{"id":3896,"date":"2013-05-08T00:05:39","date_gmt":"2013-05-08T07:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=3896"},"modified":"2013-05-08T01:05:44","modified_gmt":"2013-05-08T08:05:44","slug":"arrogance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2013\/05\/08\/arrogance\/","title":{"rendered":"Arrogance"},"content":{"rendered":"

A certain televangelist with the last name Robertson once opened his mouth a few years ago. As is usually the case when this happens, he quickly put his foot in it. How did he manage this? He said that the then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s massive stroke could be God’s punishment for Israel giving up territory in a bid for peace.<\/p>\n

The founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network told viewers of his \u201c700 Club\u201d that Sharon was \u201cdividing God’s land,\u201d even though, he claimed, that the Bible says doing so invites \u201cGod’s enmity.\u201d Robertson then added, \u201cI would say woe to any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course.\u201d And just so no one would doubt that he was being as rude possible, Robertson went on and noted that former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated after similar attempts to make peace. Robertson said God’s message is, \u201cThis land belongs to me. You’d better leave it alone.\u201d <\/p>\n

I have to wonder once again why Robertson can’t learn to keep his mouth closed. If God was really in the business of punishing people for being \u201cbad\u201d as Pat Robertson believes, well…what I’m thinking isn’t very nice. Robertson apologized a week later. The timing was interesting, since it came just moments after Israel announced that they\u2019d decided doing business with Robertson was not a good idea, canceling a fifty million dollar deal he\u2019d made with them.<\/p>\n

Of course Pat Robertson is not alone in being rude. Unsurprisingly, many public figures have a taste for their own feet. On a day when we celebrated the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., the then mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, suggested that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, together with other storms that year were a sign that \u201cGod is mad at America\u201d and at black communities, too, for tearing themselves apart with violence and political infighting. \u201cSurely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it\u2019s destroyed and put stress on this country,\u201d<\/p>\n

I would suggest that neither of these two political opposites should be considered experts in theology. They instead illustrate a common error in human affairs: people who mistake their own personal likes and dislikes as somehow being a reflection of God\u2019s personal likes and dislikes. <\/p>\n

You don\u2019t like an individual\u2019s decisions in the realm of politics? According to Nagin and Robertson, then surely God must dislike him just as much as you do, and surely, unlike your own pure motives, the motives of your opponent must be completely slimy and reprehensible and selfish\u2014even criminal. Your opponent, since he advocates different policies than you do, must not care about the poor, or the suffering or about anything that is good and right. In fact, your opponent must be an enemy of God. And since your beliefs are so obviously aligned with God\u2019s will, and your opponent\u2019s beliefs are so clearly not like your beliefs, your opponent obviously is, has been or will be cursed by God for all his misdeeds, lousy beliefs, and poor choices. Worse, because of his errors, everyone else is going to suffer too. Therefore, he must be opposed and made to shut up.<\/p>\n

It is remarkable the number of people who are convinced that they know what God thinks, and it is equally remarkable that what God thinks seems to be precisely what they think.<\/p>\n

What arrogance. And what presumption. \t<\/p>\n

When something bad happens, there are those who take delight at looking at the horror and pronouncing that it is a judgment against the people who suffered. You got robbed? Well, they say, you shouldn\u2019t have been carrying so much cash in your wallet. You got raped? Well, such people argue, if only you had been wearing a burka<\/em> then you wouldn\u2019t have had any trouble. You got murdered? Well, the cheerful critic insists, what did you expect going to that convenience store at night? It\u2019s all your fault and you know it. <\/p>\n

And meanwhile, the wonderful people who brought us 911 are saying exactly the same sorts of things that Robertson and Nagin are saying. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, together with the leaders of Al Quaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas, the terrorist organizations, believe that Sharon was being judged by God. They also have stated their belief that the hurricanes were evidence of God\u2019s judgment on America. They are convinced that these bad things have happened because of American and Israeli policies. <\/p>\n

Yeah, right. So if we only did what Robertson and Nagin and those like them told us to do, then all our problems would go away? I\u2019ve got some free advice for Robertson and Nagin and anyone else tempted to say similar thoughtless things. Next time you start talking, look around and if a bunch of terrorists are nodding in agreement, saying \u201cAmen\u201d and \u201cpreach it, brother,\u201d maybe<\/em> you need to rethink what you\u2019re saying. Or better yet, when someone gets ill, or something bad happens, why not simply say, \u201cwe’ll be praying you.\u201d Or, \u201chere, let me help you.\u201d And, \u201cwe\u2019ll try our best to keep something like this from happening again.\u201d Saying \u201cGod\u2019s mad at you and you deserved it\u201d strikes me as more than just a little wrong. <\/p>\n

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A certain televangelist with the last name Robertson once opened his mouth a few years ago. As is usually the case when this happens, he quickly put his foot in it. How did he manage this? He said that the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[17,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3896"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3896"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3898,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3896\/revisions\/3898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}