US billboards claim Jesus will return May 21, 2011

... which, even by the standards of Christian predictions of the Second Coming, is kinda specific.

Forty billboards have sprung up around nine cities in the US, claiming that May 21, 2011 will be the date of the Rapture.

Fans of Family Radio, a nationwide Christian radio network, paid for the billboards after the network's founder, Harold Camping, predicted the date for the Rapture.

In Camping's latest publication, We are Almost There!, he states that certain Biblical passages point unquestionably to May 21, 2011 as the date of "Rapture", and October 21, 2011 as the end of the world. This is despite already getting it wrong - in his book 1994? he claimed there was a very high likelihood that the world would end in September 1994, although he did admit he "could be wrong".

Undeterred, 29-year-old Allison Warden orchestrated the billboard campaign in Nashville, Tennessee. Allison is a volunteer with WeCanKnow.com, a website set up by followers of Family Radio.

Although the exact nature of the Rapture is contested, in its most popular current form it involves Christ returning from Heaven to earth while saved individuals - both dead and alive - will rise up in the air and join him in the sky. A particular favourite of the evangelists in America, it's also the basis of Tim LeHaye's internationally best-selling 'Left Behind' series of novels.

'Obama the Antichrist' claims top US author

Yeah, I know - what a way to return! Well, here we are, Doomwatchers, back with a clip from Fox News in which Tim LaHaye, author of the insanely popular apocalyptic Left Behind books which have sold more than 60m copies in the US alone, suggests that President Obama is the Antichrist.

We've been here before, of course. Pick up a copy of issue four of THE END IS NIGH to find out just how the evangelicals and nutcases of the world greeted Obama's election.

However, it's impossible to overstate how startling this video is. Consider - this is a best selling author going on one of the biggest news stations in the world ... to tell the world that a politician heralds its end.

Thanks to Tom Mendelsohn at the Independent for blogging about this. LaHaye has, as he points out, previous...

The End is Nigh: The Conference!

Y'know, while reading coverage of this year's International Prophecy Conference I'm not actually sure what scares me the most. It's either that preacher Mark Hitchcock has penned *20* books on apocalyptica or that there's a CONFERENCE where people go and talk.

It's no surprise to see Tim LaHaye, he of the bestselling Left Behind series, down as one of the speakers at this conference, though Hitchcock's latest title (The Late Great United States, What Bible Prophecy Reveals about America's Last Days) is a sobering reminder that the evangelical Christian community in America is very much alive and well and busy claiming the current crisis as a sign of the times. He's also author of the cherrily-titled Could the Rapture Happen Today? and Iran: The Coming Crisis.

Hitchcock confidentally proclaims that America will NOT be a superpower during the End Times, meaning it will have already be brought low by "anything from "a nuclear 9/11'' to an economic collapse to the expected Rapture that could swoop 30 million believers into heaven"

"We don't want to be obsessed with it,'' he said. I really hope the irony of that statement is clear.