And Here's to You, Mr. Robertson
Pat Robertson --- televangelist, faith healer, founder of the Christian Coalition, and former Republican Presidential candidate --- advocated the assassination of the President of Venezuela on national television two nights ago. For a guy who’s railed against the exclusion of the Ten Commandments from schools and other public buildings for years, it makes you wonder what part of “Thou shalt not kill” he fails to understand.
I’ve been a hater of Robertson for years, and it’s the reason that I’m a Republican. You see, when Pat Robertson (and his soul mate, Pat Buchanan) decided to run for the Presidency I was living in Connecticut, a state where a voter must be a member of a party to vote it its primaries. Robertson’s and Buchanan’s bids revealed something significant about the Republican party during the late 1980s and 1990s, evidence of a culture war, a schism between fiscal and religious conservatives. I wanted the religious conservatives to lose, and when Buchanan went Independent I thought that was that, but George W. Bush reversed the trend.
If you’re wondering what’s my beef with Robertson and other Christian conservatives, I can tell you that I distrust them because they’re hateful ignorant fanatics who want to upend the liberty that America was founded on … and I know, because I used to be one. I was born in North Carolina, and from the moment of my birth to my late teens I was a member of Southern Baptist churches. When I was thirteen, I was “washed in the blood of the Lamb,” “accepted Jesus into my heart,” was “saved.” And that’s when I really learned what it means to hate. I was taught to hate anyone who didn’t believe exactly as I did, no matter what good acts they committed. Mother Theresa? Damned to eternal hellfire, because not all her work with the poor in Calcutta could excuse the fact that she was a Roman Catholic, the very Whore of Babylon from the Book of Revelation. According to my pastor and everyone who worshiped with me, all Catholics worshiped idols, like statues of Mary and the saints, so Jesus would cast them into the Lake of Fire. Of course, if Mother Theresa would burn forever, so would every non-Christian around the world.
That’s where things started to break down for me, when I saw the zealotry for what it is. I was in Sunday school, and the assistant pastor had just finished interpreting one of David’s Psalms to mean that anyone who didn’t look at the beauty of nature and see in it the existence of a living Christ would go to the hot place. I raised my hand and asked, “You mean a child living in a remote village in Africa is supposed to know who Christ is, even though he’s never met a Christian, and he’s illiterate and has never heard Christ’s name?” The assistant pastor accused me of attempting to make God’s words meaningless. Yes, he repeated, the scripture said that child should know Christ through nature’s beauty, so that child’s lack of understanding is a rejection of Christ. I brought up the fact that the Book of Psalms is in the Old Testament, and that David himself had never heard of Christ because Christ wasn’t born yet, but that didn’t sway his confidence in his understanding. My mother heard about the incident, and was furious at me for “causing trouble.” I sat through the regular church service with her smoldering next to me.
I tried to focus on the sermon, which was about now faith and faith alone carries the keys to salvation, and good works are meaningless. “A church-going man dies and sits before the pearly gates,” the pastor said, “and an angel asks him why he should be allowed inside. The man begins listing all of his good deeds, and he had many, and when he was finished the angel said, ‘That’s eight points.’ And the man said, ‘Well, how many points do I need to enter?’ ‘One hundred,’ the angel said, so the man starts digging deeper, until hours later he’s down to each time he helped an old lady cross the street. ‘How many points is that?’ the man asks? ‘Ten’ says the angel. ‘Ten! If it wasn’t for the grace of Jesus then nobody would get into heaven!’ The angel smiled and said, ‘That’s the other ninety. C’mon in!’” I began to look around at the righteous seated around me, solid in their faith, and smugly justified in their inaction. Not one of these elect had ever worked in a soup kitchen. People who did such things were “do-gooders,” and they were scorned. Born again Christians need to proselytize, to speak to unbelievers and testify to their faith. That was the last day I’d attend services at a fundamentalist church.
So, Pat Robertson, thank you for testifying to your beliefs, for speaking your murderous mind. I hope the Republican party gets the message.
I’ve been a hater of Robertson for years, and it’s the reason that I’m a Republican. You see, when Pat Robertson (and his soul mate, Pat Buchanan) decided to run for the Presidency I was living in Connecticut, a state where a voter must be a member of a party to vote it its primaries. Robertson’s and Buchanan’s bids revealed something significant about the Republican party during the late 1980s and 1990s, evidence of a culture war, a schism between fiscal and religious conservatives. I wanted the religious conservatives to lose, and when Buchanan went Independent I thought that was that, but George W. Bush reversed the trend.
If you’re wondering what’s my beef with Robertson and other Christian conservatives, I can tell you that I distrust them because they’re hateful ignorant fanatics who want to upend the liberty that America was founded on … and I know, because I used to be one. I was born in North Carolina, and from the moment of my birth to my late teens I was a member of Southern Baptist churches. When I was thirteen, I was “washed in the blood of the Lamb,” “accepted Jesus into my heart,” was “saved.” And that’s when I really learned what it means to hate. I was taught to hate anyone who didn’t believe exactly as I did, no matter what good acts they committed. Mother Theresa? Damned to eternal hellfire, because not all her work with the poor in Calcutta could excuse the fact that she was a Roman Catholic, the very Whore of Babylon from the Book of Revelation. According to my pastor and everyone who worshiped with me, all Catholics worshiped idols, like statues of Mary and the saints, so Jesus would cast them into the Lake of Fire. Of course, if Mother Theresa would burn forever, so would every non-Christian around the world.
That’s where things started to break down for me, when I saw the zealotry for what it is. I was in Sunday school, and the assistant pastor had just finished interpreting one of David’s Psalms to mean that anyone who didn’t look at the beauty of nature and see in it the existence of a living Christ would go to the hot place. I raised my hand and asked, “You mean a child living in a remote village in Africa is supposed to know who Christ is, even though he’s never met a Christian, and he’s illiterate and has never heard Christ’s name?” The assistant pastor accused me of attempting to make God’s words meaningless. Yes, he repeated, the scripture said that child should know Christ through nature’s beauty, so that child’s lack of understanding is a rejection of Christ. I brought up the fact that the Book of Psalms is in the Old Testament, and that David himself had never heard of Christ because Christ wasn’t born yet, but that didn’t sway his confidence in his understanding. My mother heard about the incident, and was furious at me for “causing trouble.” I sat through the regular church service with her smoldering next to me.
I tried to focus on the sermon, which was about now faith and faith alone carries the keys to salvation, and good works are meaningless. “A church-going man dies and sits before the pearly gates,” the pastor said, “and an angel asks him why he should be allowed inside. The man begins listing all of his good deeds, and he had many, and when he was finished the angel said, ‘That’s eight points.’ And the man said, ‘Well, how many points do I need to enter?’ ‘One hundred,’ the angel said, so the man starts digging deeper, until hours later he’s down to each time he helped an old lady cross the street. ‘How many points is that?’ the man asks? ‘Ten’ says the angel. ‘Ten! If it wasn’t for the grace of Jesus then nobody would get into heaven!’ The angel smiled and said, ‘That’s the other ninety. C’mon in!’” I began to look around at the righteous seated around me, solid in their faith, and smugly justified in their inaction. Not one of these elect had ever worked in a soup kitchen. People who did such things were “do-gooders,” and they were scorned. Born again Christians need to proselytize, to speak to unbelievers and testify to their faith. That was the last day I’d attend services at a fundamentalist church.
So, Pat Robertson, thank you for testifying to your beliefs, for speaking your murderous mind. I hope the Republican party gets the message.
posted by Christopher A. Dellario at 3:27 PM
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