On Thursday (5-Jan-06), 700 Club spokesman and former Presidential hopeful Pat Robertson told everyone that Ariel Sharon’s stroke had one simple reason: “God’s wrath.”

Local columnist Sam Venable let him have it but good.

For a man who claims to be a purveyor of Good News, this guy has done more to turn people away from Christianity than an army of atheists.
.
.
.

The 9/11 attacks?

God’s wrath.

The Gulf hurricanes?

God’s wrath.

(Athletic interpretation: God’s wrath was the reason the University of Southern California lost the Rose Bowl. It had nothing to do with being outplayed and outscored by those heavenly blessed, sin-free cherubs representing the University of Texas.)

In Preacher Pat’s line of reasoning, we should file every unpleasantness in our lives – allergies and flu, monetary and marital failures, vocational and educational woes, transmission troubles and computer glitches – under the general heading of God’s wrath for some sin, known or unknown, that we may have committed.

If so, it’s a wonder the entire lot of humanity down through the ages hasn’t gone insane from guilt.

You have to wonder which Bible it is that Pat Robertson reads, because it really seems to be missing a Testament. It’s probably fallen out with all of the bashing he does with it.

I would urge readers to chip in $0.01 each so we could buy him a new one, with a yellow highlighter marking up the first four books of the New Testament, but I’m sure he’d just hit one of us in the head with it.