TV Evangelist: Entrepreneur: Pat Robertson has opened his nasty mouth again, loses $50 mill deal with Israel

A TV evangelist who constantly embarrasses his own religious community and his nation, American TV evangelist and entrepreneur Pat Robertson, got dumped from his $50 million dollar deal with the State of Israel for arrogating to himself the role of prophet and lawyer for God on a big land deal that Robertson finds in the Bible.

The actual offense was the TV twisto's fatwa delivered "on his popular TV show" regarding the stroke suffered by Ariel Sharon, saying it "was a punishment for Israel's withdrawal from Gaza." The idea that the Bible can be used as title-deed to specific territories in the Middle East is so bizarre a form of Bible interpretation that one has to criticize this dubious Christian leader as a spokesperson for Christian faith and its involvement in the political scene. In other words, I question his Christianity, at very least it's a busibody version of the faith armed with a massive megaphone.

Robertson has so many conflicting interests operating at the same time - one as TV personality, one as entrepreneur, and one as political spokesman (in the same sense that Hollywood stars have anointed themselves to that role as well) - that when he shoots off his mouth, he shoots many of the careful political thinkers of Christian commitment who do their homework in things political (rather than slap texts on political problems and issues). Now, he's shot himself in the foot. He's humiliated the mourning Israeli State and Jewish people everywhere by his exquisite timing. It must have been a slow news day; or he must have needed a zinger for his show that hour. In any case, while Sharon is severely disabled, perhaps approaching death, Robertson opens his mean yap and causes the cancellation of the deal between Israeli's Tourism ministry and a Robertson-led consortium which wanted to build a Disney-like theme park to attract American tourists.

Robertson got himself in trouble before - about his taste for racehorses, about his dealing in African diamonds, about his political pronouncement calling for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, the truly dangerous head of Venezuela who's now an ally of Communist China, about the town of Dover, Pennsylvania, which turned down Intelligent Design (quite superficially, I think) and for which Robertson pontificated that they had said No to God and stood in danger of God's special judgment; and about his painting all Muslims with the falsity that their religion is one of evil, and shares none of the Common Grace of God. He's a hopeless case, but under no ecclesiastical jurisdiction that can muzzle that nasty mouth of his. - Owlb