Skewering Pat Robertson and The 700 Club, Past and Present Jeremy Parker, Blogmaster
Why is this blog featuring years-old clips from the 1990s? Read the introductory page. Not at all affiliated with Marion G. ("Pat") Robertson, The 700 Club, or the Christian Broadcasting Network.
Just yesterday morning I wrote how Pat Robertson forgot that he himself performed the exorcism he said he had "heard about" someone else performing. Then I dismissed the possibility of Alzheimer's Disease because you'd imagine that sort of occasional mind-wipe would be obvious on live-to-tape television.*
But after yesterday's broadcast, I'm not so sure. Okay, it might not be Alzheimer's, but clearly there's something not right with Pat's brain—I mean beyond the usual things not right with his brain (like his worldview and his ideology and his extremism)—because Pat was losing focus more often than a non-union film projectionist.
Here's the rundown:
Did Someone Use a Satellite to Take Control of the Missing Malaysian Airliner Like a Bond Villain? Eh, Let's Talk About Something Else.
The Republicans Won a Special-Election That Was a Referendum on Obamacare! Oh Wait, No It Wasn't.
And Now for No Immediate Reason, Here's Some Chocolate
Yea, Christian Movies! Awww, I Miss Mel Gibson, Can't We Get Him Back?
People Just Don't Want to Believe Because Evolution and the Scientific Method
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 Doesn't Exist, Apparently
Thursday's top story was Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's veto of Senate Bill 1062, which would have allowed business owners to deny services to whomever their religion tells them they shouldn't have to serve. But really we're just talking about gays and lesbians and gay/lesbian marriages, because that's still "acceptable" discrimination in some quarters. So here's how Pat Robertson kicked off the show:
“If you're in New York and you're a homosexual and you're a bartender, you can refuse service to a Republican or a born-again Christian, or somebody you don't like, with impunity! No problem. If you happen to live in California, and you run a bakery, and you happen to be a born-again Christian, and you say, 'I don't want to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding,' you can go to jail.”
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. You know, the law that says,
All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services…and accommodations of any place of public accommodation…without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.
So, no, that gay bartender in gay New York can not refuse service to a born-again Christian with impunity. (Republicans? They're fair game, I guess.) Also, no one goes to jail for discrimination. It's a civil violation. That's Pat Robertson, Yale Law School graduate, everybody!
This tale also includes the Fall of America:
“Well…what's happening in America is we have changed the fundamental way we view morality. We've gone away from a Biblically based standard to a standard based on what Hollywood has to say or Madison Avenue or whoever. And it looks like there was overwhelming opposition to gay marriage, and that has now shifted, so probably a majority of Americans say, ‘It's okay if gays want to get married, that's their business.’ ”
If Your Grandparent Was a Witch or Fortune-Teller, You're Probably Cursed
A viewer asks Pat if he believes in generational curses, like how families have histories of cancer and diabetes. Well, Pat responds, cancer and diabetes, that's probably more genetic than spiritual. (Probably.) But spiritual generational curses are real:
“I do believe that there are such things as generational curses. If some grandparent was a witch or a fortune-teller, or engaged in the black arts, the chances are that curse will come down the family. And it needs to be broken by specific prayer.”
God Can Grow Back a Limb—A Preacher I Knew Said It Happened!
In response to another viewer born without a right hand, Pat says That's okay, you're already spiritually whole, and people can live fulfilling lives with disabilities like yours. But if you want a new hand, God can give you one:
“Can God grow you a hand? That's a creative miracle, and it happens. I remember T. L. Osborn was talking about a meeting he had in Ghana. A man at the edge of the meeting didn't have a whole leg, the leg was cut off at the knee: whole leg grew out, foot grew out, toes grew out, toenails grew, the whole thing. Right there, while he was preaching about Jesus.”
(Why do these "miracles" only happen in faraway places like Ghana and not here in the good ol' U.S. of A.? Because only simple people are open to miracles. Westerners are too educated and sophisticated to accept them.)
The Antichrist Might Be a Jew—But He Could Be a Muslim! Or Even European!
Dear Pat, I've been looking into End Times prophecy and it seems to me that the antichrist is going to be a Jew… Do you think that makes sense?
“I think it may make some sense… I think there are antichrist figures, there's an antichrist spirit, and it's a spirit of rebellion against God, and who knows. I certainly think the modern-day Islamic people, the people from Islam of the early days at least, had an antichrist spirit—they speak against Christ! And there are others who do the same thing. So: is he Jewish, is he Arab, is he North African, is he from Europe? Where is he? I don't think we know. But what you said can make plenty of sense. But I wouldn't spend a lot of time meditating on it.”
