Some Thoughts on This Week's Church News

Over the years, I have seen a lot of celebrity preachers do some dumb things and say even dumber stuff, and at times it just amounts to that - dumb!  Recently, however, it has been getting serious, as some of the "dumb" things said are contradictions of the Bible itself, and for people claiming to be ministers of the Gospel making them, it is even worse.   This week one of the worst whoppers I have heard in a long time came from a high-profile minister, Pat Robertson, that I used to actually like to listen to, and what he said was unthinkable.  I want to talk about that today as well as some other related things.

Back as a very young kid, I remember watching "The 700 Club," and it was always inspirational to hear testimonies of people's lives being touched as well as hard-hitting commentary on important issues that affected Christians.  And, in his day, Pat Robertson was a great man who at one time stood for the Gospel.  However, in the past 15 years or so, I have noticed a huge change in both the programming on "The 700 Club" as well as in Robertson himself, and I haven't liked what I have seen.   Yet, this recent thing of his really was chilling as to what he said - Robertson said, on the live "700 Club" broadcast this week, that a man would be morally justified to divorce his wife if she had Alzheimer's disease or dementia.  An article I read from Dr. Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, that was published on September 15th said it best when he called what Robertson said "a repudiation of the Gospel," and indeed it is.   As Moore correctly pointed out also, marriage is an icon of mystical union of Christ with His Church (see Ephesians 5) meaning that a Christian husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the Church (Ephesians 5:25).   Although Moore is a Baptist, what he said is basically Sacramental Theology 101, and the reason why we Catholic Christians celebrate the matrimonial union as a sacrament, or Holy Mystery.   The matrimonial union also is a picture of the Second Coming, as all Holy Mysteries of the Church signify the heavenly kingdom to some extent.   That being said, Robertson is basically espousing heresy then by what he is saying, and in doing so, he places himself as an apostate - strong words, but the truth often can sting. 

That being said, it is not the first time that Robertson or any other evangelists have made dumb deposits of word vomit upon the public - bizarre statements are actually a snare of the enemy that off-sets the true renewal of the Holy Spirit, and thus destroys or diminishes a witness.   Sometimes it isn't that the statement is wrong necessarily - Robertson, for instance, correctly pointed out that both 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina could be a result of God's hedge over America being lifted due to the widespread acceptance and propagation of homosexuality, and there is some historical merit to the fact that Haiti as a nation has had a bad go of things over its almost 3 centuries of existence due to the voodoo religion and the demons it worships as gods, but even there the problem is not so much in what was said rather than in the timing in which it was said.  Some people just don't know how to use the common sense God gave them to keep their mouths shut until the proper time to share such things comes.   On other things, Robertson and Paul Crouch, the controversial founder of the Trinity Broadcasting Network (that is a whole story of its own!) have done the unthinkable - supporting the communist government of China in order to get a few "perks," often at the expense of the true believers that have been persecuted there for decades - Crouch, for instance, had the gall to say in 2003 that the "underground church" in China needs to be registered with the government because it is "breaking the law" and being the ignorant boob he is, Crouch failed to realize that the "official" churches in China are actually propaganda mechanisms that compromise at will any part of the Bible that speaks out against the atrocities of the Communists.  Ironically, Crouch is the same guy who produced the film China Cry, which was the phenomenal testimony of Nora Lam, a Chinese Christian woman whose life was at risk during the early part of Mao Tse-Tung's evil regime due in part to her strong faith.   I wonder what Nora Lam, still a phenomenal woman of God, thinks of this?   Robertson too has decided to play the whore with the Red Chinese now (a regime he once decried as "godless" until he found out he could make a fast buck off of them, I might add!)  by giving his blessing to their barbaric one-child abortion policy - and, this from a man who claimed to be "pro-life" all these years!  The whole thing just literally disgusts and nauseates me.  

Again, as we have noted in other cases in earlier articles, this is what I believe is the beginning of the Apostasy of the Gentiles that both Scripture and the Holy Tradition of the Church have taught for centuries, and unfortunately we will see more of it - from Joel Osteen acting ashamed of Christ on Larry King, to Don Earl Paulk and Carlton Pearson's embrace of universalist heresy, to Jay Bakker's open acceptance of homosexuals as "created by God" - it goes on, and on, and on....what times we indeed live in!  And, for those of us who champion traditional orthodoxy, we have the task of defending the faith against these apostates, even unto death.   One thing that intrigues me about Robertson though is that he is an ordained Southern Baptist minister, and as such he has officiated over dozens of marriages over the course of his career - did the vows he led all those couples to repeat to each other have any meaning for him?   That is a hard question he needs to be faced with, and I pray someone does face him off with it.   Same with Crouch - as TBN becomes more Warrenized and politically corrected these days, what of his ministerial vows when he was ordained in the Assemblies of God as a minister all those years ago?   Maybe these guys need to have a Charles Dickenseque experience much like that of Ebenezer Scrooge in the classic Christmas Story, as it is time they were haunted by their pasts.  

There is so much to say on this subject yet, but I am sure that in coming weeks another high-profile minister is going to do something equally stupid and outlandish, and thus will provide more material to talk about.  God bless you until next time.