News Flash: United States possibly nuked in 2007
source: Pat Robertson, host of 700 Club, via Creator of Heavens and Earth
After a private meeting dialogue with God himself, the second day of the year Pat Robertson announced that he was told that in 2007 the United States will face mass killings. "The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that," Robertson was quoted as saying. He did not reveal the reason for such a disaster, although it is believed liberalism, homosexuality, and tolerance of abortion, the trinity of spirituality super sins, are to be the cause. This comes on the heels of his 2006 revelation from God that stated the Pacific Northwest will be struck by a natural disaster, as bad as a tsunami.
Robertson also claims to have a very special power of prayer, and has taken credit publically for diverting huricanes Gloria and Felix in 1985 & 1995 respectively from hitting his companies' HQ in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
As you might be able to tell, I am at least somewhat skeptical of this man's claims. They are similar to the claims that Jerry Falwell made that said that gays, abortionists, feminists and pagans helped September 11th happen. There was a church from Kansas in the news last year who would go to the funerals of soldiers to declare that their deaths is proof of divine punishment for America's tolerance of homosexuality. The one that really struck home for me are Pat Robertson's message to Dover, PA, telling them not to turn to God if a natural disaster strikes, because they voted God out of their town (Dover was where the school board tried unsuccesfully to bring a textbook into classes referencing intelligent design, the remarks were made after the new school board voted to not do this).
I used to ride my bike to Dover. I can get there in five minutes from my childhood home. If a disaster strikes Dover, it's quite likely to spill over to my parent's house, where my whole life is.
The thing about all of this is, all of these people are Christians. I am not here to judge them, although I admit it is my natural inclination to do so. But their remarks, especially when saying God told them this (just as President Bush claiming that God told him to invade Iraq) - it puts all of us followers of Jesus in an awkward position. Okay maybe not the Kansas church, but everyone else - they've devoted their lives to Christian service.
I'm sure they all pray and talk to God and struggle with him and try to listen to him, just as I do. So for me to say that I doubt God told Pat Robertson to watch out for mass killings in 2007 it means that I discredit this man's personal communion with God, which I do not want to do - even though every fiber of my being feels as though it's asinine. I don't feel as though I can completely doubt them, even though all evidence points to it's idiocy, lunancy and even poor theology.
It's hard, what do you do with someone who is seemingly a man/person of God, who seemingly loves Jesus and wants to advance his kingdom (though I have a suspicion of our views of the kingdom differ greatly) yet says things like this. They've been Christians for double my lifespan, they can quote a heck of a lot more Scripture than I'll ever be able to, and I know these don't necessarily lead to a closer relationship with God or knowing him any better, but nonetheless it puts us all in a hard place.
Please, discuss amongst yourselves.
3 comments:
Your font is a little hard to read..I could read the first part okay, but the second part is a struggle.
I don't know what I believe. Part of me thinks that Pat is nuts - I mean the fact that he thinks he has super prayers seems a little cocky and ridiculous. That's like saying that no one else's prayers counted when they prayed against those two hurricanes. The other part of me has read the book of Amos - which is when God looks down at the people and says - you are all hypocrites and then strikes them down. I mean yeah they were a Jewish nation but aren't we supposed to be a Christian nation. I forget what percent of our country claims to be Christian but I know its a pretty high percentage, higher than %80.
Read Amos, get back to me.
Oh I know that there are many times in the Old Testament where God has destroyed a nation. There are instances where God uses Israel to kill off groups of people. Keep in mind that each instance there was a case of extreme sin going on. Maybe we have that, chances are we do, I just wouldn't say that it's homosexuality. (The Bible has 2000 verses dealing with poverty and injustice while I think under 5 dealing with homosexuality).
But to answer Amos we need to understand the grander story of the Bible. Israel is to be the light of the world, the nation through which all others are blessed and come to know God. Amos was a prophet called to get the people back in line with their duty to show the rest of the world what God is like. They had a very specific calling. I can't emphasize that enough. America does not have such a direct calling. Some of our citizens do as followers of Jesus, but not nearly in the same way as the nation of Israel.
And I'm not sure if we are supposed to be a Christian nation, a lot of our founding fathers weren't Christians. In fact King Charles wanted Pennsylvania established to get the Quakers out of his hair. And I would not say that 80% of our country is following Jesus - there wouldn't be any homelessness if that were the case.
But nonetheless Ang you raise a question I don't quite understand - how can we know when something is God's wrath and when something else is merely nature. I mean we know how we can effect our climate so that storms happen more frequently (unless your [not you ang, this is generally speaking] a Christian who believes global warming is a hoax, which I suspect arises from Christianity's mistrust of science in general and not wanting to accept anything because it might somehow give credit to evolution), so we know that Katrina was intensified because of our impacts on the environment - it's just a hard call. Maybe that'll be the next topic, because I believe that God doesn't work off of a punishment/reward system, but at the same time he has wrath and exercises it, and vise versa in terms of blessing.
It's funny. There was a time in my life when I really listened to these guys...the Pat Robertsons and so on. I appreciate your graciousness w/ them, Charlie, and I think they are trying to follow Jesus. I feel like a big part of where they've gone wrong (there you go, I went and said it. Yes, I think he/they - the conspiracy theory, us against the world, God's gonna punish us for x sin people - are wrong) is that they are so focused on being right, on making sure that everyone else shares their view of what 'right' is, that they forget Jesus said the most important thing we can do is love God and love our neighbor. When our loyalty to doctrine, or particular views of eschatology or even theology, causes us to marginalize people for whom Jesus died we're on very shaky theological ground. We're just asking for Jesus to start throwin' some tables around.
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