Yeah, it's probably a Jew that will bring about the End Times. But don't worry about it.
(Game of Thrones. I just know it's Game of Thrones.)
It was a little over three years ago that Pat Robertson made headlines for suggesting that marijuana be decriminalized. Even though a CBN spokesperson felt the need to walk Pat's comments back—"he was advocating that our government revisit the severity of the existing laws blah blah blah"—it was rightly considered a softening of a decades-long hard-line antidrug stance that Pat shared with pretty much everyone else on the Right. (See, for example, this alarmist storyThe 700 Club ran when California and Arizona passed medical marijuana referenda in 1996, complete with Pat's unsupportive follow-up comments.)
So maybe Pat's mellowing with age, because today a viewer asked Pat if she should be concerned that her pastor watches a cable show with nudity in it, and instead of blasting the moral cesspool of popular culture and the easy availability of pornography, his answer was surprisingly reasonable:
“The human body is not essentially nasty. I mean, God made us without clothes. You look at that famous statue of David that's considered one of the masterpieces of the Renaissance, and…he doesn't have any clothes on at all. The Venus de Milo and some of those others…the Sistine Chapel, Adam has got no clothes on… The body is not essentially pornographic. I think to make it so is a mistake. It's what's in your mind.
“I don't know what your pastor's watching, what show it is. Maybe it's got some redeeming qualities. But I sure wouldn't turn him off because he's watching a few clips of nudity on TV. I don't know what show you're talking about, some of them are real nasty…
“The human form per se isn't necessarily dirty. It's what our minds make it.”
Keep in mind that this is the same Pat Robertson who used to warn his audience thatjust a glimpse of pornography can send you spiraling into a full-blown addiction.
Well, you read it here first: Pat Robertson's okay with nudity on television now. And apparently, drugs and violence, too: 20 minutes earlier, The 700 Club featured the story of a meth dealer who found God, and he introduced it with, "You probably saw the blockbuster cable series Breaking Bad." Yup. Pat expects the good Christians who tune into him every day to have also watched Breaking Bad.
So…after more than 50 years of inveighing against the depravity of our popular culture and telling his audience to tune it out, Pat Robertson's pretty much acknowledging that even the people who watch him aren't really listening to him.
A regular feature of The 700 Club is "Bring it On-Line," where Pat Robertson answers viewer questions because apparently there are still hundreds of thousands of people out there who think Pat's a fount of wisdom. It's the most unscripted part of the show—I don't think Pat even knows in advance what the questions will be—and it's been the source of most of the WTF moments he's treated us to in the past year: the AIDS-spreading rings gay people wear, the is-your-son-gay-because-his-coach-molested-him comment, and many othersthat weren't always about gay people.
On yesterday's show, Pat fielded the question shown above from a white guy who's attracted to African-American women. And of course the answer got awkward, because old white Southern men aren't all that capable of talking about race without putting their feet in their mouths.
“From a scriptural standpoint, the only problem is, ‘Do not be equally yoked together with unbelievers.’ That's what the Bible says.”
Okay, so far so inoffensive. And coherent. But then:
“The skin color. Asian—they call 'em the yellow race, but they're a little bit off-white. Black people, a little bit different shade of pigmentation. Indian—they call 'em the red men, we've got names for all this stuff. But I think, according to your preference and your love, I would just say in certain cultures, there is a definite prejudice against interracial marriages, and whether it has to do with Indian, or it has to do with Chinese, or it has to do with something else, you'll find a prejudice. Japanese, particularly. Prejudiced. So you're asking yourself to get into a situation of prejudice…”
I've read that five times, and I still don't understand most of that. But the part about how prejudiced the Japanese are comes out loud and clear. Not to mention the irony of judging a whole ethnic population and calling them prejudiced. Anyway, I wonder what my Jewish cousin and his Japanese wife would think of all this.
Pat Robertson thinks there are 90 million Americans out of work, which I guess is true if you're counting children as "unemployed." (Damn freeloaders!) Last week, one of those 90 million 11.3 million wrote in to ask Pat if it would be a sin to work in a local casino that's hiring. Pat's response?
“Get another job. There have to be—ask God to open a job for you… I'm a great believer in these telemarketing things, you can get work from home, you can do all kinds of things.”
Ask God. What a great idea! I'm sure that none of the millions of other people looking for work—and remember, Pat thinks there are 90 million of them—even thought to pray for a job. Oh, you'll be the first! The rest of the unemployed probably aren't Christian, anyway. I mean, if they were, they'd be praying to God for jobs too, right?
But hey, there's always telemarketing—because what the world needs is even more people calling us up to sell us stuff. Anyway, there's plenty of work out there besides that sinful casino job. The rest of the 90 million are just lazy bums.
