Pat Robertson Did It Again?

There is no pit so deep that guilt can’t dig it deeper.

On Facebook last week, a friend wrote me this message: Why is everyone thrashing Pat Roberson? He said [the anecdote about making a pact with the devil] is a true story. Should we not find out the full story before all of us thrash him? I finally watched the clip. He seemed genuinely concerned, and not at all racist.

Now, for me and everybody I know who objected to Robertson’s remarks, the beef is not about racism. It’s my understanding that on race relations, Mr. Robertson has a pretty decent track record.

What many of us are challenging is his bad theology. And we’re speaking up because we want… a) unbelievers to know Mr. Robertson does not speak for all Christians, and b) everyone to know that what Mr. Robertson is saying contradicts the Bible. Job teaches clearly that we should avoid pronouncing a clear effect/cause relationship between all suffering and sin.

Even if the story about the devil-pact were completely true, does a voodoo ceremony conducted by a few people long ago mean all of Haiti’s citizens affected by the earthquake are guilty of an event in which they had no part and wouldn’t condone? Many Haitians suffering now are our brothers and sisters in Christ! And what about Haiti’s nonChristians who had no part in “the pact”? Besides, if we want to focus on past evils in Haiti that have offended God, we might also want to focus on injustices done there over centuries by outsiders who celebrated Christmas and Easter.

Any time a tragedy happens, we have a fresh opportunity to remind ourselves of life’s brevity. We will all someday face our Maker, and we have an opportunity through reflection on such events to repent. A tragedy is a time to repent. Saying this is not at all the same as assuming tragedy happened because of God’s judgment. In Jesus’ day a tower fell and killed eighteen people (see Luke 13), and he raised this question for his listeners: Do you think those who perished were worse culprits than all those living in Jerusalem?

The Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy is laid out like a contract between God and Israel, and God worked on a national level for and against nations who helped or opposed His people. When His prophets predicted disaster, they usually gave the doomed a chance to repent first. Think of Jonah going to Nineveh. A natural disaster affecting a nation today is not the same as then.

Job’s friends did fine as long as they kept their mouths shut. But as soon as they pronounced a clear cause-and-effect relationship between sin and suffering, they revealed their ignorance of the ways of God. Until we have enough power to command the morning and find the storehouses of snow, we’ll find some events utterly impossible to explain.