Yesterday I joined a chorus of voices pointing out that there are Biblical texts at odds with the spirit of Pat Robertson’s blaming of the earthquake in Haiti on things the Haitians presumably had done to deserve divine retribution. My point was not to say “Pat Robertson’s view isn’t the Biblical one, this one is instead” but rather to point out the fact that Robertson is “picking and choosing,” consciously or unconsciously choosing to be guided by certain texts in a way that rejects and contradicts others.
Among the texts that do connect suffering and death with personal guilt is Acts 12:23, which says “Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.”
Of course, it is always easier to connect an individual’s suffering with things they may have “done to deserve this.” But the principal seems to be the same. And the outrage at Pat Robertson’s comments seems to have been of the view that compassion is the right response, and that asking whether the victims “deserved” their fate is utterly inappropriate in general and not just in this or that specific case.
I encourage Christians who repudiate Pat Robertson to be honest enough to also say that they repudiate Luke’s approach in Acts as well. Have we reached the point at which Christians are ready to disagree with Luke and decide that even a Herod deserves compassion?
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