Pat Robertson is the Devil!

Today on CBN:

"Don't have faith in your job, don't have faith in the things around you.
Don't have faith in your own abilities. Have faith in God."

Argh!!! A friend alerted me today that this was what was being spouted on the Christian Broadcasting Network this morning. There are very few things in this world that get my blood boiling, but the things I hear on the 700 Club almost always turn up the heat. Where do they get off spouting this garbage? I swear, it’s dangerous. These people are DANGEROUS! And the context they put this in makes it all that much more dangerous. Go ahead, have faith in God. But don’t just expect Him to solve all your problems for you. I don’t know, but somewhere in my 10 years in Catholic school I do remember one piece of smart-sounding advice: “God helps those who help themselves!”

I regularly had the show on in the background in my lab when I was working. I remember my boss walking in once and giving me a quizzical look. He asked what I was listening to, and I told him it was the 700 Club. He quipped that he wouldn’t have expected me to be listening to that. I explained to him that I liked listening to it in the morning because the anger it incited in me really got my “blood pumping.” To this he smiled and said, “Chris, that’s what they make coffee for. And it’s probably better for you too.”

To me, the 700 Club represents everything wrong with religion in America today. Its hosts shamelessly prey on people who are on their last leg financially, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. On almost each episode, its hosts try to extort money from their viewers/listeners by spouting stories about people who gave to CBN when they really hadn’t the money to give in the first place. Then, “miraculously” their lives would be turned around. A couple on the verge of bankruptcy who gave their last $250 to CBN and the next week, the husband finally found a job. Another couple who was down to their last $20 put $10 in gas in their car, and sent off the remaining $10 to CBN. The next day, they received a $3800 check in the mail “miraculously” from a client of their business. (If it’s a check from your client, they owed you and it wasn’t a miracle!) Another woman who couldn’t afford milk for her only child sent a donation to CBN, and her life was turned around after there was a free cosmetology class offered in her area and she took it and became a pedicurist.

It’s one thing to go out and claim these people’s lives were turned around by God and not just by chance, or other forces, or even events set in motion by the people themselves. (To get that job, I’m sure the guy had first applied to the job, and had somehow acquired the skills necessary to perform that job. The check for $3800 was from a client for services rendered, etc.) It’s something else completely, something cruel, and socially irresponsible, to use these experiences as evidence of God’s work in an attempt to get money out of a group of people who are already down on their luck, desperate, and thereby vulnerable. It sickens me! The 700 Club rarely ever makes a donations plea without including two or three of these such examples. It’s clear that its target audience isn’t people with the means to give, but those unfortunate people who are desperate, and looking for a miracle. That’s borderline criminal in my eyes. Any decent faith-based organization would be in the business of giving these people hope, FREE OF CHARGE, and not selling it to them for a “free” license plate frame and a CBN membership card. Ugh!