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GOD'S PLAN?
01/14/2010
Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Haitians are trapped under tons of concrete, already dead or waiting to be rescued by citizens who have only shovels and bare hands. There is currently no electricity in this tiny island nation, no heavy eqipment, no infrastructure, no cell phone towers, no food or water, no shelter for millions, no functioning hospitals in the Capital city, and for all intents and purposes, no government.
The world is rushing to Haiti’s rescue, one of the first aid planes to arrive coming from Communist China, halfway around the world. The U.S. military has set up a makeshift tower at the airport and the Obama administration is sending in supplies, media, soldiers, and doctors to help the people of Haiti, mostly black, who are among the poorest in the world. And interestingly, there can be no dispute that we are helping the people of Haiti much more rapidly than we helped our own citizens, also largely black, after Hurricane Katrina.
Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the world, a former slave colony whose residents revolted against the French and won their independence in 1804. Because of their great poverty, and the West’s failure to help them join the modern era (Haiti’s poverty is at least partly the responsibility of the West that has turned its back on the tiny country), Haiti is today a third world island nation, its government ripe with corruption, its people having denuded the country because of their desperate need for the wood from its once lush forests. The loss of vegetation has increased Haiti’s vulnerability to disasters such as hurricanes, which then cause flooding and mudslides.
I wonder how many Americans even know where Haiti is located. If we did a survey, I imagine a great percentage would place it near Africa. Yet Haiti is just to the southeast of Florida, a short airplane ride from Miami, close to Puerto Rico and Cuba. It covers one half of an island, the other half being the Dominican Republic, where Americans go on vacation and buy real estate, and where Major League Baseball scouts recruit many players. The only people who go to Haiti, on the other hand, are missionaries, the United Nations, and the Red Cross. Many of those missionaries and aid workers died in the recent earthquake.
And in the midst of this natural disaster, “Christian” televangelist Pat Robertson said this: "Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."
He then went on to assert that this pact with the devil is the reason Haiti has had so many natural disasters over the past decade. Pat knows. He even knows what the devil said in return: “Okay, it’s a deal.” I guess that must mean Pat Robertson regularly talks to the devil, and that he was there in 1804 when the inhabitants of Haiti defeated their French masters. Maybe he can time travel, who knows?
This may seem like a minor story, the ravings of a senile, hateful, and racist Southern preacher. And yet, it is indicative of a type of Christianity I do not understand, a type of Christianity that spreads far beyond this lunatic. This type of Christianity hasn’t made sense to me for a while, especially once it got entangled with the Republican Party, but these past few days have made me cringe for what used to be, and still is for some, a religion of peace and love, forgiveness and non-judgmentalism, humility and sacrifice.
Pat Robertson hasn’t been the only one spewing lunacy this week. It was reported over the past few days in the roll-out of the new book “Game Change” by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, that Sarah Palin was not nervous when she was chosen as John McCain’s vice presidential candidate because it was part of “God’s plan.” Then, in an interview with Bob Costas, former home run king Mark McGwire said his use of steroids didn’t mean much because he just used it to help him heal from his injuries, and boasted that “the man upstairs” had given him his hand-eye coordination and strength, and that he would have had that without the steroids. I guess we should forgive him because God ordained him home run king, and the steroids only helped him carry out God’s plan.
So,here we have two incredibly narcissistic individuals saying God had somehow singled them out for greatness – Sarah Palin to be a vice presidential candidate, and Mr. McGwire to be a great baseball player. How do they know this, I wonder? It would have been one thing if Sarah Palin had said she was humbled by the pick, and that she would do her best, though it would have been better had she recognized how utterly unqualified she was for the office and turned down the offer. Instead, in spite of her ignorance of world and domestic affairs and her complete lack of preparation for the second highest office in the land, she willingly accepted because it was part of “God’s plan.”
Now, I can’t claim, like Palin and Robertson, to know the mind of God, but I do have a pretty good brain, and I can’t imagine why God would choose one of the most unqualified women in the United States to be one of its leaders. Of course, she did lose, so maybe God was teaching her a lesson in humility. (It doesn’t seem to have worked, though, judging by her recent book tour and contract with FOX News.)
