Pat Robertson on another contentious issue of foreign policy

[fpb]

A few days ago, the supposedly conservative and supposedly Christian leader Pat Robertson made a fool of himself by calling for the assassination of Venezuelan president and all-around unpleasant guy Chavez. Now a conservative news service has dug up another scandalous interview by the same man, from archives of CNN no less, which makes it clear that where human life is concerned, and especially human life outside America, Robertson believes that the end justifies the means, however brutal both end and means may be. If anyone is willing to take him seriously as a Christian leader after this, I am not.

PAT ROBERTSON DEFENDS CHINA'S FAMILY PLANNING PROGRAM
WASHINGTON, Apr 17, 2001 (LSN.ca) - Pat Robertson, founder and chairman of The Christian Broadcasting Network and the celebrated host of the 40-year-running 700 Club program, disappointed hundreds of thousands of his fans Monday night as he defended China's notorious family planning program. In an interview on CNN's "Wolf Blitzer Reports" Robertson, founder and President of the Christian Coalition, was asked, "How do you balance your historic support for closer relation with China, improved trade relations with China, with what many conservatives complain about, specifically the so-called forced abortions in China?"

Robertson, who has spoken valiantly in favour of life in the United States, responded: "Well, you know, I don't agree with it. But at the same time, they've got 1.2 billion people, and they don't know what to do. If every family over there was allowed to have three or four children, the population would be completely unsustainable. ... So, I think that right now they're doing what they have to do. I don't agree with the forced abortion, but I don't think the United States needs to interfere with what they're doing internally in this regard."

When Blitzer asked for clarification, asking, "But in effect, won't your critics on the right be saying that Pat Robertson is justifying abortions in China?", Robertson avoided the issue and condemned only sex-selective abortions.

Bear in mind that supporting abortion for the sake of population reduction but opposing sex-selective abortions is the hallmark of abortionist hypocrisy which we oppose. Robertson has as good as identified himself with the enemy.

Comments

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Those quotes were featured on the site for the Christian Alliance for Progress, and have been since the site's inception. He's a crazy man. Can you excommunicate him for me?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I regret to say that, not being a Bishop, I cannot excommunicate anyone.

[adeodatus.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't matter either way ... he's part of the SBC. Besides, they'd just see it as the damn Mary-worshiping Catholics being uppity again.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Southern Baptist, is he? I spent about an hour yesterday trying to explain to a non-Christian friend why I was always rather leery of Baptists. The late great Charles M.Schulz (Peanuts), who was a devout Protestant, used to like giving talk to church groups, but he said in public that he would never go to a Baptist men's group again: "They had never heard of Beethoven!"

[adeodatus.livejournal.com]

but he said in public that he would never go to a Baptist men's group again: "They had never heard of Beethoven!"

;) Anecdotal but it rings true in my experience too.

[pandoraculpa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he's also been quoted as saying that feminism steers women toward killing their children, witchcraft and lesbianism, as well as a few other choice comments that I can't recall at the moment. He's a nutcase, no doubt about it, and it's absolutely appalling when one thinks about how many people he reaches out to on a daily basis through the 700 Club.

I don't see how he can call himself a Christian Minister with a straight face anymore. This is truly repugnant behavior, especially from someone who supposedly stands on the right side of morality. What a farce.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Actually, that quote about feminism sounds to me like a coarsened and uncomprehending repetition of polemics against what I have heard called "gender feminism" or feminist extremism. There is indeed a connection between extreme feminism, through goddess-worship, with Wicca, which is connected with Satanism. (And even if it wasn't, you cannot expect me to have any respect for these artificial, consumer-society "religions".) Many professional feminists are in fact goddess-worshippers and wiccans. The connection between mainstream feminism and abortion is too well known to need rehearsing, and I oppose abortion. As for lesbianism, again there is a connection between goddess-worship and lesbian practice, and while I do not know how things are now, I believe it is a fact that at some point in the nineties most of the leadership of NOW was homosexual.

Except for abortion, these are phenomena which have a curious double life as fringe and leadership features. To most women, "feminism" means the defence of certain rights - equal work for equal pay, etc. - which most sensible people would accept; and of abortion, which is questionable but definitely mainstream. But the more you go into the hard core of established feminism, into the movements, the permanent self-help groups, and the chair of "women's studies", the more you find that what you have is not a reformist but a hate-driven, extremist world of ideas, everlastingly groping for anything which opposes Western civilization at its most radical level. Do not be surprised that many professional feminists sympathize with Islamic violence, the most woman-hating movement in the world today: they have a common enemy in Western civilization.

