{"id":1734,"date":"2010-01-15T08:58:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-15T08:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/01\/from-herod-to-haiti\/"},"modified":"2010-01-15T08:58:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-15T08:58:00","slug":"from-herod-to-haiti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/01\/from-herod-to-haiti.html","title":{"rendered":"From Herod To Haiti"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>Yesterday I joined a chorus of voices pointing out that there are Biblical texts at odds with the spirit of Pat Robertson\u2019s blaming of the earthquake in Haiti on things the Haitians presumably had done to deserve divine retribution. My point was not to say \u201cPat Robertson\u2019s view isn\u2019t the Biblical one, this one is instead<\/em>\u201d but rather to point out the fact that Robertson is \u201cpicking and choosing,\u201d consciously or unconsciously choosing to be guided by certain texts in a way that rejects and contradicts others.<\/p>\nAmong the texts that do <\/em>connect suffering and death with personal guilt is Acts 12:23<\/a>, which says \u201cImmediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.\u201d<\/p>\nOf course, it is always easier to connect an individual\u2019s<\/em> suffering with things they may have \u201cdone to deserve this.\u201d But the principal\u00a0seems to be\u00a0the same. And the outrage at Pat Robertson\u2019s comments seems to have\u00a0been of the view\u00a0that compassion is the right response, and that asking whether the victims \u201cdeserved\u201d their fate is utterly inappropriate in general and not just in this or that specific case.<\/p>\nI encourage Christians who repudiate Pat Robertson to be honest enough to also say that they repudiate Luke\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n
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