News reports today include:
Conservative Christian televangelist Pat Robertson told citizens of a Pennsylvania town that they had rejected God by voting their school board out of office for supporting “intelligent design” and warned them on Thursday not to be surprised if disaster struck.
and
Florida-based Coral Ridge Ministries (CRM), one of the largest and most active Christian ministries in the U.S. and the world, is working on repair and recovery in the wake of Hurricane Wilma. Though CRM’s facilities sustained some damage, a spokesman says daily operations are slowly returning to normal.
Fort Lauderdale, home to Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Dr. D. James Kennedy’s Center for Reclaiming America, and the broadcast outreaches of Coral Ridge Ministries, was hit hard by Hurricane Wilma. The storm, which roared across South Florida October 24 with sustained winds of more than 100 miles per hour, ripped the roof off Coral Ridge Presbyterian and allowed water to flow into the massive sanctuary. Some of the CRM offices also sustained major damage, including the ministry’s distribution center.
Hmmm.
Pat Robertson is a master at using scare tactics to drum up fear in the vulnerable. Natural disasters are caused by natural occurences: weather by combination of barometric pressure, water temperature and humidity, earthquakes by seismic shifts in a very volatile core to this planet. Weather disasters are more extreme due to changes that WE have caused to the factors in our environment. To say that a mythical creature is causing this to punish us is a complete joke and insulting to anyone with any sense of natural science and the damaged environment. I’m not going to debate intelligent design here other than to say I do not buy into the concept at all. Furthermore, Robertson himself is a joke and mockery to people that are honest and sincere in their faith in a higher force, power, spirituality or god. Pat Robertson is not an honest individual at all in my opinion.
We can take Robertson’s remarks (pick which time – there’ve been so many) and apply them to Coral Ridge’s situation. Divine retribution? Possibly. The more likely scenario, however, is that CR Ministry’s facility is definitely not built with hurricanes in mind, a big mistake here in Fla. I know about this, I’ve experienced 6 of those 8 storms and repaired damage to my home from a couple of them.
You’d think the ban on gay/lesbian adoptions would have saved us from the 8 hurricanes we’ve experienced over the past 15 months. Didn’t happen.
Or are they going to say the proposed same-sex marriage ban that they’re pushing for might prevent more hurricanes. Doubtful.
I really think God (be he/she Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, etc.) has better things to work on than proving petty, vindictive, fearmongering, nutcase preachers right, or wrong.
If Robertson’s family and those who love him wanted to do him a huge favor, they might want to gently persuade him that it’s time for him to retire – completely, rather than to continue making an ass of himself.
But the dirty truth of the matter is that there’s too much money to be made for this to happen. As long as the vulnerable and superstitious believe people like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, et. al. and continue to fund them, we are going to continue to hear this type of rhetoric.
If nothing else, it’s good for a chuckle.
What’s really interesting to me is that these hurricanes have happened on weekends–when church is in session.
Whatever happened to “It rains on the just and the unjust,” anyhow?
Thanks for sharing this.
What’s interesting to me is that Katrina spared the gay area of New Orleans and hit the poor and black areas hardest. Apparently God’s wrath makes Him so angry it throws His aim off. Look for towns around Dover to get pummelled.
WHY does the media keep giving this man attention??? His statements are ridiculous. Don’t they have real news to cover? Maybe if the media just ignored him, he would fade away as a distant unfortunate memory of hate-filled Americana.
“Apparently God’s wrath makes Him so angry it throws His aim off. Look for towns around Dover to get pummelled.”
Boo, too funny!!
I just prefer to think that God has great sense of humor. Any day now I’m expecting some televangelist to sprout horns out of his forehead in the middle of some live broadcast.
(OK, OK, I’m just kidding. I don’t think God sent Wilma to destroy Coral Ridge. Nor do I think Doc Dobson will sprout horns. But I love it when nutcase religious bigots get tangled in his own rhetoric.)
So much for Christian compassion and charity.
Could this really be Robertson’s way of not donating when there are charity drives for disaster stricken areas.
If it was blown away for being wicked, well he won’t have to come up with any funds for something that goes against his Christian beliefs, right?
