What is all of this May 21st 'end of the world' about?

Citing Bible, group insists Jesus is returning May 21
End-timers face ho-hums
Thursday, April 14, 2011 03:08 AM
By Meredith Heagney
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Billy Wood, left, questions Darryl Keitt of Newark, N.J., about how the May 21 date of "judgment day" was calculated. Keitt explained his beliefs Downtown yesterday.

The doomsday group called Project Caravan passed through Columbus this week on their nationwide tour to talk about the second coming of Jesus and the end of the world.

Told that their days were numbered - 38, to be exact - the workers and walkers Downtown reacted without alarm.

They just kept on chatting, or waiting for a bus, or taking a smoke break, even as Darryl Keitt, 51, was doing his best to tell them that the end of the world will begin May 21.

As in, five weeks from Saturday.

Keitt, of Newark, N.J., is part of a group traveling the country in RVs, telling people that a complicated biblical code reveals the exact date of the second coming of Christ.

On that day, Keitt says, a great earthquake will roll across the Earth. The dead will be spit out of their tombs, and Jesus will arrive to take "the elect" with him to heaven. Everybody else will have a pretty bad five months to endure before the world officially ends on Oct. 21.

"All I know is I don't want to be here," Keitt said.

Keitt is traveling with a doomsday group called Project Caravan that is sponsored by the Christian broadcast ministry Family Radio, based in Oakland, Calif. So far, they've stopped Downtown and at Ohio State University, where the students were "friendly but arrogant," Keitt said.

The May 21 advocates, who leave for Indiana on Friday, have peppered the Internet and billboards across the country with their message. (Try typing "May 21" into a Google search, and see the top results.)

They seem to have stolen the thunder of other end-timers who claim the world will end in 2012, the year the Mayan calendar runs out.

"This comes up every so many years," said the Rev. Gary DeLashmutt, a pastor of Xenos Christian Fellowship, an evangelical church based in Westerville. He remembers a campaign in 1988 titled "88 Reasons Why Jesus Is Coming Back in 1988."

The Rev. Rich Nathan, pastor of Vineyard Church of Columbus, said people who claim the world is ending always manage to collect a following. An example he cited is a pastor named William Miller, who used the message in 1843 to get thousands of people to sell their homes and businesses.

"Everyone in history who has tried this before was wrong, so it would be best to approach the subject with a huge amount of humility," Nathan said.

Both pastors noted that Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew that no one will know the day or the hour of the end, except for God himself.

Keitt's group claims there are many places in the Bible in which God gives clues that, put together, reveal the date.

The formula, boiled down, goes something like this: In the Book of Genesis, God tells Noah he will send the destructive flood in seven days. Then, in 2 Peter 3:8, the reader is told that, to God, "a day is like a thousand years."

The great flood is believed to have taken place in 4990 B.C., Keitt said. The year 2011 is 7,001 years after that, but you have to subtract one because "there was no year zero," he said.

The formula to get to the exact date of May 21 is even more convoluted.

Yesterday, Tammy Smith stood outside her High Street office smoking and squinting at Keitt's brochure. She chuckled darkly at the title, printed in all capital letters: THE END OF THE WORLD IS ALMOST HERE!

Smith said she's a Christian and doesn't mind hearing end-of-the-world prophecies. Still, she doubts that anyone will know before it happens.

Dedra Watkins, another Christian, was a little more perturbed. She was waiting for a bus at High and Broad streets when she encountered Keitt. She handed his literature to her 4-year-old sister, ordering her to throw it in the trash can.

"Nobody knows when God is coming," she said. "I'll be ready when he comes."

mheagney@dispatch.com

Heagney, Meredith. "Citing Bible, Group Insists Jesus Is Returning May 21 | The Columbus Dispatch." Central Ohio News, Sports, Arts & Classifieds | The Columbus Dispatch. 14 Apr. 2011. Web. 20 May 2011.

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