Quack or Spokesman?
None of us enjoy being measured by the extremes within a particular group we belong to: this realization should heavily color our response to Pat Robertson’s most recent embarrassing statement about Ariel Sharon’s stroke. The fact that Sharon was 77 years old and in less than optimal shape was lost on an equally aging American televangelist whose recent tongue lapses are particularly revealing. American evangelical Christianity is more than Robertson’s caricature of it accommodates; however, Robertson’s beliefs are well grounded in theologies too many people have uncritically internalized at the hands of their pastors, televangelists and Sunday School teachers. Robertson’s dispensationalism - the school of theology he subscribes to, and one that broadly characterizes much of American evangelical thinking - has a number of consequences extending to his view of Biblical literalism, a Left Behind end-times fixation, his belief of America as God’s modern-day chosen nation, and his view of Israel.
Robertson’s past eccentricities could be largely overlooked by evangelicals when on camera he would murmur in prayer over how someone was “right now, as I speak, being cured of ___________.” His murmuring could be overlooked by those uncomfortable with faith healing or the idea that “God works in that way now.” However, his prayerful murmurs can now be seen as revealing something deeper that was taking place in Robertson’s mind – they showed his belief in his centrality, his importance, and his status as a modern-day prophet who could cure the infirmed and see the future. What we are seeing in Robertson’s recent jaw-dropping and hateful statements is not only the logical consequences of his belief system, but the reality of an aging man seeing his life draw to a close in a world whose changes he disagrees with, whose beliefs he is threatened by, and whose events have not been those he prophesied would take place. Robertson wanted to believe that he was special, that he was anointed by God; the proof of this was Robertson’s ability to heal, to bless a business, and to see the future. Each of these was proof to Robertson, if to no one else, that he was right and that he shared a link with God.
More than other struggle Robertson is wrestling with is that his prophetic career is coming unglued before his eyes. Robertson is no doubt sufficiently intelligent to recognize that a prophet who is consistently wrong, when dead, no longer benefits from his enigmatic personality and its ability to get people to look past his errors. When dead, Robertson will be largely forgotten, relegated to historians who seek to understand the increasingly brittle nature of evangelical Christianity in the late 20th century. This is not the legacy Robertson wants; he wants to be validated, which by necessity means his prophecies need to come true. Robertson has staked his claim on a number of prophecies revolving around Israel, the anti-Christ and the Second Coming. Robertson’s supposed surety about his beliefs is manifesting itself oddly as he encounters his own mortality: rather than grow into mature graciousness, he is de-evolving into increasingly loony statements that suggest his belief system may not give him the solace he has told others it has.
The necessary difficulty Robertson represents is in determining to what extent he actually is a valid spokesman for what part and how much of the evangelical Christian church. In fairness, the manifestation of parts of Robertson’s beliefs has always been idiosyncratic. Much of the evangelical church has been uncomfortable with his emphasis on faith healing, his aggressive fundraising solicitation and the way he presents the “Holy Spirit” moving him. But where Robertson’s positions parallel mainline evangelical Christianity are in questions of politics, moral values, and a number of geo-political issues not limited to the role of Israel in American politics. It is within these latter aspects of Robertson’s belief system, and the question of whether his most recent comments reveal about them, that people should rightly struggle with what to make of him, his beliefs and the significance of his comments.
American Christianity desperately needs to distance itself from Robertson, and to do so in a way that is explainable. Rather than attempt and pretend that Robertson’s beliefs are un-Biblical, which they are not, the Church should seriously engage the fundamental question that distances believers from unbelievers: the idea that God’s present absence has always been what characterized man’s experience. To really wrestle with this question would be to once and for all set aside the parts of Scripture that award parcels of land to special tribes, establish ridiculous claims about behavior intended to garner your favor with God, or argue that morality can be circumvented by deific decree. It is so easy to overlook that Robertson’s comments are the serious and logical extension of normative evangelical Christian theology.
