© Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty ImagesActivists believing that "Judgment Day" will happen on May 21, 2011, spread their word near Manhattan City hall in New York on May 12, 2011.
Saturday came and went with no reports of the Rapture happening -- as was predicted by one Christian group.
But from the Christian militia Hutaree to a preacher with a TV show out of Rochester Hills, the belief that Christ will return in the end of times is held by many in Michigan. For some of them, it's a way to convince people to turn to God and live righteously. Overall, 79% of Christians in the U.S. believe Christ will return one day, according to a Pew survey.
In Michigan, the arrests last year of members of Hutaree - a militia in Michigan whose members called themselves Christian warriors and were allegedly plotting to overthrow the U.S. government - brought renewed attention to end-times theology. To the Hutaree, the world was in the seven-year period of tribulations that comes before Christ's return, said the head of the church they attended. They believed "the government is already influenced by the antichrist," Elton Spurgeon, pastor of Thornhill Baptist Church in Hudson, told the
Free Press. And so the time to fight was now, its members believed.
