Pat Robertson

In 2009, pastor and author John Piper said that God sent a tornado to Minneapolis, Minnesota to warn the country’s major Lutheran denomination not to approve the ordination of openly gay pastors at their convention. Now, Piper is telling the victims of the recent tornado storms in the South and Midwest that “God gave the command” for the tornadoes that left at least thirty-nine people dead. Piper said he disagreed with televangelist Pat Robertson, who said that the tornadoes resulted from a lack of prayer rather than being God’s doing, and maintained that God sent the tornadoes because of the sins of the region:

God's "fierce fingers" are all over the deadly storms that ripped through the Midwest and South over the past weekend, popular preacher and author John Piper said.

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"We do not ascribe such independent power to Mother Nature or to the devil," he penned on his ministry's blog. "God alone has the last say in where and how the wind blows."

"If a tornado twists at 175 miles an hour and stays on the ground like a massive lawnmower for 50 miles, God gave the command," he shared, in direct opposition to Robertson, the host of "The 700 Club" who said on Monday that God that was not to be blamed for "doing something foolish" and that He did not send tornadoes to hurt people.

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"This is a word to those of us who sit safely in Minneapolis or Hollywood and survey the desolation of Maryville and Henryville. 'Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish' (Luke 13:4-5)."

Every deadly wind in any town is a divine warning to every town, he emphasized.

The warning especially rings true to God's own people.

Quoting the Scriptures, Piper shared, "It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?" The disastrous storms were calling "every person of every religion or non-religion" to turn from sin and come to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and eternal life.

"Jesus rules the wind," the Bethlehem Baptist Church preacher affirmed. "The tornadoes were his."

 On the 700 Club today Pat Robertson once again went on an unhinged rant against progressives and Muslim-Americans while speaking with basketball reporter turned security “expert” Erick Stakelbeck. Robertson said that “people on the left and these Islamic groups want to undermine our freedoms, they don’t want a free society like we have here, they want Sharia law,” and Stakelbeck, who once asserted that the “Left sees Islam as an ally and Western Civilization and the Judeo-Christian tradition is the enemy” because they “have a shared hatred for this country,” claimed that Islam is inherently violent because of violence in its history and religious texts and reverence for the Prophet Mohammad. Certainly, Stakelbeck wouldn’t make the same claims about the Jewish and Christian faiths even though the Bible includes stories violence and leaders involved in wars.

Robertson later blasted the Anti-Defamation League and its leader Abraham Foxman, for decrying the televangelist’s comparison of anti-Muslim activists like himself to the opponents of Nazis. “The so-called Anti-Defamation League which is supposed to be an Israeli, a Jewish organization, jumps on me for saying unkind things about Muslims, these guys just are blinded,” Robertson said, “I’m shocked at how blinded they are.”

Watch:

Robertson: Are we throwing our country away? Are we going to give it away? These people on the left and these Islamic groups want to undermine our freedoms, they don’t want a free society like we have here, they want Sharia law. Are we giving this country away?

Stakelbeck: The Left? Absolutely, Pat. Full speed ahead, handing it over, not only in Europe but here in America. No intellectually honest individual can say Islam is a religion of peace and I say that for three reasons. Number one, Islam’s core texts, the Quran, the Hadiths, are littered with violence and calls to violence, especially against Christians and Jews; number two, the example of Islam’s Prophet Mohammad, who even Muslims will tell you was a warrior and a conqueror and not a man of peace; number three, a cursory glance at Islam’s history, both current, older, it’s littered with conquests, with bloodshed, with expansionism. No intellectually honest individual Pat could look at those three points and tell you with a straight face that Islam is a religion of peace. We are kidding ourselves and it’s not going to get better if we are trying to appease Islamists that only makes them want more and more and it makes them stronger.

Robertson: Erick I hope you’re issuing a wakeup call and so are we, but I’m listening to these talking heads on MSNBC, they just don’t have a clue and if somebody speaks out against it ‘you’re bigoted, you’re narrow-minded, you’re this that and the other.’ Oh man, Abe Foxman jumped on me for telling the truth about this, I was trying to defend our Israeli friends and the so-called Anti-Defamation League which is supposed to be an Israeli, a Jewish organization, jumps on me for saying unkind things about Muslims, these guys just are blinded. I’m shocked at how blinded they are.

Pat Robertson on the 700 Club today defended Rick Santorum from criticism about his attacks on President Obama’s Christian faith and claims that Satan is attacking the United States of America, including the country’s universities and mainline Protestant churches. The televangelist claimed that denouncing Santorum’s remarks are part of a plan to “take God out of our society,” warning that freedom doesn’t exist in a “secular society.” Robertson, who last week maintained that Obama is intent on becoming a dictator, said that America may soon have a “secular atheist dictatorship.”

