Good old Pat Robertson is once again suffering from Christian foot in mouth disease. The guy who in the 1980's declared that AIDS was a punishment from God for homosexuality, and more recently observed that Hurricaine Katrina was God's vengence on a decadent American society which tolorated divorce, adultery and homosexuality has done it again.In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the 80 year old Robertson commented on his Christian Broadcasting Network, that the quake was the result of a" pact with the devil" made by the Haitian people two hundred years ago in order to throw off the yoke of colonialism.
Not only does he have his facts and his history a bit skewed, he is once again presuming to know the will of the Almighty. It is true that a slave rebellion which began in 1793 ended in 1804 with the establishment of Haiti as the first republic in the world ruled by former slaves of African descent. As for the " pact with the devil", I suspect this is a rather fanciful reference to a voodoo ceremony said to have been performed at the start of the revolt asking God( not the devil) to assist in driving out the French.
It absolutely stuns me that Pat Robertson, who claims to be a Christian, can possibly cheapen the impact of this natural disaster by saying, as he did, that the earthquake just might be " a blessing in disguise." He seems to see it as a kind of divine slum clearance plan.
Can you believe that Pat Robertson once wanted to be President of the United States? What a relief that God had the good sense to keep him out of the White House.
