Pat Robertson has a direct connection with You Know Who and he has delivered a warning to a town in Pennsylvania that dared oust school board candidates who favored intelligent design:
God is going to GET YOU for that:
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania town Thursday that disaster may strike there because they “voted God out of your city” by ousting school board members who favored teaching intelligent design.
All eight Dover, Pa., school board members up for re-election were defeated Tuesday after trying to introduce “intelligent design” — the belief that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power — as an alternative to the theory of evolution.
“I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God. You just rejected him from your city,” Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “700 Club.”
How can you frame it more plainly than that?
If you DARE vote the way Pat Robertson doesn’t want you to vote, God will punish you because Pat Robertson knows how God will vote. (Being a Californian, I wonder if God is a Schwarzenegger fan and we’ll all be wiped out by an earthquake this year.)
Here’s more of the story which includes another thoughtful, healing, supremely spiritual quote from Robertson — his attempt to clarify his earlier foot-in-mouth comment:
Later Thursday, Robertson issued a statement saying he was simply trying to point out that “our spiritual actions have consequences.”
“God is tolerant and loving, but we can’t keep sticking our finger in his eye forever,” Robertson said. “If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them.”
See? That perfectly smoothed over his earlier one.
He’s not REALLY saying that God will punish them — only that God won’t respond to them if they have problems because they didn’t vote the way Pat Robertson likes, and Pat Robertson’s political preferences are the preferences of God.
If Robertson talked to a burning bush it was probably while he was visiting George sunning himself at the beach.
A QUESTION: Last week there were stories about an IRS threat to yank the tax-exempt status of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena because of an antiwar sermon there during the 2004 presidential election. Aren’t Robertson’s comments on this and on other things just a teeny-weenie bit political? Are they looking into him, too? And, if not, and churches are not supposed to indulge in politics, why not?
UPDATE: ABSOLUTE MUST READ! A pastor’s blogged reaction to Robertson’s comments.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.