Harold Camping. Brandon Tauszik/AP Photo

Harold Camping, the Christian broadcaster who predicted the end of the world would come last May, says the true end is now near. He was off by five months, he says; the real day is Oct. 21.

“What really happened this past May 21st? What really happened is that God accomplished exactly what He wanted to happen,” says a post on Camping’s website, FamilyRadio.com. “That was to warn the whole world that on May 21 God’s salvation program would be finished on that day. For the next five months, except for the elect (the true believers), the whole world is under God’s final judgment. To accomplish this goal God withheld from the true believers the way in which two phrases were to be understood. Had He not done so, the world would never have been shaken in fear as it was.”

Camping drew national attention in May with his prediction, and was said to be “a little bewildered” when it didn’t go as he’d said. Now 90, he suffered a stroke in June and has been recovering at home in Oakland, Calif.

The Family Radio website has the full text of his latest prediction.

“Thus we can be sure that the whole world, with the exception of those who are presently saved (the elect), are under the judgment of God, and will be annihilated together with the whole physical world on October 21, 2011, on the last day of the present five months period,” it says. “On that day the true believers (the elect) will be raptured. We must remember that only God knows who His elect are that He saved prior to May 21.”