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From: gary@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Gary Buchholz)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,net.religion.christian
Subject: Chicago Tribune/ Can Pat Robertson overcome the "Wacko Factor"?
Message-ID: <638@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Sep-86 16:46:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.638
Posted: Thu Sep 18 16:46:40 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Sep-86 03:41:02 EDT
References: <3335@umcp-cs.UUCP> <970@hou2g.UUCP>
Reply-To: gary@sphinx.UUCP (Gary Buchholz)
Organization: University of Chicago
Lines: 47
Keywords: Christian Century,National Review,Politics,Religion
Xref: linus talk.religion.misc:159 net.religion.christian:4683
Summary: Do we dare put the relig. cosmology to the pragmatic test ?


  James Wall is editor of the Chicago based Christian Century magazine.
In the Perspective section of the Chicago Tribune July 28, 1986 Wall
writes:

    "His [ Pat Robertson ] chances are not the best [for republication
    nomination] ... he has a longer 'wacko factor' to overcome than did
    any of his predecessors."

As regards this term "wacko factor", it was used by John McLaughlin in
an article he wrote in the May 23 National Review in reference to Pat
Robertsons "knack" for construing the world.
 
  "Preacher Pat believes that God's actions in people's lives are 
   miraculous. So, at prayer meetings, he speaks in tongues, expels 
   demons with shouts of 'Satan be gone!', cures lung cancer and 
   hemorrhoids.  Claiming 'Prophet of God' status, he has called
   down the divine wrath on his critics.  And when hurricane Gloria
   threatened Virginia Beach last fall, 'we rebuked that thing, 
   commanded it,' says Robertson, and the city was spared."

The media has not been kind to Robertson.  A recent political cartoon 
depicted "Preacher Pat" in a pulpit wearing a button "A vote for Pat
is a vote for the Lord" receiving a "word of knowledge" that a severe
case of hemorrhoids would been cured instantly by divine intervention.
The next frame showed a bolt of lightning coming out of the sky and 
reducing Robertson to smoldering rubble.

What is immediately obvious to a person such as myself is that "Preacher
Pat" no matter how moral and ethical and "peaches and cream" this guy
might be, he certainly does not know how the world "works".  I would
not keep my sanity long if I knew that a guy who thinks he can "rebuke
a storm" was running the country.  It is a question to be put to Mr.
Robertson whether or not this same technique would work with incoming
ICBM's and exactly what form a defense strategy would take.  Would Mr.
Robertson move our men out of the missle silos and into the pews to pray 
to gain some advantage (from the deity) in the event of a nuclear war ?

I might welcome a presidential nomination for Robertson.  It would give
the media a chance (given its track record) to bring out its big guns
thus giving the whole event the earmarks of another "Scopes Trial".
Showing tapes of Robertsons "700 club" where (in McLaughlins terms) the
"wacko factor" is in full bloom just might give some Christians a 
"Reality alert" causing them to cast their vote for secular humanism
rather than Protestant Fundamentalist exorcism.

  Gary