You've heard the saying, 'when you assume you make an ass of you and me' right? Well Robertson seems to be good at making some fairly arrogant assumptions regarding natural disasters and his perspective on murder and politics.
In 2005 he took it upon himself to propose the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez saying, "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," on Christian Broadcast Network's The 700 Club. He surmised that , "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with." The rationale? To prevent Venezuela from becoming, "...a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."
What made him think he had the authority to even suggest this I don't know. But statements like that certainly put him in competition with the Pharisees that made 'pharisee' a bad word. The hypocrisy is palpable made worse by the public nature of his proposal and the cavalier disregard for human life. Nothing Christian about that and I can't think of a Biblical defence for his attitude.
His latest declaration is that Haiti's history of misfortune and current plight have been acts of Divine Judgement because the enslaved African descendants 'got together and swore a pact to the devil [saying] We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.' True story. And so, the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' " (Source CNN)
This latest proclamation convinces me that Pat Robertson is far more impressed with his own views than with Scriptural teaching. While he may be convinced of his mythical reasoning God doesn't seem to have his back. The first contradiction to Robertson's theory is found in Ezekiel 18: 20:
20 The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him.This passage directly states that successive generations will not be punished for their forbears sins. Can't be clearer than that. So, if his little fable is true and the devil had a hand in freeing slaves, only those who sealed the deal would face the penalty.
The second rebuttal comes from Jesus himself in Luke 13: 1-5:
1Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
The simple message seems to be that misfortune does not mean punishment, but rather we all must seek to walk righteously because we are all in need of redemption. One can also refer to the entire book of Job which seems to discourage the presumption that any kind of pain or misfortune means punishment for sin. Job's friends were famously wrong in their assumption that his suffering was a result of some sin.The only thing I know for sure is that there was an earthquake and people are now in need. Robertson would do well to cast bread instead of stones.
