Shockwave 2000! The Harold Camping Debacle

Harold Camping's failed end-times predictions made him a household name and, to many, a cautionary tale. Robert Sungenis knew him from the inside, having worked closely with Camping at Family Radio for two and a half years in the early 1980s before becoming one of his sharpest critics and coauthoring this book.

As the journalist Katy St. Clair recounted in her article “Quit Your Church!”:

“Camping's strange interpretations ultimately led mainstream theologians and scholars to publicly view him as a theological wack-job. In return, the old man thumbed his nose right back at the spiritual-intellectual establishment. ‘He was shunned by all these university types, these seminarians, who were getting all the accolades,’ says Robert Sungenis, a conservative Catholic and former colleague. ‘I could see Camping sort of upset because he wasn't getting recognized as much as he should have, because he felt he had the truth.’”

“Sungenis worked closely with Camping at Family Radio for two and a half years in the early '80s. He later coauthored Shock Wave 2000! The Harold Camping 1994 Debacle, one of several books Camping's activities have inspired, and has emerged as one of the broadcaster's harshest critics. ‘I still admire the man in a certain way,’ he says. ‘It's just these wacky ideas that come up every once in a while, that I'm obliged to tell people.’”