Regarding his recent failed prediction that the end of the world would happen this past Saturday, Harold Camping has told a reporter, “I’m looking for answers … But now I have nothing else to say.” (For the full story, click here.)

I, too, scratch my head, though not for the same reasons as Mr. Camping. I wonder how a man who has studied the Bible for so long could actually believe that he could reduce the awesome mystery of the time of Christ’s return to a simple mathematical formula, and that based on arbitrary, subjective interpretation. I also scratch my head in wonder how so many people could hang on his words so devoutly. No doubt I will continue to wonder.

“I’m looking for answers … But now I have nothing else to say.” That is what he should have said all along instead of making brash, overconfident predictions which he had no authority whatsoever to make. My hope is that he will humbly admit his error and repent. It would not undo what he has done, but it would at least be comforting to know that he is willing to turn from the error of his ways. I would even go so far as to say that he should step down from his position and turn over the reins of Family Radio to a responsible teacher of the Bible.

That might be hoping for too much, but I will say it here very emphatically anyway: Mr. Camping needs to step down. If he were a qualified, divinely called teacher of the Bible who was placed in his teaching position through the proper biblical process, he would have never made the horrible errors he has made, and it would not have taken a failed prediction—and all the unpleasant consequences that went along with it—to bring him to say, “I’m looking for answers.” He would have taken that attitude all along because he would have been under the authority of elders in a local church, humbly submitting his teaching to their scrutiny to keep him from going off the deep end. But this is what happens when people set themselves up as Bible teachers without submitting to any authority in the church.

I do pity Mr. Camping. I sympathize with him—believe it or not—because of the inner anguish I know he must be dealing with right now. But my sympathy can’t change the fact that he must step down. He must stop plaguing the church with his false teachings. He must stop leading others astray. He must stop trifling with Scripture and treating it as his plaything to do with as he pleases. MR. CAMPING: PLEASE STEP DOWN FROM YOUR POSITION.