By MIRANDA CELESTE HALE - EXQUISITE WITH LOVE
Added: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:00:00 UTC

http://www.mirandacelestehale.net/?p=1414

Today’s National Post contains a commentary by Rex Murphy, titled “God’s unappointed spokesman,” which discusses Pat Robertson’s disgusting comments about the situation in Haiti and how they relate to theodicy, a branch of theological study focused on the question of why the “loving” God that many Christians worship would allow for the existence of evil in the world.

Murphy says:

[Theodicy is] an almost archaic inquiry these days, but if anything could revive the subject it might be the puzzling existence, in a putatively benign creation, of Pat Robertson, the egregious televangelist and sometime politico south of the border.

I never thought we’d get a new Paradise Lost out of the paradox of an omniscient Being who tolerates/allows the founder of The 700 Club opening his mouth on a regular basis — Robertson being a scant peg even for the trim matter of a haiku. But after hearing his demented mewling the day after Haiti experienced its earthquake, the world may be ripe for a seminar on this question: Can a merciful Creator co-abide with the mental ejecta of Pat Robertson?

and he goes on:

Here was poor Haiti in rack and ruin, with countless thousands dead, the entire country forlorn and in shocked despair, and, with the camera rolling, the “Christian” Robertson rattled on in full high ignorant babble mode about the country “being under a curse” from some ancient “pact with the devil” in the days of Haiti’s founding.

Yes, Pat Robertson is vile, cynical, manipulative, and despicable in every way, and, yes, his comments were stomach-turning and shockingly callous. But how do those comments make him, as the quotation marks around the word imply, not a “real” Christian? The short answer: they don’t. In fact, they’re perfectly in line with the teachings of the violent and vicious God of the Old Testament. And it’s also important to remember that, no matter how often self-proclaimed “enlightened” “real” Christians conveniently choose to ignore the violent God of the Old Testament, instead insisting that Jesus is the personification of their “loving” God and the basis for their faith, the New Testament isn’t exactly free of violence and cruelty, either, to say the least.

What justification does Murphy have for implying that his interpretation of their shared imaginary friend is any better or more accurate than Robertson’s?

And Murphy continues:
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TAGGED: COMMENTARY, HUMANITARIAN EFFORTS, RELIGION

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