Pat Robertson and the Specific Conditions of God's Plan

It is always reassuring when one year's crackpot quickly returns in the new year to re-claim his crown. In 2005, former presidential candidate and cloying televangelist Pat Robertson proposed that the United States go ahead and "take out" [kill] Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

Pat Robertson

It caused less of an incident than one would have wished as Robertson was not fined for indecency or taken off the air. That is reserved for Howard Stern or other more convenient sacrificial lamb targets of the FCC. Instead, Roberston was tolerated and somehow forgiven as he sheepishly apologized and suggested- in the last refuge of scoundrels- that he had been misunderstood.
 
Now, Robertson has stuffed his other foot into that smarmy, wide, clown-like mouth. In a recent broadcast of his "700 Club" television program, Robertson opined that the massive stroke of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was divine retribution. It had something to do with "God's Word" and not splitting up the Holy Land. Sharon was pivotal in triggering the 2004 removal of Israeli settlements on the Gaza Strip.

As the morbidly obese, 77 year old Sharon was suffering massive bleeding in his brain and slipping this mortal coil by discernible degrees, America's self-appointed mapmaker of God's plans had once again spoken from the mountaintop.
 
There is always comfort in the familiarity of our chosen faiths. We gravitate to them because the rituals never change or disappoint. They are a cool, warm blanket under which many of us choose to lead our lives by leaving the thinking to others. Kneel, bow, open your hearts and close your mouth. The blindness of unquestionable faith in those we choose to interpret "The Word" for us can often get us killed, but we will never stop. Pat Robertson is but one drop in a bacteria-laden bucket of presumptuous religious leaders.
 
A security guard at a downtown chain bookstore approached me one night. He had recognized me from my columns, and he wanted to talk. He was a fan of Rick Warren's "A Purpose-driven life." We spoke of that book, and the strength that it seems to have offered many people. He noted that many of my columns seemed spiritual in nature, and I wasn't sure what to say. I told him I was a wanderer, a pilgrim, that I respected the search and hoped to one day start one of my own.
 
Aside from the foolish politics involved in Robertson's latest pronouncement, the idea of divine retribution and "God's Plan" is always in the atmosphere. It just takes somebody like Robertson- with no apparent impulse control- to let it rise to the surface. It is perhaps best to approach the mystery of "God's Plan" without presuming to know the rough drafts and false starts that resulted in the finished product. Ask the rhetorical questions "Why are we here?" and "What's God's plan?" Pause, and listen to the answer in the silence that follows, It will be more powerful than anything Pat Robertson can offer.

Christopher J. Stephens is an adjunct college English instructor for Northeastern University, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Western New England College, and Corinthian Colleges, Inc.