Wishing damnation of others is tricky business. After all, what’s the criteria? Is it enough to retire, come back in a different, but fairly similar role, underperform, and then, seemingly, get your old job back from someone who worked really hard to get it? (Topical!) Or perhaps you must play in a gigantic stadium in America’s South/Southwest for an organization that has the audacity to call itself “America’s Team” without the slightest sense of irony? (Manly credentials! Purposely inflammatory football remarks!)
Thankfully, in these troubled times, I know there is at least one figure who I can turn to who can help me parse out who’s worthy of condemnation. And his name, of course, is Pat Robertson. And according to him, we should not look to television or to sports for evil. We should look to earthquake victims. Which, of course, makes an abundance of sense…maybe?
I have to admit that I am a bit lacking in the whole fire and brimstone aspect of Christianity. The religious traditions I have lived with over time do not embrace them nearly as readily as Robertson’s seem to. I was baptized Catholic (Confession!), began to identify as an Episcopalian as a teen (Gay Bishops!), and attend a United Church of Christ these days (UCC=Unitarians Considering Christ!!!), so Hell is one of those things that is pretty easily stepped aside.
The other problem is I just do not tend to approach the whole idea of religion in this way. My first thought when something terrible happens to someone or somewhere is never, “Boy, God must be pissed.” I never look at someone of a different faith and swell up inside with thoughts of “So glad that guy won’t be taking up space in Heaven. Because, you know, mine is the one true faith and his, well, his is a one way ticket to the underworld.” My arrogance is extreme, but not quite extreme enough to think that I know God well enough to know that my religious views are 100% right. I just figure they work for me and that’s got to be enough.
I generally subscribe to the notion that bad things happen to EVERYBODY, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindi, Atheist, Agnostic (Boooooooo! [Sorry…Community reference]), Bahá’ían, or any other face tradition you can name. On to every life, rain must fall, to paraphrase. And, when it does, I do not look heavenward for the culprit. I look to things like tectonic plates, weather patterns, carcinogens, mental illnesses, or products from China laced with lead. God is not the author of our happiness or our misery, in my view.
However, I do understand that not everyone feels that way. I have met plenty of people who embrace predestination, fate, “God’s plan”, whatever way you would like to phrase it. The idea that God does have a plan for us and will intervene from time to time to get us where He wants us. So, fine, I can meet Mr. Robertson where he lives on this. And still think he’s wrong. Very, very, very wrong.
Why? Glad you asked, random reader #3!
1.) How do we tell the difference between bad things being part of God’s plan (and thus, a good thing) and God punishing us? Is there a council one can appeal to find this answer? “Well, the thing is, my wife died of cancer last year. And I do tithe to the church and work in the soup kitchen. On the other hand, I bet on sports a fair amount. So… is God saying, ‘Keep the faith, Lou.’ Or is He telling me, ‘Stop going to the ponies.’?”
2.) If God does have a plan for all of those and he acts in mysterious ways, would He really be pleased with people proclaiming that they know why he’s doing what he’s doing?
3.) Didn’t God promise that he would not use weather to destroy the world anymore after the Great Flood and Noah and all that business? Wouldn’t he technically be violating his contract here?
4.) Louisiana was recently found to be the fifth most religious state in the US. Does Mr. Robertson choose to change his opinion on Katrina from “punishment from the Almighty” to “weather occurrence” in light of that data? Or is he choosing to argue that God was saying “you can do better than fifth?” And if that’s the case, what are we to make of Mississippi, the #1 most religious state, who was the second most damaged by the hurricane? Or the fact that the relatively godless New England states have not had much by way of states of emergency induced by weather in quite some time.
5.) How big a fan would Christ be of one’s first impulse following a tragedy being to say, “They must have been wicked people” rather than, perhaps, “How can we help?”
Or to take it back to the secular level for a second, how can we be human and live with that kind of first reaction? I know the world is a scary place and doubt in one’s faith can make it scarier. I know it sometimes feels better to stop thinking and just start deciding that you got it right and everyone else is wrong. I know it feels like you are safer when you imagine natural disasters only come to those who picked the wrong religion.
