Hope of heaven

The last few days have seen a lot of jokes at the expense of Harold Camping and his followers. Camping had somehow figured out some esoteric formulas to "prove" that Jesus would return May 21st to take away his people, and then October 21st the world would end. I don't know if he's massaging his math, preparing a mea culpa (somehow I doubt this), or just licking his wounds right now.

Why do people like this get a voice? Perhaps it's because they speak into a vacuum that the genuine church's pulpit as created by neglect. The blessed hope is for the Lord's return to raise the dead and create a new heaven and new earth. Has the church neglected the blessed hope and just left it to cranks?

While we kick Camping for his manipulative folly, let's not forget to look inward and see if we could have left him less space in which to operate by proclaiming the Lord's return more insistently.