Wonder how much HE donated to the restoration of the gulf region?
Regan probably very little, if any. At the beginning of the Katrina debacle, I saw Robertson’s “Operation Blessing” (OB) listed as one of the relief agencies. This reference was pulled from FEMA’s website after a day or two.
Further, I’ve never seen OB on-scene with any other disaster. I’ve seen the same video promo of this charity repeatedly shown on Robertson’s 700 Club, but it seems to consist of a video of a semi with the logo of OB on it driving down a highway, and not much else (probably delivering diamonds from his African diamond mines).
I don’t mean to discredit all Evangelical relief agencies, because immediately after Hurricane Andrew, Baptist Mens’ Relief (or whatever it was called) was the first meaningful disaster relief agency on the scene providing meals and water.
However, if I am going to donate to disaster relief that’s meaningful, I’ll give to Salvation Army. I don’t agree with a lot of their politics, but they do seem to actually do what they’re supposed to do in these situations.
The media continue to cover Pat Robertson because he is one of the most popular and influential Evangelical Christians in the US. His program is seen by millions of EC’s every week. He probably has an influence among EC’s comparable to the Pope’s.
No, Dalea, the media covers Diamond PatRobertson because he is a good draw for their commercial time. American commercial media (and that includes public television, by the way) exists to sell commercial time. I learned that from the Wall Street Journal (itself) 20 years ago. An interview with Robertson costs next to nothing, but it helps boost the ratings so that the media can charge their advertisers more for the program.
It’s a little more complicated than that, but not much.
Thanks RAJ, for this insight. The reason that a free interview with Robertson draws so many is that he speaks for the vast, yeah the overwhelming, majority of evangelical Christians in the US. I realize that the moderators will now rush out to tell us that several dozen dissent from this. Which indeed these four dozen out of 50 million do. Do the math: 48 out of 50,000,000 equals 0%.
It is perfectly accurate and fair to say that in terms of evangelical Christianity in the US today, there is no difference between the opinions of Jesus and Robertson. Pat indeed speaks for God. Which the actions of the evangelical Church validate.
DaleA,
Your anti-Christian rants are becoming boring.
They also demonstrate your willingness to demonize people about whom you clearly understand little. It is obviously false to claim that 50 million evangelical Christians believe that God’s going to send natural disasters against people, cities, or Disneyworld just because Pat Robertson says so.
Evangelicals are a very diverse group and have huge and significant theological differences. Some are very political, some find it antithetical to their belief structure. The evangelical movement’s “leaders” don’t speak for them any more than do the gay movement “leaders”. Many people listen to Pat Robertson but they don’t take what he says as gospel.
You see a few vocal and visible evangelical “leaders” and fool yourself into believing that all evangelicals are the same. That’s exactly what FOF, etc. does about the gay community.
When Melissa Fryrear says that “all homosexuals have been abused” or when a conservative politician describes gays as “radical liberals” they are basing their assumptions on what they’ve seen. And what they are willing to see is determined by their world view. Anything that doesn’t fit is dismissed and forgotten.
You, frankly, seem happy to do the same. You are unwilling to think outside your pre-determine bigotry and see that your assumptions are based solely on your observations. And your observations are based on what you are WILLING to observe, creating a self-reinforcing circle. Anything outside your prejudiced view is discounted and forgotten.
Now I do agree that the vast number of evangelicals are, to some extent, anti-gay. In fact, it would be fair to say that the heart of the anti-gay movement is within the evangelical Christain community. But the blatant ignorance of statements like “…in terms of evangelical Christianity in the US today, there is no difference between the opinions of Jesus and Robertson. Pat indeed speaks for God.” needs to be rebutted.
So, keep on ranting about the evils of evangelicals, Christians, and organized religion. Fine. That’s your personal religious belief. Just don’t expect the rest of us to accept your bigotry as truth.
