He called Haiti’s earthquake a “blessing in disguise.” He calls it some sort of retribution for the Haitian people’s “pact with the devil” during the French Revolution. This is about as obnoxious as when he accused martial artists of “inhaling demon spirits,” pronounced pro-abortionists as those who would be “vomited out of the earth,” or when he blamed the terrorist attacks of 9-11 (which he supposedly predicted) on the ACLU and others with a liberal agenda!
I shouldn’t be surprised when crazy people say crazy things and the media promotes it. I shouldn’t be disappointed or even angry about it, because that’s the nature of things in our culture. People’s opinions are their own, especially when it comes to matters of faith and practice.
But when what he or she says reflects on me personally, that’s when I really get steamed, which is why ranker.com’s list of the “Craziest Things Ever Said by Pat Robertson” got my attention this week.
You see, I’ve never been to his church. I’ve never watched his show. I’ve never met him. I don’t know anyone else who’s been to his church. I don’t know anyone who’s ever told me about watching his show. And the only people I’ve met who’ve met him have done so in the political arena and they’ve been less than impressed.
Yet, for some reason, the media still seems to brand guys like me in league with guys like him, as well as the late Jerry Falwell, or the old Jim Bakker, or the former leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, Ted Haggard. Being a follower of Jesus, I have really grown to resent how quickly people will lump my friends and I in with those who the media has portrayed as our spokespeople, but who have never spoken for me.

However, I can’t really blame them, because that’s the story they’ve been told based on our media’s choices of who they lift up as “Christian leaders.” I do grant that they’ve paid a little more attention to the Rick Warren’s of the world. They’ve paid some attention to the Jim Wallace’s of the world. I wish they’d pay more attention to the Anthony Campolo’s, the Noel Castellanos’s and the Jeff Carr’s of the world, who stand much more clearly behind the words of Jesus than the religious nuts which He Himself chastised in the scriptures.
Pat Robertson’s comments are offensive to me. To think that some wonderful young woman dying under the rubble this week was any more a sinner or less of a saint than anyone I know, including Mr. Robertson–is an out and out lie. And the Bible speaks of what happens to those who speak about God’s truth with such irresponsibility and falsehood. Now there’s a biblical warning Mr. Robertson should heed.