Let me offer an analogy to illustrate why I don’t think Sarah Palin knows what she is talking about when she says her pick was part of God’s plan. Suppose a young man with no training in either engineering or architcture was hired by his uncle and given the job of building a new bridge over San Francisico Bay. Would we even for a minute accept his rationale that he was fully qualified for the job because it was “God’s plan?” No, we would accuse him and his uncle of insanity, and if they went ahead with the project, we would probably put the uncle in jail for gross negligence. We would consider it the height of criminal irresponsibility, and yet nearly half of all voters in the last election seemed to agree, by voting for her to occupy the second most powerful position in this country, that Sarah Palin was God’s pick.
And why would God take time to make sure that a red-headed man from California would have big muscles and good hand-eye coordination? Aren’t there a few more important things for God to attend to? And did God also make sure this man had access to performance enhancing drugs, which are probably the real reason for his muscles?
You see what I’m getting at here. There are many self-identified Christians in America today who think a) they know the mind of God; b) God has singled them out for greatness; and c) God rewards and punishes on a whim. This, to me, is incredibly dangerous, especially when leaders of countries or political parties, or highly influential people spout this nonsense.
If we are to believe that God “blesses” people with health, good fortune, big muscles, and vice presidential nominations, are we also to believe that God curses people with illness, small, weak bodies, and polticial losses? Because for every person who enjoys good health, there are dozens who are sick and dying. And for every person who aspires to be famous, successful and rich, there are millions who are ordinary, who fail at what they try, and who live in poverty. Are we to believe that those people, those people I would call unfortunate, are all despised and cursed by God?
Pat Robertson would have us believe, in his utter lunacy, that God has cursed the unfortunate people of Haiti with natural disasters because they made a pact with the devil. This sounds like the kind of thinking that was prevalent during the Middle Ages, which wasn’t called the “Dark Ages” for nothing. Or it resembles the theology that existed in the Greco-Roman period when humans believed in deities who played with them and their lives, inflicting harm on them for nothing more than amusement or revenge.
It is the height of narcissism, as well as ignorance, to believe God inflicts harm or bestows good fortune on one, based on one’s worthiness or lack thereof. It also makes no sense to assume that God has “blessed you” for no particular reason. If you believe that, you must also believe that God curses some people for no particular reason. You must believe in a God who toys with us.
I can’t believe in that kind of God. I wasn’t taught to believe in that kind of God, nor does that kind of God make any logical sense. Unlike many American style evangelical “Christians,” I can’t claim to know the mind of God. The older I get, the more uncertain I am of what or who God is. The world is so complex, the possibilities so endless, that I cannot begin to comperehend what it all means and where we are headed. I simply believe it is our job to be kind and loving and generous, to treat each human being with dignity and charity, to embrace dialogue and reject violence and war, and to trust that someday we will understand it all.
I do know a little about human beings, though, and the three people I have quoted in this article show us how easily people can fool themselves, and how much damage they can do in the process. They are nothing more than narcissists who make God in their image to justify their own prejudices or ambitions.
Pat Robertson’s obvious contempt for his fellow human beings, especially dark-skinned ones, has shown for years, as he uttered his pronouncements about 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and now Haiti. In each case, he stated his certainty that these were acts of God, retribution for some transgression. I guess he must think the Catholic Archbishop of Haiti deserved punishment as well, because he died in the earthquake. But then, phony preachers like Robertson have always likened Catholicism to some demon cult, haven’t they?
Mark McGwire, with the advice of Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush, is trying to redeem himself with nonsense about the “man upstairs” giving him what in actually he got from chemicals. He wants us to think he was chosen by God to be home run king, so people will then believe his story about using steroids to heal injuries rather than to build muscles. And Sarah Palin is among the most arrogant of all, thinking God actually chose her, when it was McCain’s hapless staff who were desperately and cynically searching for a woman in their attempt to lure disaffected Hillary voters away from Barak Obama.
These three examples convince me more than ever that we need to keep religion out of politics, and preachers away from positions of influence in our government. Religion can be a force for good or a force for evil, but we can never be certain which force we are dealing with. Let religion take care of religion, and government take care of government, to rephrase something Jesus once said. For now, we have a democracy, not a theocracy, and God doesn’t choose our leaders. We do, and thankfully, we didn’t choose Sarah Palin. As for Pat Robertson’s comments about Haiti, we are fortunate that the world’s leaders no longer take him seriously, and instead are reaching out to that poor island nation, willing to help the children of God that Robertson, in his tiny demented brain, has concluded belong to the devil.
All content © 2005 outragedcitizen.com
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