Harold Camping Bio

Harold Egbert Camping is an American radio and television broadcast host teaching an interpretation of Biblical and Christian doctrines.[1] He is also the president of Family Stations, Inc., a California-based ministry with worldwide broadcast facilities, including more than 150 outlets in the United States,[1] as well a Web site. He is known especially for his teachings of the Bible as the sole and authoritative word of God; of the imminent end of the world,[1] to occur in the year 2011; of the "end of the church age", which asserts that churches are no longer the vehicle of God for salvation;[2] and of predestination, according to which God determined before the beginning of the world the election of individuals to be saved. A number of his doctrines are considered erroneous by various Christian denominations,[3] especially since his doctrine of the "end of the church age" includes the ideas that Christian churches are currently ruled by Satan and that believers should leave the churches and pursue a Christian life through study of the Bible and conducting their lives in accordance with it.[2] Camping does not consider his own movement a church and does not claim ordained or hierarchical authority within a church or institution. Harold Camping came from a Dutch Reformed Church background and owned a construction company before founding Family Stations, Inc. (also informally known as "Family Radio") in 1958.[1] KEAR,San Francisco, was the first Family Station. Richard "Dick" Palmquist met with Camping in April 1958, persuading Camping to help support fundraising efforts to raise the $20,000 down payment on that station.[4] Family Stations, Inc. began obtaining FM licenses on commercial frequencies before many Americans owned FM radios and now has affiliates in the New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore/Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco radio markets which are on prime commercial frequencies.[5][6]