pat robertson

Preachers and public figures have often used natural disaster as an occasion to opine about God’s justice, or lack thereof. Or to make the definitive case against a divine order. But Haiti deserves to be addressed on its own terms, and in relation to the needs of those still suffering.

As people around the world begin to reckon with the scope of the catastrophe in Haiti, we offer a set of responses to what was—for those whose work focuses on American religion—a shameful expression of prejudice and ignorance from a once-prominent evangelical leader.

On resisting the temptation to turn Haiti into a morality play.

Once again, Pat Robertson has embarrassed the larger Christian community with his comments on Haiti, but the idea of God as a judge is deeply rooted in American religion.

Note to Pat Robertson: Haiti is not a nation of Vodou practitioners. It is, and continues to be, overwhelmingly Christian.

Cult of personality or empire?

And while we’re setting the record straight, let’s remember Robertson isn’t a Baptist minister anymore. Yep, he ain’t a reverend.

Famous for his use of TV to spread the message, Oral Roberts—friend of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion—helped to popularize the notion that the newly founded State of Israel was an indication that God still acts in history and that events prophesied in the bible were at hand.

Before there was Falwell, Robertson, Bakker, or the Crouches, there was Oral Roberts, the iconoclastic pioneer of televangelism.

Still sexually confused (but not gay) ex-megapastor Ted Haggard is preaching again—and his old friends, James Dobson among them, are not happy about it. Forgiveness only goes so far, apparently, in the world of far-right evangelicalism.