Local Clergy Discuss Controversial Evangelist's Rapture Prediction

Apparently, Family Radio evangelist Harold Camping's widely publicized prediction that the end of the world is near - Saturday, May 21 to be exact, hasn’t reached Storrs.

So say Rev. Nathan Speck-ewer of and Rev. Gregory Mullaney of at the .

Have the reverends been receiving phone calls, e-mails and visits from worried parishioners? 

"No parishioner has come to me expressing any concern,” said Mullaney. The same goes for Speck-ewer. “I haven’t had any parishioners concerned about it,” he said.

A Huffington Post story Thursday detailed Camping’s warnings about "The End." He and his followers believe that at 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 21, 2011 the ground will shake, graves will open and the saved will ascend to Heaven. Those left behind will be doomed to live among the fallen until God annihilates the Earth on October 21. The full story can be found here.

Camping has predicted Judgement Day before, too. A similar prediction in 1994 came and went.

So how are religious leaders in Storrs taking the news?

“Personally I’m not making any special preparations for Saturday the 21st,” said Mullaney. “We have Confirmation here [at St. Thomas] that morning, so we’re getting ready for Confirmation and hoping that we’ll have a nice day and everything will go smoothly, and that’s about it really."

Life as usual.

"I don’t take credence in it,” Speck-ewer said. “Honestly Judgment Day has come already, and it’s that .”