When Robertson quoted the book of Joel to justify his belief that Sharon’s stroke was divine, he was on solid Biblical ground and this is a fundamental problem Christianity struggles to acknowledge. After all, Israel’s right to Canaan was not transcended anywhere in the New Testament; yes, it was re-imagined as Christianity transitioned from its Jewish roots to its current belief system. This is all to say that Robertson’s beliefs are well built on conventional, even main-stream Christian thinking. Robertson’s spokespeople made this point clearly:
It is this point that we must all struggle with. Robertson does not speak for all of American Christianity; however, too many of his recent comments have been entirely grounded in its theology, a theology that unless deliberately and logically refuted inevitably becomes the frame through which most believers view reality. Christianity has much to offer, but it must first divest itself of those parts of its beliefs that are antiquated, even if this means acknowledging the limits of spiritual experience in the past are what they are now. Why does Robertson matter? Robertson matters because significant parts of Christian theology vary only by matters of degree from what he says and it is in his overt directness that we see the danger these beliefs represent. It is time to force religion to answer for the same consistency and pragmatism that other philosophies and systems of understanding the world must operate within. This would only focus the world on those great things Christianity has to offer, but it will only happen when Christianity takes seriously its inconsistencies and incompatibilities. We have Robertson to thank for making this clear, and we have him to blame for making it so prevalent.
previous post: Science & Religion - Can They Co-Exist?
next post: Sloppy Words, Sloppy Thinking, Sloppy President
2 Responses to “Quack or Spokesman?”
Leave a Reply
About MysteriousFaith
“If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.”
Themes
Now Reading
Search
Favorites
Personal Writing
Theology
Categories
Meta Data
January 9th, 2006 at 9:19 pm
Andrew Sullivan had some similar thoughts on Pat Robertson:
ROBERTSON’S GAFFE: Plenty of evangelicals and Republicans have dumped on Pat Robertson for saying that Ariel Sharon’s stroke is related to his decision to divide the land of Israel. I’m baffled. It would be astonishing if Robertson did not believe something like that. Robertson’s version of Christianity is fundamentalist pre-millenarianism. He believes, as do most members of the religious right, that the world is soon coming to an end, and that the unification of Israel is integral to that story-line. (The Jews who don’t accept Christ will all die in a second and more extensive Holocaust, orchestrated by Jesus.) He also believes, as do millions of Americans, that God directly involves himself in our lives, as does Satan, and that He is a terrifying God who has committed mass murder and genocide in the past against those who flout his will (the Bible proves it) and will do so again. A mere stroke for Sharon? He should count himself lucky.
THE FUNDAMENTALIST REALITY: It’s also absurd to describe Robertson’s views as somehow out of the mainstream of contemporary Christian fundamentalism, or Republicanism. His 700 Club reaches more people than most CNN shows and has more viewers, as Laurie Goodstein points out, than CNBC or MSNBC. That’s why establishment conservative Fred Barnes was on the show last week; and why Karl Rove checks in with Robertson over judicial nominees. Moreover, the only reason anyone got mad at his statement about Sharon is because somone at PFAW is paid to listen. Do you think any of his 800,000 “Christian” viewers would be in any way discombobulated? This is their faith. As the Derb points out, it’s clear from the Bible what the consequences of ceding the West Bank are. Robertson is not alone in his beliefs about the looming end-times - indeed, the most vivid depiction of what current evangelicals believe, the “Left Behind” series, is the bestselling adult series of books in the whole country. In a recent installment, Jesus is an unrelenting future mass murderer of those who do not accept him. When he speaks at the end of time,
“Men and women soldiers and horses seemed to explode where they stood. It was as if the very words of the Lord had superheated their blood, causing it to burst through their veins and skin … Even as they struggled, their own flesh dissolved, their eyes melted and their tongues disintegrated.”
Why should Robertson be singled out for saying what he believes? This is the faith that animates the religious right, and that propels every electoral victory for the current Republican party. Why on earth should he apologize?
January 11th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
TruthDig has a short commentary on Robertson’s comments that are worth reading here. Of particular emphasis is this part:
The question that demands our attention is why does he keep doing it, given the certainty of the response: general public reactions ranging from righteous indignation to bemusement to outright ridicule. Does Pat truly desire to play God’s fool for our amusement? The answer, I think, is fairly simple. We’re irrelevant to his true audience: the faithful members of the 700 Club who tune in to his show, put up with and respond appropriately to his incessant pleas for contributions, and share his disdain for the rest of us. The members of his true audience -– what is called in today’s political parlance his base -– are used to being dissed by the “mainstream media” and, in fact, this only further proves why they’re right to be scornful of those who scorn them. After all, they know who’ll have the last laugh when the Rapture comes, and the MSM, along with the rest of us sinners, are Left Behind.