But you know what? Too bad. Life is hard. Faith is hard. Everything can be hard. There may be a God above us, but down here? We are all we’ve got. So stop it. Stop it, Mr. Robertson, stop it followers of him. We do not have the time to label one another holy or horrible. We have work to do to protect one another, to help one another. We are all human and we need each other, during disasters and celebrations. It’s time to stop pretending like we have the luxury of denying that truth.
…if that’s the case, what are we to make of Mississippi, the #1 most religious state, who was the second most damaged by the hurricane?
Actually, Mississippi bore the brunt of Katrina, from the wrath-of-God perspective. Katrina’s eye made landfall in Mississippi (just east of the MS/LA border), and its ferocious “right-front quadrant” raked the Mississippi coast, totally destroying everything in sight, thanks largely to an unprecedented 30-foot storm surge that took even Jim Cantore by surprise (!!). Meanwhile the “left-front quadrant,” the part that hit Louisiana, basically fell apart in the hours immediately preceding landfall, thanks to a fortuitous whiff of dry air that got sucked into the circulation. So, meteorologically speaking, Louisiana fared remarkably well, considering how bleak things had looked 24 and even 12 hours earlier.
Louisiana suffered more deaths and property losses than Mississippi only because the New Orleans levee system did not work up to design specifications. Thus Katrina was, in a certain sense, largely a “man-made” disaster for the Big Easy. A storm of Katrina’s strength, taking its eventual track, should not have drowned New Orleans. So, unless God was working His will through the incompetent boobs He placed in the Army Corps of Engineers, it was actually the #1 most religious state, not #5, that He primarily targeted with Katrina (if we’re going to blame Him for such things).
Anyway, good post. Pat Robertson is a dick.
Brendan – since when did Pat Robertson rise to the status of “dick” ? Have you (or anyone about whom you care) respected any of what Pat Robertson has said within *your* living memory ?
Ghreat Ghu ! He’s sorta the Right’s equivalent of the Democrat Party’s Lyndon LaRouche ! A great example for us, since he permits us to realise that, if we ever agree with him, then we need to re-examine ALL our thinking (with at least a Level 1 Diagnostic) ! (See here for details)
Pat Robertson is taken seriously by FAR more people than Lyndon LaRouche, Alasdair, and you know it. Michael Moore would be a better example.
Having said that, I am not one to use Robertson as some sort of proxy for what “The Right” thinks. I know that’s unfair. But why does that preclude me from calling him a “dick”? Why do you consider that a lofty status? I don’t understand.
*In fairness, Moore is probably taken seriously by more self-styled “serious” liberals than Robertson is by “serious,” “movement” conservatives. Robertson mostly appeals to evangelical grassroots non-intellectual types. So that’s probably a poor analogy in the opposite direction. Moore had a spot at the 2004 Dem convention; I don’t think Robertson has been at a GOP convention in a while. But maybe I’m wrong about that.
In any case, Robertson has enough of a following, through his televangelism and whatnot, that his opinions demand to be rebutted, whereas LaRouche can be pretty safely ignored because he’s so far on the fringe and has a negligible following.
Alasdair may be right about Robertson not being taking seriously by movement conservatives. Unfortunately far worse people like Limbaugh, Coulter, and Beck are. Atleast Robertson can base his statements on a seriously flawed Christian perspective. The other three have nothing but hatred and malice to go on.
(grin) I see that David K has not changed …
Happy New Year, David !
With that said …
Limbaugh is a self-professed entertainer who holds strong political views … he is what Janeane Garofalo would like to be if she could be interesting or successful … he is not, however, a politician …
Coulter has an incisive wit and a way with words, and holds strong political views … she is not, however, a politician …
Beck I’m still not sure about … he is less entertaining than Limbaugh, for all that he holds strong political views … and, of course, he, however, is not a politician …
Last time I checked, none of the three were advocating legislating stronger governmental controls over any part of the US population nor over significant parts of the US economy …
Last time I checked, none of the ‘followers’ of any of the three were going around assaulting people, or damaging their property …
So if they have “nothing but hatred and malice to go on“, they are managing to make remarkably good livings without actually harming anyone or anything …
People don’t take any of those three seriously in the “The One” sense … any of the three have been known, on a regular basis, to cause people to think, to go check up on assertions, to verify and corroborate (or refute) what they say … as yet, I haven’t seen any of those three claim “Settled Science”, for example …
So, David, what of the realities of any or all of those three has *your* panties in the proverbial wad ?