Even They Don't Buy It

Even the Christian Science Monitor is joining in on the Bash Robertson bandwagon.

So much for the respect [of/for] pro-life positions that Robertson has long espoused. How inconsistent to fight to protect the life of the unborn and then call for the assassination of a foreign leader who holds opposing political views. Not that Robertson or anybody else shouldn't defend the right to live. But it's difficult not to see the contradiction between his two positions.

But the CSM goes even further than most articles have gone. They looked at the possible impact to evangelical missionaries in Latin America.

There's another aspect to Robertson's misguided statement: the impact of his words on his own evangelical brothers and sisters throughout Latin America, and the difficulty he may cause missionaries in Venezuela.

There's already enough tension between Roman Catholic and Protestant leaders in Latin America. Violence still erupts against evangelical churches, pastors, and congregations, particularly in the Andean region of South America and isolated parts of Mexico.

There's also concern for local Protestant workers in the region. "We could see a backlash in Venezuela against US missionaries," one missionary colleague of mine with years of experience in Venezuela told me.

Uninformed nonevangelicals and skeptical nonbelievers often see prominent spokespersons such as Robertson as broadly representative of evangelicalism that has moved into their formerly all-Catholic neighborhood.

Why does Pat Robertson hate Christianity?

And to end this one, let me put in my own two cents on the matter. Especially on this part of his original speech:

a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism

Doesn't Robertson realize that he's talking about two completely separate worldviews here? Communism and any religious viewpoint cannot coexist. This is clear to anyone who has actually looked into the original writings of Marx and Lenin rather than the Cliff Note version. Especially Marx, with his famous line that "religion is the opiate of the masses."

And I can see what Robertson was trying to accomplish here. He was trying to wave the old bloody shirt of Us v. Them that was so commonplace in the days of the Cold War. Whenever anyone wanted the true-blue Americans on their side of an argument, all they had to do was mention the looming threat of the Red Menace and there would be a line of people outside their door to offer support.

Unfortunately for Robertson, and fortunately for the rest of humanity, that mode of thought went on life support once the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. And once the old idealogues that guard the machines finish fading away, we can finally pull that plug.

And it couldn't come fast enough.

P.S.: Just to make something perfectly clear to the reader (if there are actually any of you out there), even though I cited Marx above, I do not, in any way, shape, or form, hold to his philosophy. I am capitalist born, capitalist bred, and once the cigarettes finish killing me, capitalist dead. I may be liberal, but liberal does not equal communist, regardless of what some people might have you believe.