Oh please, Pat - not that again!

That’s what he meant when he said, ‘... the good news will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come’? So why is he still not here? Has he changed his mind, or has the good news not yet been preached throughout the whole world?

I was also taught that what he says he does, so the only possible explanation is that the good news has not reached into every corner of the globe. How can that be? Is there a country in which the gospel has not yet been preached? No, so could it be that the wrong ‘good news’ has sometimes been promoted? For example, I recently suggested that Iris Robinson is already forgiven by God, and there was a howl of protest, even though I was quoting none other than the great apostle Paul. And I wasn’t singling her out for vilification, for to God there are no ‘big sins and little sins’, Jesus said, ‘If you’ve broken one you’ve broken the lot!’ – so let’s be careful who we point the finger at. A number of respondents wondered if should be stoned as an adulteress in accordance with the ancient book of Leviticus.

Why do people say those things? Could it be that they have heard the wrong ‘good news’? Are they projecting their prejudices onto God? I’ve no doubt that’s exactly what they’re doing, for it was already happening two thousand years ago. Listen to what Paul wrote to the fledgling church in Galatia; ‘I am astonished that you are so quickly turning to a different gospel – which is no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.’

Pat Robertson is perhaps the most influential leader of the religious right in America. Many people have their thinking shaped by him; he sounds convincing, but listen carefully to some of the nonsense he comes out with and you’ll agree that his followers are being confused by a perversion of the gospel of Christ. For example, AIDS is God’s punishment on homosexuals. God sent the South Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina as a sign that we ‘...might be witnessing the Biblically-prophesised End Times. They were bad people in New Orleans, wicked anti-Christians in South Asia and that was God’s way of dealing with them. Now he tells us that the earthquake in Haiti is God’s revenge on those evil people because they made a pact with the devil, and thousands of people are swatted out of existence like flies!

So where’s the truth? Jesus said, ‘If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.’ In other words, if you want to know what the Father is like, he is reflected in the life and death of Jesus.

Pat Robertson, can you see any evidence in your Bible that Jesus ever dispensed anything other grace, mercy, peace and love? Surely even you must agree that the only people he was ever angry with were religious leaders who crushed the common people? And has your upbringing as a southern Baptist created in your mind a gospel that is no gospel at all?

How the heavens must weep when the true gospel of grace, mercy and peace is distorted beyond recognition and hurting humanity are alienated from the God of love.