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The
Preacher's Fatwah on Chavez
Why
Pat Robertson is Not a Christian
By
Rev. GRAYLAN SCOTT HAGLER
08/24/05
"Counterpunch" -- -- Pat Robertson suggested this past
Monday that the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, be
assassinated by operatives of the United States government. Though
his comments are newsworthy because of his following in the 700
Club and his political stature and role in the political religious
right, his comments however are out of synch with everything that
has been handed down to us from the teachings of Jesus Christ.
What I am suggesting here is that Pat Robertson and individuals of
his ilk are not practicing or preaching Christ but have become
adherents of a political movement in this nation that attempts to
use Christianity towards their own narrow political ends. I
believe that there is a role for Christianity in the events of the
world, but the teachings of Christ leads us to love one another,
strain and stretch to understand each other, and dare to know each
other enough that we come to an understanding of one another and
from that create a world that is not built on might and winning
but on understanding and unity. Clearly the comments of Robertson
defy the framework we find in the gospels of Jesus Christ.
Some may argue that Christ
existed in another time and did not have an understanding of the
kind of world we exist in today. But any follower of Jesus knows
that as he was human and he was also fully God, and therefore his
understanding of the world, humankind and our needs were not
captive to a time but applies to all time! Knowing this I do not
see anywhere in the gospels of Christ that he condones, suggests
or advocates murder or political assassination! Instead Jesus
reminds us to beware of Pharisees, and Robertson, Dobson and
others have become the Pharisees of our contemporary world!
What do we find in the Good News
of Christ? We find love is expressed continually and unceasingly.
The gospels admonish us to do unto others, as you would have them
do unto you. We finds words in the gospels that define the mission
of Christians as the elevation of the poor, freedom for those who
are oppressed, salvation for the lost, and hope for the hopeless.
Jesus says come unto me all of you who are weak and heavy laden
and I will give you rest. He does not say come to me those who are
looking for political expediency and I will show you who to and
how to assassinate!
Sure there has been trouble in
Venezuela, and some will suggest that it is communism struggling
to raise it head. Others will suggest that the poor of Venezuela
have been poor too long in a nation that is the 5th largest oil
producer in the world. Some will suggest that too much of the
resources have been in the hands of too few, and that the poor of
the land have found hope in a political leader, Hugo Chavez. I
would not suggest that Chavez is a saint, for no person is
perfect, but I do know that Chavez was elected even while the
greatest power in the world, the United States government, did
everything possible to thwart his election. This is hardly the
neighborliness that Jesus Christ calls us to emulate.
I am continually amazed at how
so many preachers have ceased to preach Christ, or to proclaim him
out of the rich simplicity of his teachings and have resorted to a
kind of theology that is not gospel based but is based on a narrow
point of view that keeps the powerful powerful and the poor poor!
Therefore, it is impossible to
justify the comments of Pat Robertson. His comments are not of the
gospel he claims to preach, nor of the teachings of Christ that
any Christian claims to love. Instead what Robertson has to say is
based on a paradigm from the most conservative voices in this
country, and those voices have no God except themselves and no
soul except their selfish point of view!
Reverend Graylan Scott Hagler
is National President, Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic
Justice and Senior Minister, Plymouth Congregational United Church
of Christ Washington, D.C.
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