Even kooks can serve a purpose. Take Harold Camping, just the latest in a long line of Christian kooks who have populated the landscape for the past 2000 years. Camping’s prediction that the rapture would take place on May 21, 2011 stirred up all kinds of interest from secular and religious sources alike.

Overwhelmingly there were two reactions. Either people laughed hysterically at yet another weirdo proclaiming doomsday (these were the secular pundits), or they apologized profusely for someone who clearly never read the verse where Jesus says nobody knows the hour or the day when he will return (these would be the Christian apologists).