Charleston, S.C. – It’s the end of the world, and maybe you’ve been warned. A religious group out of Texas has blanketed the Lowcountry with flyers claiming nuclear war is upon.
But there’s one glaring problem with the claim.
The doomsday, repent now message comes from Abilene, Texas based “The House of Yahweh“, headed by Yisrayl Hawkins, who used to be country western singer Buffalo Bill Hawkins before taking up the cause of rapture.
The boldness of the campaign in this area and giving a specific date for the nuclear war to begin makes this group different.
“I think most groups don’t make specific predictions because it’s so easy to wake up in the morning.
The world’s still here and a lot of their credibility goes out the window,” said College of Charleston Religious Studies professor Elijah Siegler.
Such as giving the date for nuclear war to begin–on September 12th.
Religious experts say there are literally thousand of such sects across the country.
But the advent of the internet has made these sects more viable when they make such predictions like this group did for September 12th. But it also holds them accountable when they’re wrong.
“What people did in the past is say he miscalculated or say the nuclear war happened on some other plane, some spiritual plane,” said Siegler.
For others, they just disappear.
Chuck Taylor interviewed Hawkins on September 7th for WTMA and 95sx radio.
“Yisrayl gave a September 12, 2006 prediction that nuclear war is going to start.
So we had him on the show, we talked to him.
We said alright, we’ll talk to you September 13th.
We’re still waiting,” said Taylor.
So are we.
When we called his office, we were told he was busy until the end of the month. If the world lasts that long.
WTMA employees said the station got six serious calls asking for information about the group following the interview.