Pat Robertson: False Prophet

Pat Robertson has just announced to his television audience that there will be a major terrorist attack on the U.S. sometime late in 2007. Major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected. The attack may be nuclear.

How does he know? Has he been in touch with the Al Qaeda high command? No, God told him so. (God apparently did not use the word "nuclear" -- that part is Robertson's guess.)

Then, God -- or is it Robertson? -- started hedging his bets: "the evil people will come after this country, and there's a possibility—not a possibility, a definite certainty—that chaos is going to rule.... God said he's going to restrain the evil, but he isn't necessarily going to restrain it in the beginning.... A lot of these things can be reversed; we just need to do a lot of praying."

So, is it a possibility or a definite certainty? Can it be reversed? Does that mean prevented? The evil is going to be restrained, but not necessarily in the beginning. Does that mean maybe in the beginning?

It looks like God (or Robertson) has all the bases covered. If the attack comes, he is vindicated. If some lesser attack comes along -- Robertson can point to God's hand restraining the evil. If nothing happens . . . well, then, I guess a lot of praying got done.

This sounds more and more like a crafty preacher, eager to drain the pockets of the faithful. Might the "prophecy" have been carefully engineered to be disproof-proof? Could that be?

Well, consider this. Robertson has been wrong in the past. Other things God allegedly advised him of include Bush winning in a landslide in 2004 (instead of scraping by on the strength of a single state's electoral votes), succeeding in getting his Social Security reform through Congress, and that massive storms and possibly a tsunami would lash the U.S.'s east coast in 2006.

He's also been right about some things, such as Bush's success in getting conservative judges like Alito and Roberts appointed.

Speaking for myself, I can't see that the hits necessarily required miraculous insight into the future. When questioned about the mistakes, his reply is: "I have a relatively good track record. Sometimes I miss."

But here's the really important question: does Robertson sincerely think he's getting messages from God?

Remember, he claims to be a faithful and Bible-believing Christian. Surely, he knows this verse from Deuteronomy 18:21-22:

"You may say to yourselves, 'How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD?' If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken."

Robertson's mistaken predictions, delivered in the name of God, mark him as a false prophet.

What should be done about such false prophets? Robertson no doubt knows that the answer is to be found in the adjoining verse:

"But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death." (18:20)

By standards that Robertson claims to accept, he's a false prophet who deserves a death penalty. Needless to say, I wouln't suggest that. I believe in free speech, even for liars and hypocrites. But apparently Robertson doesn't really believe the Bible or that he has any special pipeline to God.

It would be good of him to finally admit it.