The people over at
America'Sedition just delivered the biggest smackdown to Pat Robertson that I've ever read...
Partially reproduced below:
I discovered this bit of wisdom while trolling the
official website of Pat Robertson. One of Pat's viewers wrote in with this fantastic question:
I hear so many people saying that Jesus would just turn the other cheek in terms of Iraq. Is Jesus a pacifist? I know He turned over the tables in the Temple, but do you believe that Jesus would ever go to war?
Pat's Response:
Jesus said if somebody strikes you on the cheek, you turn the other cheek. If somebody forces you to go one mile, you go two. If he takes away your coat, give him your shirt. Resist not evil is what He taught His people and His disciples, but He was not necessarily talking about governments.
The apostle Paul said, "He who wields the sword wields it not in vain, for he is a minister of God to bring justice or judgment against the ungodly, against the kidnapper, against the murderer." The thought of a police force and military use of force was certainly in the apostle Paul. You recognize that the first gentile convert was a Roman centurion. He was essentially a captain; he had a hundred men under him. He was the first one that the Holy Spirit fell on. Also, there was a Roman officer that Jesus talked about. He said, 'I haven't found such faith, no not in all of Israel.' He never told that man to quit the army. He never told him to be a pacifist.
I don't think pacifism, as such, is biblical. For the individual Christian, yes. We don't kick back against offenses against us. But in the collective sense of a government or of a world order, there has to be something to restrain evil.
In his response, Robertson essentially agrees that Jesus preaches a message of pacifism, even requiring that his "individual" followers "resist not evil." This would obtain, I think, to both slaps and airplanes flown into buildings.
But, according to Robertson's twisted logic, this directive of God's son does not pertain to "governments." I want to ask Pat why he doesn't think governments are made up of "individual" people? And, if they are acting as "individual Christians" separately, how government officials can then collectively slap, kick, bomb and kill evildoers with impunity? Why can groups of Christians, if they are working together, nullify the commandments of God?
Does this collective override extend to Jesus' other teachings? Apparently the Bush Administration thinks so; they've taken Pat's Biblical hermeutic to heart as they collectively lie, cheat, covet, steal, destroy the environment, and despise the poor.
I also noted that the Apostle Paul, in all his considerable wisdom, did not mention if it mattered who was wielding the "sword" of violence. Does this mean that anyone who has a big sword and swings it about wildly is at that moment the "minister of God" dispensing "justice"? I must admit, this makes me reconsider the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City and the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9-11. God must have been bringing his "judgment" against ungodly U.S. citizens. But I'm confused, does this mean that when we attacked Afghanistan and Iraq, we, in turn, were the messengers of God's vengeance?
Whew! Pat, I must admit, it gets tough to decide who are the righteous and evil ones in this tangled mess . . . perhaps it would be better if everyone just turned the other cheek, like Jesus said!
