to move up and down
Blue skies, not Armageddon, greeted Christian sect Sunday
A Christian sect with hundreds of followers in Canada that had proclaimed Armageddon would strike over the weekend was met with a picture-perfect Canada Day and left waiting for their prognosticated superhuman-powers to kick in.
Growing in Grace, also known as Creciendo en Gracia, predicted that its Texas-based leader Jose Luis de Jesus, would “transform” into an immortal being, while non-believers and roughly two-thirds of the world’s population would be destroyed on June 30 (or July 1, depending on the time zone).
The group predicted Mr. de Jesus — whom they believe is the second coming of Christ — and his followers would also be bestowed with special abilities such as walking through walls and flying, while religious institutions such as the Vatican and the world’s financial systems would be wiped out.
When reached in Kitchener on Sunday afternoon, the group’s Canadian bishop Alex Poessy would not answer many questions, but said their transformation had not yet come to pass.
“Well, we are still waiting for that,” he said. (Photo: Aaron Lynett/National Post)
End may be nigh — but we’ve been wrong about these things before
There are now only a few days before the world comes to an end, at least according to 89-year-old Harold Egbert Camping, president of Family Radio, a California-based Christian broadcasting network with 150 outlets. Billboards around the world have been proclaiming for months: “Judgment Day May 21, 2011.” Underneath is a quotation from the New Testament: “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.”
The scenario is supposed to play out something like this: the chosen will be lifted to heaven to be with Jesus for eternity and everyone else will be cast into a lake of fire, or at least something uncomfortably warm. In this version of the future, Mr. Camping and his believers follow a long tradition of prophets who have done complex calculations to show that the end is nigh. He is also part of a lineage that (a) is almost always wrong, and (b) will make multiple attempts to get it right. Mr. Camping originally predicted the world would end in September 1994. The best argument in his favour this time is that the world has to end at some point and May 21 is as good a guess as any. (Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Here are 10 other doomsday predictions that didn’t pan out.
