Read a March 18, 2011, essay at First Things by Meghan Duke, in which she recounts the history of failed prophecies and critiques the tendency to believe in them.

Read a May 20, 2011, essay at the Science + Religion blog that explores the appeal of apocalyptic thinking for secular people.

Michael Shermer, author of The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies — How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths (2011), wrote a June 7, 2011, column in New Scientist explaining that for both religious and secular people, apocalyptic thinking is spurred by a desire to bring order to the randomness of events.

Read a March 9, 2012, ABC news story about an online post in which Harold Camping acknowledged being wrong about a 2011 doomsday.

James Scandrick directs the Institute on Black Church Sacred Music and Worship at Nashville’s American Baptist College.

Read a Nov. 20, 2012, LiveScience.com article about the cultural fascination with the end of the world.

CEO, pastor and rap recording artist Del Lawrence, aka Mr. Del, was a member of a secular – and explicit – rap group, Three 6 Mafia, before he became a Christian in 2001. Since then, he says, he has been rapping for God. Lawrence leads City of Refuge Church in Memphis, Tenn.; records with EMI Gospel; […]

Alan Lamar Patterson, aka AL P, got a law degree from Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University and then became a minister. He is a staff member of Mount Corinth Church in Houston, where he directs the monthly Friday Night Live, the Happy Hour of Power.

A poll in 2011 by the National Association of Evangelicals showed that a majority of its board of directors believe in one of various end-times scenarios.