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Granted, I truly want to believe the man's heart is in the right place. His extremely volatile remarks after catastrophes are often the subject of long stares and the occasional, "He said what?" from both sides of the political aisle.
Some past things include:
Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuela's president.
Robertson suggests God smote Sharon.
A White House spokesman denied Wednesday that President Bush told Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson that he did not expect casualties from the invasion of Iraq.
ROBERTSON BLAMES HURRICANE ON CHOICE OF ELLEN DEGENERES TO HOST EMMYS.
Robertson: God says it's Bush in a 'blowout' in November.
There comes a point when someone in the GOP needs to grow a set, pull good old Pat aside, and have a very long talk. Somebody needs to fine-tune the message and turn the volume down.
Robertson often courts controversy as a strategy to stay recognizable and keep his followers mobilized. While this keeps his face in the news, it's putting a bad face on the entire evangelical movement, often leading people to make very broad generalizations, rightly or wrongly, all the time.
As a leader and a vocal force, he's a giant in his ability to get a movement going.
Robertson started out as a Southern Baptist, but today he is a charismatic evangelical and believes that God is involved in guiding world events, said Barry Hankins, professor of history and church-state studies at Baylor University. He tries to interpret contemporary events as "being part of the drama of God's activity in the world."
"He puts the most fantastic spin on things to have a gripping quality about them to keep the ground troops alert," Hankins said.
On the other hand, Brian Britt, director of the Religious Studies Program at Virginia Tech, said Robertson's remarks aren't just "off-the-wall, crazy uncle stuff" but part of a strategy that earns him headlines.
When people attack Robertson, he wins sympathy for appearing to be an underdog, Britt said.
"It reinforces an image of Christianity as a persecuted religion, a religion that is being hounded by the secularists out of the public square, rather than a dominant and hegemonic force," Britt said.
Granted, he knows his rights to free speech and uses them often.
However, he tends to come off as an extremist, whose only goals are to forward the Republican Party message, maintain shock value, and persecute those who don't have 100% similar beliefs and value systems.
When did any of the above paragraph become doing the Lord's work? I must have missed the Old Testament books of Republican politics. I will keep an eye open, but I'm pretty sure I will never find them.
Pat, please do the world a favor and stop the hate speech. Show the world you have a kind, fair heart and are better than this.
Go back to doing God's work and leave the politicking to the politicians.
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