The Reverend Pat Robertson is in the news again. This time for implying that God’s wrath is being revealed against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Mr. Sharon has suffered a massive stroke and is in a medically induced coma. Last year, Sharon’s government began to oversee Israeli withdrawal from occupied lands in the Gaza strip. Mr. Robertson believes Sharon has incurred divine punishment for violating the the words of the Prophet Joel. Click here for Joel 3:2
It seems to me that it’s time for someone to pull the plug on Rev. Pat’s microphone.
If it were only a matter of his foot in his mouth, it might not be so bad. Who of us has not tasted the soles of our own Nikes occasionally?
If it were just a matter of free speech, it might not be so bad. No doubt about it, Pat Robertson has the right to make the kinds of statements he does. And so does the Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the anti-Robertson who needs to have his microphone cord cut, as well.
If it were just a matter of Robertson’s wacky dispensationalist theology it might not be so bad. Certainly those of us in the Reformed tradition take issue with Robertson’s misapplication of Old Testament prophecies, but we can handle the disagreement.
Frankly, it’s not a matter of whether or not God’s avenging hand is still present in human events. The biblical witness and the witness of the church catholic and its confessions clearly affirm that our Sovereign God is very active in our world both to judge and to redeem.
My problem with Pat Robertson is that he so immodestly claims to know the mind of the Sovereign God when it comes to matters of divine wrath and punishment.
When God finally gets to speak his word to Job and his friends, he begins by asking Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” He goes on to ask, “Have you commanded the morning and caused the dawn to know its place? …Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? …Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads its wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high?”
And the Lord said to Job: “Shall the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.” (Job 40:1-2)
My problem with Pat Robertson is that he so blithely claims to know the mind of God. I mean, were you there with God, Pat?
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)
I think someone ought to pull the plug on Pat Robertson’s microphone. What do you think?
2 comments so far
Amen to your remarks! He is not God, nor can he see into the mind of God
I am not denying that in the bible Israel and the surround areas are considered the holy land, but they are also considered the holy land in Middle Eastern religion, possible dating back even farther then Christianity… stemming from the same roots even. In that light, times change as does humanity. As Christians we need to change with the times, and if an agreement with the Palestinians is the first step towards peace in the Middle East then that I am sure is what God would want. Whether that is our God, or a different interpretation of the SAME GOD.
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