Friday, January 06, 2006

Patting Down Sharon

It is simply too easy to go after Conservative Christian Evangelist Pat Robertson these days. It is as if he is trying to become the Stephen Colbert of Christian Broadcasting; except he isn’t kidding. On the heals of his call to assassinate the president of Venezuela Hugo Chavez and his warning to the people of Dover, PA that God has abandoned their city because they have embraced evolution, he now reveals that God has struck down Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to punish him for withdrawing from Gaza.

“He is dividing God’s land, and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations, or the United States of America,” Robertson said yesterday on The 700 Club.

I admit that my initial impulse is to make fun of Rev. Robertson; but why? He is not making this up. He is simply making clear to us what the Bible implies. This would not be the first time God kills those who oppose Him. Tens of thousands of people die in the Bible because they refuse to do God’s will. Why should Prime Minister Sharon be exempt from God’s wrath? God’s anger is not simply in the past. It is here and now. As Rev. Pat told us years ago, the killing of thousands of Americans at the World Trade Center was an expression of God's displeasure no less than the crumbling of Sodom and Gomorrah, and for the same reason.

Rev. Robertson is not inventing this. He is simply telling us what the Bible says and its God does. This is my Bible he is reading, the Hebrew Scriptures. This is my God he is citing, the Man of War (Exodus 15:3) that led my people to victory. Either I take my religion seriously, or I don’t. Either I believe in the God who chose the Jews and gave them the Holy Land from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates, or I don’t. Either I worship the Lord of Hosts who wages war against those who oppose Him, or I don’t.

That is a very real choice I have to make, and making fun of those who make it plain is simply an act of cowardice. Choose, damn you! Choose! So choose I will.

OK, here I go… I choose………… Damn it! I can't do it! I know I am supossed to choose God, but I can't. I just can't.

Well, I guess that’s it for me, then. I’m doomed. I’m sorry Pat. You did your best. I think I'll just move to Dover and get it over with.

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