Is Pat Robertson Insane?

Pat Robertson has stepped in it deep--again--by claiming that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke is divine punishment for "dividing God's land." Is Robertson insane, or is he a symptom of a bigger problem? More on this below.

From the AP story on Yahoo News:

"God considers this land to be his," Robertson said on his TV program "The 700 Club." "You read the Bible and he says `This is my land,' and for any prime minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says, `No, this is mine.'"

Sharon, who ordered Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last year, suffered a severe stroke on Wednesday.

In Robertson's broadcast from his Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia Beach, the evangelist said he had personally prayed about a year ago with Sharon, whom he called "a very tender-hearted man and a good friend." He said he was sad to see Sharon in this condition.

He also said, however, that in the Bible, the prophet Joel "makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who 'divide my land.'"

Sharon "was dividing God's land and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU (European Union), the United Nations, or the United States of America," Robertson said.

In discussing what he said was God's insistence that Israel not be divided, Robertson also referred to the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who had sought to achieve peace by giving land to the Palestinians. "It was a terrible thing that happened, but nevertheless he was dead," he said.

This is about as clear an example of traditionalist, authoritarian Blue Meme thinking as you're ever going to see. Robertson believes, beyond all doubt, that there is a divine order that has been dictated by God. Anyone who violates that order will be struck down. This is the same worldview that allowed Hal Lindsey, Charles Colson, and Pat Robertson to claim that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for any number of things they dislike, including abortion.

The question is--and I sure don't know the answer--how do we change conditions so that people who share these views can grow into a more healthy version of Blue? Religion-based authoritarianism is the shadow side of Blue, not the healthy side. So how do we get these people, as a group, to look at their own shadow?

Quadrant by quadrant:

We can't change their brain chemistry, so that approach is out.

We can't force them into therapy, into a more introspective spiritual path, or to develop a greater degree of compassion and empathy, so that quadrant doesn't hold the answer. Although, one possibility would be for church leaders to re-emphasize prayer, which seems to have fallen by the wayside. A stronger emphasis on prayer could act as a catalyst for more introspection among church members and a reduced willingness to believe whatever they are told. This possibility goes hand in hand with next quadrant.

We can stir them toward a less literal interpretation of scripture, but that would have to come from within, from people like Jim Wallis, not from the integral community. If other Christian leaders began to speak more forcefully against the fundamentalist worldview Robertson espouses, there might be a chance to force him out of a power position. We need more progressive Christian leaders to step up. This is also the place where prayer can become a central part of religion again--contemplative prayer, not petitionary prayer.

Or we could change the political structure in this country so that Blue doesn't have to feel so defensive, which might then allow it to be more introspective and examine its shadow side. But right now it feels up against a wall, that it must defend its turf as violently as possible. Mean Green is the problem here. Blue needs hierarchies of power, beginning with God; Green can't stand hierarchies because for them relativism is king. There are enough Greens with political power of some kind that Blue feels its whole worldview is under attack by post-modernism.

None of these possible answers are easy to achieve. We would need a whole movement with power and funding to even begin to see any change. For now, we can only try to generate more interest in Integral thinking so that this very important meme can spread.