Remember back in August when Christian Coalition founder, 700 Club host and 1988 presidential candidate Pat Robertson said that "If [Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it"?
Well, he's baaaaack!
As a result of that comment, many criticized Robertson, if not often and or not vociferously enough.
What prompted Robertson’s remark? Chavez is at odds with the United States because he wants
to keep Venezuela independent of U.S. political and economic domination. The Bush Administration has a different opinion on that. Therefore, Robertson figures, Chavez is a justifiable target of murder. A number of coup and assassination attempts have occurred, apparently involving U.S. or U.S.-linked Venezuelan elements.
But it wasn’t the first time Robertson had said something outrageous. In a 1992 Christian Coalition fundraising letter, Robertson wrote was quoted as saying, "The 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." If that doesn't sound wacko to you, I'm not sure that I can make it seem so.
But Robertson is not the young, rational man that he used to be. Nowadays he says some really crazy stuff. Reflecting on the stroke that recently put Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a 
coma, Robertson suggested that it was divine punishment for "dividing God’s land," an apparent reference to Israel forcing Israeli settlers to leave the Gaza strip. Of course the Gaza is still under Israeli military control and continues to suffer incursion and bombardment. It seems the sobbing Israeli settlers were merely gotten out of the way.
Did Robertson suggest Sharon might be punished by God for facilitating the invasion of Lebanon
in 1982, which led to the deaths of 20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese? No. Did Robertson suggest Sharon might be punished by God for facilitating the massacre of 1,000 to 3,000 Palestinian refugees in September of that year? No. Did Robertson suggest God might punish Sharon for continuing Israel's decades-long abused and oppression of the Palestinian people in their own land? No. God, says Robertson, is punishing Sharon with stroke and coma because he threw the Palestinians a few scraps, mostly to consolidate and strengthen Israeli domination of Palestine and the Palestinians. Robertson's god is not troubled by all of the Palestinian blood spilled by Israeli and Zionist fanatics over the last 50 years. His god is troubled by an apparent relent in that oppressive reality!
Based on these comments, as well as his coziness with some of the worst dictators in the recent period, it is not unreasonable to conclude that what Robertson really worships, whatever he calls it, is death. He worships killing, he worships murder, he worships death.
Now, of course Robertson is not representative of all Christians, but I think it is clear he represents a certain large element. But more than representing a certain point of view, Robertston, given his position and influence, certainly is capable of encouraging a certain point of view - which in this case is a rather disturbing one. And given the bloody and barbaric history of Christianity, from crazed and/or opportunistic emperors, kings and U.S. southern politicians and mobs, Robertson's murderous fanaticism is, while certainly unsettling, is all too familiar.
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