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

[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).