A False Prophet Dies. Do His False Prophecies Die With Him?

 CNN Story on the Death of Pat Robertson

Columbia Journalism Review: We Report (what Pat Robertson said) You Decide

You may say to yourself, "How can we recognize a word that the Lord has not spoken?"  If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word that the Lord has not spoken.  The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not be frightened by it.  Deuteronomy 18:21-22, NRSV 

Quoting an Old Testament passage for the purpose of discussion, without consideration of its historical context, doesn't produce accurate or reliable Biblical principle.  However, since many Evangelical Christians are quite prolific at developing strange doctrinal or theological perspectives by quoting the Old Testament out of its context, as a "verse by verse" holy rule book, even though verses are not part of the original text and are reference points and not complete thoughts, and they do interpret the Bible, Old and New Testament equally as a holy rule book, I've cited this passage here as we look back on the life of Pat Robertson, the founder of the Christian Coalition and, along with the late Jerry Falwell, one of the most influential Evangelical Christians in the movement to merge extremist right wing politics with conservative Christian doctrine. 

I'm not an admirer of Robertson.  I think that he was an insincere phony whose background and experience taught him how to use Christian faith to make himself filthy rich with the dollar and dime contributions of hard working, uneducated people and older widow ladies.  He, along with others of his ilk, like Jerry Falwell, know how to capitalize on people's biases and prejudices and make money off of it.  Frankly, I had difficulty sitting through a session of the "700 Club," with Robertson's ingratiating smile, smarmy attitude and insults of the intelligence of his viewers by his assertion of provable falsehoods and assumptions as facts.   

A Cross Between Biblical Style Prophecy and Political Predictions Based on Observation

Robertson never put himself in the position of being accused of being a false prophet.  His manner of prediction of future events always included a way out, sounding a lot like a prophet, falling back on the standard disclaimer that "God told me this was so," but then, when whatever he said turned out to be inaccurate or flat out false, denying he said exactly what he did, or finding some explanation to clarify why he might not have understood exactly what God meant.  

One of my mother's good friends planned her day around the schedule for the 700 Club broadcast.  Her conversation, increasingly filled with "Pat Robertson said...." as a means of justifying her belief, got to the point where I couldn't tolerate it and if she was around, I would leave the room.  I never knew what my Mom thought about all of that, though she was a soap opera, talk show junkie and never watched right wing religious television.  One day, she pointed out one of Robertson's false predictions to her friend, and to my surprise, her friend responded by saying that she'd quit watching, not admitting that the predictions were provably false, but that the mailings requesting money for various "sponsored" projects lacked credibility.  

Making predictions like George W. Bush having the opportunity to nominate large numbers of conservative justices are not prophetic, nor are they even surprising observations.  Of course he would be able to do so.  However, sometimes he got the obviously predictable things wrong, such as Bush being able to bring about major social security reform, or experience a string of legislative victories.  Robertson missed the obvious blue wave that occurred in 2006, effectively ending the Bush administration's meager legislative influence, going silent on the outcome of the election when it became obvious that Democrats were headed to a landslide, and turned to predictions of gloom and doom, like major terrorist attacks on the US, or a horrific tsunami hitting the "liberal northeast," as a punishment from God.  Of course, he was wrong.  

The Columbia Journalism Review does an excellent job of pointing out just how ridiculous Robertson was in his predictions, and I highly recommend reading it.  

So What is his Legacy

The problem with televangelists and phony preachers like Robertson is that their viewership and the money flow depends on their personality.  When they pass off the scene, their followers scatter, mostly to other phonies and religious charlatans.  Those left behind desperately try to hang on to the cash flow and keep the business enterprise going, but the attraction, built around the personality of the founder, slips away pretty quickly.  Falwell left his empire in the hands of his sons, one of whom was never on board with the Christian aspect of it, but was more interested in the business and money making enterprise, and blew it in a scandal.  

There are people at the 700 Club who have the management skills and expertise in deceiving a large television audience into giving up their hard earned cash, but Robertson played on emotional vulnerabilities to gain the trust of viewers to the point where facts no longer mattered and Pat's utterances were the measure of all truth.  He convinced people that God doesn't speak to anyone else like he spoke to himself, and there's no one left to trust.  He enjoyed a high, lavish lifestyle on their dime all his life and now he's dead and doesn't care anymore.  

Whatever your religious beliefs or faith, Pat Robertson was an evil man.  From a Christian perspective, that means he was inspired by the spirit of this world, characterized by belief in the Devil, or Satan, a fallen angel, an anti-Christ whose deviousness is the opposite of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  If that's not your religious perspective, then he's just a devious, twisted, psychologically cunning and conniving representation of inhuman evil who inspired hate-filled bigotry in millions of people claiming to be Christians.  Whether he suffered from grandiose delusions, or was just a deceitful parasite, he contributed to the fallen image of Evangelical and Charismatic Christianity in this country.