It’s a phenomenon that appears way larger than we suspected when we first
wrote about it last week. Growing
communities from California to South Africa, from China to Ghana, believe the world will end on May 21st 2011.
The question is intriguing: how many people worldwide believe that May 21st 2011 is the end of the world? There’s no real way to tell, because there’s no such thing as an official church that accepts applications for membership. If you’re a follower of Harold Camping, the bible scholar and media owner who’s worked out – through numerology – the exact date for the End of Days, what you mainly do is listen to his radio station. And because Family Radio is a nonprofit donation-funded entity that takes no advertising and broadcasts in 48 languages to every continent on earth, it’s practically impossible to determine the size of its listenership. All we can say about the number of believers, then, is that there’s obviously a lot.
The number is also likely to grow the closer the calendar moves to May 21st next year. At the moment, according to the organisation’s website, Family Radio is searching for people who can help them expand their range of broadcast languages. Included in the proposed new mix are Arabic, Armenian, Creole and Khmer. By far the largest component on the list, though, is African languages – and especially South African languages. If Family Radio is successful, listeners will soon be able to hear about the imminent Second Coming of Christ in Sindebele, Northern Sotho, Sesotho, Shona, SiSwati, Tswana, Xhosa and Zulu.
