Words fail…
So maybe God’s Word will suffice:
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 2 Timothy 4:3-4
Can we please get someone reasonable as a visible spokesperson for Christianity?
Dave Miller, Tony Kummer, the United Baptist Mime Alliance….anyone?
UBMA?
Seriously, I’d rather have mimes say nothing on behalf of Christianity than the bozos that have TV shows.
Honestly, this may be the most despicable thing I’ve heard an “evangelical leader” say.
Thank you for this post.
Pat needs to remember that this verse is for all of us:
“”It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” (Acts 14:22)
Yes, Pat, it sounds cruel because it is cruel…and completely against anything the Bible says of marriage.
Dr. Moore said this about the video:
“Pat Robertson’s cruel marriage statement is no anomaly. He and his cohorts have given us for years a prosperity gospel with more in common with an Asherah pole than a cross.”
Boom!
Some things we simply cannot tolerate.
Just when I thought I could no longer be shocked by the musings of these mindless, miserable “ministers” of false faith…
ugh.
Moses permitted divorce because of the hardness of men’s hearts. Please demonstrate that it is disallowed because of Pat’s comments? 😉
I take it by the winky face that you are being facetious, but I have written a post for the site that address that topic more or less. I figure Dave will get to it soon. 🙂
My point was that divorce permitted by Moses fits perfectly into Pat’s statement…due to the hardness of the hearts of people.
Just saw your post, Jeff, and I thought I would put it up right away as a companion piece to this one. Discussion might get a little confusing if people go back and forth, but we love confusing.
I wish the 700 Club would divorce their senile leader.
In a Christian marriage,
it’s not ‘my husband has Altzeimer’s’, it’s ‘we have Altzeimer’s’.
what is shared in marriage ?
there is evidence that something deeper is going on with Altzeimer’s patients than we can understand . . .
they ‘respond’ at a very deep level to music, especially to sacred music . . . and when all else has left them of speech, they can still sometimes sing every word of an old loved hymn . . .
whatever that ‘deeper level’ is, it is still the person who is one’s spouse . . . and at that very deep level, I think they know when someone who loved them had walked away . . .
they would know,
like they know the words of a hymn
the melody of a Christian marriage doesn’t leave
This one is a no-brainer. I wish evangelicals had been as discerning when this man was calling for the assassination of the leader of a sovereign nation.
(or when he claimed to be able to leg-press 1400 lbs)
(or when he prophecied about storms on the West coast)
or…………..
and………….
Bill,
Exactly.
He said that he could leg press 1400 lbs? Wow, that should tell everyone what they need to know about him, right there…
I was wrong. He claimed to be able to press 2000 lbs. He was hawking an energy drink.
People need to read the entries on him in Wikipedia. Why evangelicals have ever given this man a voice is beyond me.
I know TV has been a means to spread the Gospel, but honestly I wonder if Christian TV personalities haven’t done far more harm than good. It is a magnet for false teachers and I believe the pressures and the fame ruin those who enter with good intentions.
Nearly all “christian” television is a wasteland of heretics, hawkers, and false prophets. There might be some good, but I wonder if it is worth sorting through the arsenic to get to the salad.
Shameful.
My grandfather had Alzheimers and I’ve seen what it does. It is like the person is dead before they’re dead. But “like” isn’t the same thing as being DEAD.
(Edit – Joe REALLY doesn’t care for Pat Robertson!)
the sounds of silence
Tried to embed this video of Robertson McQuilken, when announcing his resignation as president of Columbia International University, in order to take care of his wife, who had Alzheimer’s. I think it would be good for Robertson to watch it.
Here’s the link:
http://youtu.be/f6pX1phIqug
And here’s another one:
http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=7D7ZWNNX
Yeah, I read about him. What a contrast.
younger Christian married people need the strong and faithful examples of the older generation’s witness of spouses caring for each other when the time comes of sickness . . .
without this witness, the Church would be weakened, I think
we can’t abandon a spouse in time of need . . . we have vowed to do what is right and good before God and the whole community of faith
Meeuwsen turned to Robertson for an answer. In the video (50th minute), you can see him struggling:
That is a terribly hard thing. I hate Alzheimer’s. It is one of the most awful things, because here’s the loved one—this is the woman or man that you have loved for 20, 30, 40 years, and suddenly that person is gone. They’re gone. They are gone. So what he says basically is correct, but—I know it sounds cruel, but if he’s going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again. But to make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her—
Meeuwsen interjected: “But isn’t that the vow that we take when we marry someone, that it’s for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer?” To this, Robertson replied,
Yeah, I know, if you respect that vow, but you say “till death do us part,” this is a kind of death. So that’s what he’s saying, is that she’s like—but this is an ethical question that is beyond my ken to tell you. But I certainly wouldn’t put a guilt trip on you if you decided that you had to have companionship. You’re lonely, and you’re asking for some companionship, as opposed to—but what a grief. I know one man who went to see his wife every single day, and she didn’t recognize him one single day, and she would complain that he never came to see her. And it’s really hurtful, because they say crazy things. … It is a terribly difficult thing for somebody, and I can’t fault them for wanting some kind of companionship. And if he says in a sense she is gone, he’s right. It’s like a walking death. But get some ethicist besides me to give you the answer, because I recognize the dilemma and the last thing I’d do is condemn you for taking that kind of action.
That’s the whole text of the conversation. Robertson wasn’t talking about terminal illness, much less sickness in general. He wasn’t even talking broadly about Alzheimer’s. He was talking about dementia so advanced that the afflicted spouse could no longer recognize her partner. This is different from other kinds of illness. It isn’t just a loss of predicates such as mobility or strength. It’s a loss of the subject herself. Four times, Robertson described her as “gone.” Twice, he called it “death.” You may disagree, but from the viewpoint he was articulating, this wasn’t a question of abandonment. The loved one was already departed.
Second, Robertson wasn’t talking about bugging out when the going gets tough. In the story he recounted, the diseased woman’s husband had visited her every day, enduring her reproaches and the loneliness of being a perpetual stranger. The husband had given love and labor. The question was whether at some point, his obligations changed.
‘personality’ is not the same thing as ‘the person’
A Christian marries a person, whole and entire, until ‘death do us part’ . . .
sometimes sickness or injury sadly pulls away something of personality, or physical or mental functioning from a person before they die;
but their tragic sickness or injury is never a reason that pulls away their Christian spouse from their side
I don’t understand how Pat could think anyone could ‘start over’ after the abandonment of a sick spouse
. . . ‘start over’ what?
. . . what?
it is a difficult topic, I would not judge anyone, but I really am not happy seeing a person who is an ‘icon’ to millions of trusting people unable to voice the deeper meaning of the marriage of Christian people to one another that reflects a holy bond between Christ and His Church.
Pat Robertson is beyond belief. As always, he delivers his two-sense on everything from A to Z, and we either laugh or cry.