Robertson: You're Too Eager

When Pat Robertson, the Religious Right leader who sometimes makes me
wince when he speaks for so many Christians, said on TV the other day
that Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, should be assassinated
because of his anti-American ideology, I winced to such an extent my
face got stuck that way.

He basically justifies the assassination by saying it would be cheaper
to assassinate him now before he becomes a US threat (and obviously he
would be because he criticizes President Bush, in which case I am a
potential threat to national security because I have also criticized the
President) than to wait until Venezuela becomes a launching pad of
communism and Muslim extremists and costing us another $200 billion in
war costs.

There is the breaking point of the preemptive strike that led us into
Iraq. According to the pre-emptive clause we could assassinate somebody
else before they even come into power and we would feel ourselves
justified. The idea is not only morally corrupt, but it is not freedom,
merely paranoid schitzophrenia.

When Bonhoeffer was trying to figure out if God would endorse the
assassination of Hitler, he had his own personal war within his heart.
He always believed that violence would not be the answer, but the
consequences of Hitler dying before his height of power are far from
negative. Millions would be saved. But even then the decision was not
obvious for Bonhoeffer. It really was personal distress to come to the
realities of war.

I do not see the same struggle in Mr. Robertson. In fact, he is willing
to take one life because of the financial burden it would become to do
it later. What kind of unbiblical, un-Christlike comments are those?
Please Mr. Robertson, What Would Jesus Do?

I still have to believe in transformation. Not only for the sake of this
planet, but for my wincing face as well.