anybody,” no matter the religion, can go to heaven. “It’s not a matter of what religion you belong to, but it has to do with a personal attitude,” he said, adding that one must also accept the whole Bible and trust Christ as the messiah. 
 
 For Thoennes, there is nothing to benefit from Camping’s false teachings. “I don’t see any good coming from distorting Scripture. It’s tragic to me. Sadly, Christians should be the ones with the most settled confidence in the face of potential problems but we can be the biggest alarmists and conspiracy theorists.” 
 
 Emphasizing the sufficiency of Scripture, the Grace Evangelical Free Church pastor opposes Camping’s “obscured calculations” which completely ignore passages in the Bible like Matthew 24 and Acts 1 and undermine the clarity of Scripture. 
 
 “[While] we should rest in God who has our good and glory, [we] very often [lead] the way into hysteria ... and for some reason are attracted to these [little minutia details in Bible codes] rather than being satisfied in what God has already revealed and what Christ has done for us.” 
 
 Though nothing good can come out of Camping’s teachings, Thoennes does hope that some good would come out of the graceful and truthful response from Christians. 
 
 “We do believe Jesus is coming back and we need to be ready for him. [But] I wouldn’t make such a huge deal about how wrong [Camping] is that we minimize the truth of the return of Christ.” 
 
 The bottom line is we’re supposed to live lives of eager waiting for Him, he told CP. For Christians, we should say Camping is sadly misguided in teaching things that aren’t true but we should have a rekindled sense of hope and longing and desire for Christ to come back. 
 
 “It should cause us to live sober, holy, careful lives and lives that are living for eternity and not for the weekend, ... leading quiet lives and reflecting the honor of Christ.” 
 
 And perhaps another positive aspect surrounding all of the controversy? 
 
 That people everywhere are looking for answers – answers beyond their 401(k)’s, job prospects, and relationships; answers just beyond what the world could offer. 
 
 “That’s a very understandable, God-given human instinct, but we need to go to [God’s] clear teaching to find those answers rather than highly speculative calculation from Harold Camping,” Thoennes concluded. 
 
 Correction: Sunday, May 22, 2011: 
 
 An article on Saturday, May 21, 2011, about whether any good could come out of Harold Camping's false teachings on Judgment Day incorrectly identified the professor of biblical studies and theology at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, as Eric Thomas. The professor's name is Eric Thoennes, not Eric Thomas.
– Geez, it didn't even cloud over. Harold Camping's deadline of doomsday/Rapture has arrived on the East Coast without a peep, just as it did in the world's earlier time zones. "So far it hasn't interrupted my fish & chips," read a typical tweet from Australia, one of a few of the early ones rounded up by the Guardian. No word yet from Camping, who predicted that end times would arrive at 6pm today in each time zone. And the flop hasn't stopped endoftheworldconfessions from surging on Twitter. The Christian Post takes note of the mockery and wonders if any good might come of Camping's misfire. “Maybe at least people have thought about the second coming of Christ,” says Dr. Barry Levanthal, provost at Southern Evangelical Seminary. Another theologian isn't as generous. “I don’t see any good coming from distorting Scripture," says a professor at Talbot and Biola University. "It’s tragic to me. Sadly, Christians should be the ones with the most settled confidence in the face of potential problems, but we can be the biggest alarmists and conspiracy theorists.”