And, finally, to answer your assertion. No, not all evangelicals think Robertson speaks for God. Actually only 54% have a favorable view of him (Falwell is viewed favorable by less than half). Oh, and thats a “favorable view”, not a belief that he speaks for God.
https://www.beliefnet.com/story/144/story_14431_1.html
Timothy, I think it’s important to keep things in perspective here when considering comments made by DaleA and myself. I am a non-believer and my opinions on various subjects are from the perspective of a non-believer. Does that make me anti-christian? In some respects yes, but I want to be clear that I don’t lump all christians into one category the way many of the more “politically popular” religious groups unashamedly do with the gay community. I strongly disagree with you that some of these various groups are not our enemies, they unequivically are, in my view. To say they are not is the same as their groups using the “attacking lifestyles and behaviour” lies that are thrown in our direction. That being said, I do have a lot of respect for many people in the religious community. In fact, my neighbours are devout christians and among some of my closest friends. We live by the principle of live and let live and it works very well. I will try wherever I can, to keep my views from the perspective of a non-believer and not so much “anti-christian”. How’s that?
fair ’nuff
Dalea at November 13, 2005 02:07 AM
The reason that a free interview with Robertson draws so many is that he speaks for the vast, yeah the overwhelming, majority of evangelical Christians in the US.
I really don’t know whether I would agree with that. Robertson is something of a draw. But how many people really tune in to Larry King Live when King interviews him? Not many. King’s shows draw no more than a few hundred thousand viewers, tops. I don’t know whether Robertson has ever been on Faux News Network, but they don’t have many more viewers. These 24/7 news/commentary networks aren’t engaging a farm team for when these old geezers are buried.
Timothy at November 14, 2005 04:26 PM
I full well recognize that evangelical christians are a diverse group. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany (ELKD) is actually quite liberal. There is a relatively liberal branch of the Evangelical movement in the US. So why don’t they speak out more, decrying the conservatism of the other portion of the evangelical movement here? Some people have, but it has been a bit of a tepid response.
A nit:
Regarding When Melissa Fryrear says that “all homosexuals have been abused” or when a conservative politician describes gays as “radical liberals” they are basing their assumptions on what they’ve seen.
This is silly, Timothy. Fryrear actually observed the alleged abuse? That strains credulity. I recognize that some homosexuals try to rationalize their being same-sex attracted because of alleged abuse, but we cannot go back and figure out the likelihood that an abused person (male or female) would have ended up being homosexual. Fryrear might want to go back and do a study of the number of people who turned out to be hetero were also abused. That would make for an interesting comparison. It is, in science, what might be called a “control group.” It won’t be done.
raj “This is silly, Timothy. Fryrear actually observed the alleged abuse?”
Sorry. I wasn’t trying to imply that Fryrear had actually witnessed the abuse.
Let me clarify. Perhaps what I should have said was:
“When Melissa Fryrear says that “Having talked with hundreds of homosexuals, I have never met one that had not been sexually violated in his or her life” … they are basing their assumptions on what they’ve seen or heard”
I guess I assumed that everyone would recognize the Fryrear quote (it has been on more than one thread) but assuming is never wise.
I hope that clears up any confusion.
Well I believe that she has not really met hundreds of homsexuals. I personally have never been abused and I am still gay? Not because I was tormented when I was younger. I find out right rediculous that her ideas are based on assumtion
Brian, I don’t particularly care how many homosexuals she has met. What I do care about is her control group: the larger community that may also have been molested but who did not turn out to be homosexual. No study will ever be done about that, because nobody wants to find out the results.
As I have noted elsewhere, prove it. They have no interest in proving it.
BrianS
My point is that Melissa is limited by her experiences. The type of gay person that she meets is one intensely unhappy with being gay and that subset is more likely to include people who were molested. Since the teachings of her organization are that you must have been molested if you are gay (along with a few other nutty “causes”), she starts with that assumption. As she is an authority figure and offers hope for a conversion, the unhappy gays she meets are unlikely to say “Melissa, you’re full of it, I wasn’t molested” but are likely to either keep quiet or (as has been reported more than once) try to “remember” some event they have “blocked from their memory”.
Fryrear is unable to accept that there are many many gay people who, like us, were not sexually violated and so she simple doesn’t see or hear it. Her self-limiting experiences validate her presumptions.
That is, of course, unless she’s just lying through her teeth, which seems equally likely to me.