I've got God on my side, but I'm just trying to survive. What if what you do to survive, kills the things you love?

Proving yet again what a prolific songwriter he is, at least for me, the title today marks Bruce Sprigsteen's third lyrical reference within my blogspot. This is from his grammy nominated 2005 song Devils and Dust. The link today will take you to my friend Chase's blog post from today, where he honors a man that we all should admire. This man was at the opposite end of the spectrum I rant against today and Chase has a great tribute to him.

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. day in the United States; a day when we honor what most of us consider to be a great American. A Pastor/activist/teacher/author/leader and then martyr. Take the link above to read a good tribute blog to him. Today I'm writing about another Pastor/activist/teacher/author/leader who is very much alive and not considered by most of us to be worth listening to.

Here is a sampling of some of Pat Robertson's greatest quotes!

The 700 Club, January 14, 1991; "You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalian's and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrists. I can love the people who hold false opinions but I don't have to be nice to them"

He clearly hadn't heard yet about the UCC!

The Washington Post, August 23, 1993; "(T)he feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

Glad my mom isn't a feminist. Sheesh!

The 700 Club, January 2, 2004 "I think George Bush is going to win in a walk. I really believe that I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election of 2004. It's shaping up that way. The Lord has just blessed him.... I mean, he could make terrible mistakes and comes out of it. It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad. God picks him up because he's a man of prayer and God's blessing him."

A walk? Well, John Kerry is a Catholic, so maybe God had trouble deciding. Ofcourse John Kerry's a bad Catholic, so ultimately W (a methodist-see above)was tapped to be President, because God sits upon his golden throne trying to pick the right guy.

The New World Order, p. 218 "When I said during my presidential bid that I would only bring Christians and Jews into the government, I hit a firestorm. "What do you mean?" the media challenged me. "You're not going to bring atheists into the government? How dare you maintain that those who believe in the Judeo-Christian values are better qualified to govern America than Hindus and Muslims?" My simple answer is, "Yes, they are.""

If only he had been elected, then we could have pissed off everybody a long time ago.

The 700 Club television program, August 6, 1998, on the occasion of the Orlando, Florida, Gay Pride Festival 1998 "I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don't think I'd be waving those flags in God's face if I were you."

Imagine God on his throne, as I'm sure Pat does, trying to pick a President when, 'what's this? Homosexuals walking down a street? Release the natural disasters!'

Quoted from the American Muslim Council press release, "Statement regarding anti-Muslim comments made by Pat Robertson on October 27,1997" and elsewhere. "The Islamic people, the Arabs, were the ones who captured Africans, put them in slavery, and sent them to America as slaves. Why would the people in America want to embrace the religion of slavers."

I don't know. Oh, I got one for you! Why were we slave owners in the first place? Supply and demand Pat. White Christian Southerners bought and owned slaves and white Christian northerners let them do it.

700 Club, August 22, 2005 regarding Venezualan President Hugo Chavez "I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop."

The ancient Christian ritual of assassination...

700 Club November 10, 2005 to citizens of Dover, Pennsylvania who voted out of office all seven members of the school board who support "intelligent design."
"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city. And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there,"

I also heard him talking about New Orleans once, how the very day Katrina hit there was to be a gay pride parade and that's why this happened. I couldn't find a documented version of this statement, but I will say that if God was mad at gay people he shouldn't have let the hurricane largely miss the French Quarter where most of them live and work.

Last one, last week...
700 Club January 5, 2006 in regards to Israeli prmie Minister Ariel Sharon's massive stroke. "He was dividing God's land, and I would say, 'Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the [European Union], the United Nations or the United States of America. God says, 'This land belongs to me, and you'd better leave it alone,'"

Now many of you are wondering why I posted these here, perhaps because you think this guy is a kook or think his opinion doesn't matter. If you agree with him a majority of the time I'd like to know...how do we know each other?

What Pat Robertson says matters to me because every time he speaks, someone is watching and listening and painting me with the same brush as him, because I identify myself to be a Christian as he does.

Is Pat entitled to his opinions. Absolutely. And he's entitled to shout them all over the planet. That's the freedom I believe he deserves, regardless of how much I think he squanders it. I think this freedom is given to everyone by God and I'm proud to live in a country that upholds it. What I find ridiculous about Pat is that his love of God takes this freedom away from many of us. We are not entitled to believe what we believe if we disagree with God and Pat, or God/Pat as I'll write it from here on out. God/Pat want us to be in line and we're damned, condemned, hurricaned, assassinated, and stricken if we fall out of line. But how naive and simple minded is this philosophy/belief?

I don't believe God sits on a throne watching us and and alters human events according to his will. I don't believe Dover, PA should be worried about an earhquake or Orlando should fear a hurricane hitting only the gay district. We're in this together and that seems to be the point God/Pat have missed as presented by Pat.

Think about it. Let's say Pat was right and Dover, Pennsylvania has a fault line break open and the whole city falls into the Earth. Am I to surmise they were all godless infidels? Does that sound familiar to anyone else? Pat Robertson is the Christian equivalent of the Mulsim fundamentalist calling for jihad against the US. And while he has evry right to believe what he does and say what he does, he ought to open his Bible back up and read what Jesus called us to do, because the 700 Club seems to not be that, and Pat seems to not be that, and this God that sits on a throne and watches the soap opera he created and creates seems to not be that.

Matthew 22:37-40 `Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Seems all this damning and cursing doesn't jive with Jesus.

And it doesn't jive with me. I'm struggling with the fact that I'm associated with people like Pat Robertson. It seems there are a lot of them in the world. There are a lot of them in the church I serve. I don't know how you can be a Christian and not seek to love all people. And loving them requires being nice to them Pat. And loving them requires accepting them church. And loving them requires opening ourselves up enough to share that which connects us all. Instead Pat finds the smallest places iside of himself and his followers to seperate his version of God from us all.

I think prayers matter, at least in the positive energy they concentrate in a certain place. I think God is where love is and so people praying for each other focus God in specific places. I think what happens in this life matters forever, but not in some way that damns those that haven't reached the same conclusions about how to live.

Pat Robertson, and a whole lot of people that probably mean well, use the damnnation God doles out as a scare tactic to convince people to believe. They say that there are consequences to not believing in Jesus Christ, in God, in the structure of belief Christianity represents. Maybe. Maybe, I don't know. What I do know is when someone lives a life based on Jesus' two commandments the world is changed. We all know the real thing when we see it. Today was a day to celebrate the genuine article. It gives me hope that he existed His words stand in opposition to some of those above. And proudly, I get painted with the same brush as he does, because I identify myself to be a believer in the same God.

The title lyric has haunted me since I heard it. The song isn't about me or Jesus or the church, but every time I hear, "What if what you do to survive kills the things you love?" I get all reflective about my life.

The truth is I am tired of being a Youth Minister. I'm not tired of the kids, camp, retreats, or counseling. I'm tired of the times that people assume because I serve a church I believe a whole lot of stuff that I do not. I'm tired of having the stuff I don't belive thrown in my face by the people who do.

What Christianity does to survive is find all kinds of ways to persuade people to become Christian. I think that all of those tactics are less than sincere. I think that most of those tactics are ineffective. I think that Christianity is killing the things it loves.

When I hear Pat Robertson I have two immediate and stark reactions.

One-I want to become a minister, so someone with that title speaks in oppositioon to the horrible things he says. Deep down I fel called to this.

Two-I want to run as far away from organized religion as I can, because it's killing in me the things that I love.