I apologize if my post seemed a bit confrontational. That’s not what I meant. I am one of those people who scowls and pulls his lip when he thinks. I appreciate your post and your response, and I’m glad I followed Stephy’s callout here. I hope some other of her readers do, too. She seems to have many that are smart and sharp and thoughtful.

Thanks for your restatements and clarifications and reminders.

On the one hand, especially in the intellectualized and the abstract, it is not that difficult for me to appreciate compassion for Haitians or alcoholics. How much more difficult to keep Robertson in mind as someone in need of grace, since he is so self-assured in his proclamation of what it is! Some kind of statement seems appropriate, but I see you are right in how closely we must examine and suspect its source and manner and remember, “that we ourselves have only been (re)included because of repentance and forgiveness”.

I especially appreciate your putting it for me in the terms of my own question: “It is not the incredulous denouncement of the self-righteous Pharisee over the tax collector who’s prayer is ‘Thank you God for not making me like him!’”

It seems like a lot of time and energy and thought you topical bloggers expend, that people like me flit through and blithely consume. So, thanks again.

Your point about Christ’s selective practice of exclusion is well-taken. I would say Jesus was an extremely divergent leader, which is exactly what put him into hot water with the Pharisees and others. Like the Pharisees, I think Robertson should be denounced, but our exclusion of him should be done with the full awareness that we ourselves have only been (re)included because of repentance and forgiveness. So our denouncement of Uncle Pat should be like the denouncement of an alcoholic a recovering alcoholic. A denouncement full of pity, compassion, and perhaps some righteous frustration. It is not the incredulous denouncement of the self-righteous Pharisee over the tax collector who’s prayer is “Thank you God for not making me like him!”

…Which, frankly, I felt I was hearing quite a lot immediately after Robertson’s comments. I think progressive-minded Christians of various kinds are so eager to be free of the trappings of fundamentalism that we’ve forgotten we’re just another branch on the same family tree.

Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments. I think you’ve added something important to this post.

I’m with you almost all the way to the end regarding divergent thinking and its relationship to Jesus and gospel. But I need help getting all the way. Equating compassion for post-disaster Haitians and empathy for fat, rich, judgmental Pat Robertson is a bit abstract for me. I’m also wondering if you think there is a difference between questioning, denouncing, and forgiving Robertson. (I think you probably do, but I did not see it delineated in your post.)

It seems to me imperative that Pat Robertson’s nonsense be denounced by Christians. Agreed not ridiculed, not crucified, but definitely, clearly, denounced. When I think about what Paul would say about such stiff-necked and continuous foolishness as Robertson’s, I wonder if it wouldn’t be, “have nothing to do with him.”

Question: would you consider Christ’s vehement and acidic treatment of the religious leaders of his day convergent and inappropriate? Yes, he forgave them (that the forgiveness comes much later in the narrative seems important, too), but he pulled no punches in accusing them. There seem to be some parallels to me between their behavior and Robertson’s. Admittedly, I’m no Messiah, who can see into the human heart; I seem hardly to know my own. Yet that doesn’t seem like a good reason for inaction.

So what are you advocating a Christian, public response to Pat Robertson be? Or perhaps, as I am not a member of Robertson’s denomination and immediate fellowship, there is no difference between private and public response? Or do we, forgiving him, remain silent and let his horrible words and fearful image of God fill the conversation space?