[adeodatus.livejournal.com]

If anyone is willing to take him seriously as a Christian leader after this, I am not.

Yes, unfortunately, there are many that still do take him seriously and this isn't going to put a dent in his following. They stand in line daily for his show and they attend the university on his "campus". Hell, in his little world all he has to do is publicly ask Jesus for forgiveness and everything is honky dorey again ... a tear or two on camera wouldn't hurt either but that was a different TV show Televangelist.

I respect his distinguished military service but I'm far from a fan of his particular flavor of Christianity and the same goes for almost all of his politics.

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Why are these crazies the ones people associate with mainstream Christianity? Someone, tell them to stop ruining our shit.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Because it is convenient for the opponents of Christianity who run the mainstream media to identify it with the lunatic fringe. And because one has to be slightly unbalanced to want to start a media empire in the first place. There are such things as Catholic media empires, of course, but they have a slightly different character - look at the different profile of Mother Angelica, founder of EWTN, as compared with Falwell and Robertson. In general, the better the Christian, the less the effort s/he makes to draw attention to him/herself. When a good Christian becomes prominent, it is ordinarily because of extraordinary talents - take C.S.Lewis or the current Pope - rather than by any pursuit of popularity.

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

If I weren't at work, I'd drink to that. Unfortunately, it's what the media picks up about these people that sticks in a lot of leftie minds, which really does drive a wedge between the left and Christianity, whereas if we saw more of people like Mother Angelica, or Sister Prejean, or John Dear, Christianity wouldn't receive such of a bad rap as it does now. Unfortunately, due to these people actively doing stuff thats, well, Christian, they don't have a lot of time to talk to the press.

Which astounds me about that faction of the extreme religious right in America: they don't seem to do a lot of philanthropic deeds, or they can't fit them in with all their public appearances denouncing things like using 'happy holidays' as a seasonal greeting.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I was just looking up Mother Angelica and I found that another piece of nonsense by Robertson was decisive in her own career. When she became well-known in Alabama for her talks about the Catholic faith, Robertson's TV network offered her a regular spot. "Her television career began later in the decade when she taped a series of videos at a Birmingham station for televangelist Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network. When she learned in 1981 that the station intended to air a movie denying Christ’s resurrection, she took her show elsewhere—to her monastery’s garage." That was the beginning of EWTN, and, incidentally, I cannot imagine how that movie did not start a devil of a row among Robertson's own following. I mean, give Baptists their due, one would not imagine that they of all people would take kindly to denials of the Resurrection.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You underrate the power of the kind of people who say "happy holidays". If the likes of Falwell and Dobson represent one extreme of American life, then the ACLU and their likes represent the other - just as militant, just as threatening, and just as liberticidal. In places such as San Francisco, to take a seriously Christian stance on sexual morality can bring you death threats, immediate sacking from your job, and judicial persecution. And there are a good many American conservative Protestants who do perform plenty of good deeds; you just rarely get to hear about them, because... (and the loop starts over again).

[thepreciouss.livejournal.com]

These moments remind me of my mother telling me, "Thank God we're Catholic."
;)
Catholicism has its share of problems, but at least we don't have the real loonies.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

There are a few, but they don't get to the top and even the media rarely manage to make them sound typical.

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Like that Directives from God chick who reckoned that Jesus updated the website back in 1987?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Actually, I just found out that a favourite loonie of mine, a German nun, was not even Catholic but Lutheran. A Lutheran nun; think about it! But yes, I have somewhere in the memory of one of my other computers a whole lot of extremely right-wing newsletters from a Catholic group which (BIG danger signal!) does not give any address other than a PO box in Puerto Rico.

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Amen to that. Pat Robertson makes me like James Dobson. Actually, even he seems sane compared to some of the fruit loops that are perpetually in the media, like Hal Turner.

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

Catholicism has its share of problems, but at least we don't have the real loonies.
Want examples? I can give you a few...

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Note what I said below. Yes, we do have loonies. The difference is that, with a few exceptions (*coughCardinalMahoneycough*) they do not get to the top.