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One of the most sad and telling claims of so-called ‘faith healers’ from Benny Hinn to Todd Bentley is that the reason people are not healed at their healing conferences or through their television ministries is not because the faith healer wasn’t able to cure the ailment or sickness but because of the lack of faith of the person (and often the inadequate size of their financial gifts) who sought the healing. If only the person had genuine faith, so it goes, then the healing would’ve worked, so don’t blame the healer!

Today on the 700 Club, we saw an example of that when a viewer called in wondering why it is that when he prayed with Pat Robertson during his show for a healing of his knee pain the pain came back the next day. Robertson responded that people can “give up” his healings because “you don’t believe that it’s real” and never claimed the healing, “this is mine.” He also maintained that the return of the pain “may be Satanic and the things come back on you, they come back and you need to rebuke it and command it to leave you, permanently.”

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Whenever we see the Religious Right collectively begin to cite some new tale of government overreach and/or Christian persecution at some public school, the name "Raymond Raines" comes to mind.

As we've explained before, back in the 1990's, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson and the entire conservative community were outraged about an incident in which a student named Raymond Raines had supposedly been sentenced to a week of detention for simply praying before eating his lunch in the cafeteria of an elementary school in St. Loius. 

Of course, it was entirely untrue, as Raines had actually been disciplined for fighting. 

So now, whenever we start seeing Religious Right groups cite a story like this one out of North Carolina about a four year-old preschool student who supposedly had her homemade lunch confiscated by a Department of Health and Human Services employee for not being healthy enough and was forced to eat school-approved chicken nuggets instead ... well, we get a little suspicious.

So far, the story has been promoted by the Eagle Forum and the Family Research Council, which sees it as proof that "the Left's goal is not just to control you. The goal is to control your children. And the more authority it can siphon away from parents, the better its chances are."

Gary Bauer also featured it in his daily email, declaring "welcome to Obama's brave new world. If the government can force us to buy specific products, force religious institutions to violate their values and send lunchbox inspectors to sort through our kids' food, Chinese-style 'commissars' are in our future."

And, never one to be outdone, Bryan Fischer was apoplectic that Michele Obama's army of Brownshirt/Stormtrooper/Stasi thugs are out there confiscating the lunches of little children:

Now, who among us will be surprised to learn that this whole thing is false and all of this outrage is rooted in the misunderstanding of one little girl?

School and state officials say a misunderstanding resulted in a West Hoke Elementary School preschooler's homemade lunch being replaced with chicken nuggets.

An agent from the Department of Health and Human Services' Division of Child Development and Early Education was at the school Jan. 30 assessing the pre-kindergarten program, said Bob Barnes, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for Hoke County schools.

The agent examined the lunches for the six students in the class and believed one did not meet nutritional requirements spelled out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Barnes said.

According to the USDA, schools are required to provide lunches that include one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.

The 4-year-old, whose name was not released, brought a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, potato chips and apple juice.

The Department of Health and Human Services declined to say which requirement was not provided in the child's lunch.

The girl thought she had to go through the lunch line for a new meal, Barnes said.

The Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement that it is investigating. In the statement, the department denies that its employee inspected the lunch and denies instructing "any child to replace or remove any meal items."

Typically, if a teacher sees a student with a lunch that does not meet the nutritional requirements, he or she will offer the child the missing components free of charge, Barnes said.

In this instance, Barnes said, the girl misunderstood her instructor and believed she had to get a new lunch rather than receive an additional element.

Rule of thumb: The amount of outrage being generated among the Religious Right to any given story is generally inversely proportional to the truth of said story.

Today The 700 Club featured an inflammatory report about Muslims in Spain that featured interviews with members of the far-right extremist party Platform for Catalonia, a fiercely anti-Muslim and anti-Roma (gypsy) party. Later in the broadcast, Robertson was asked why he tells viewers to consider themselves Christians first and Americans second but attacks Muslims who also put their religion ahead of their nationality. Robertson tried to explain that while Christians should be commended for doing that, it isn’t appropriate for Muslims because they are “under the control of the domination mentally of the thought processes that come out of Mecca.” The right-wing televangelist, who frequently rails against the rights of women, religious minorities and the LGBT community, boldly claimed, “I don’t believe in controlling people.”

Watts: Gerald says, ‘Pat, earlier today you ran a report about Muslims in Spain. The reporter mentioned that seven out of ten Muslims there consider themselves to be Muslims first, rather than Spanish. It was presented as if it’s a bad thing. But is it wrong that they put their religion before their nationality? After all, do you consider yourself to be a Christian first, or an American?’

Robertson: That’s a good, good question. Of course I consider myself to be Christian first, American second. But this Muslim thing is a cultural matter. I don’t want to go force women to wear certain kinds of dress and to have certain dietary laws and to marry a certain way, I don’t believe in controlling people. I think good citizenship says if I’m a good Christian I’ll also be a good citizen. But if I am under control of a foreign power that’s a whole different matter and that’s what we’re talking about here; are they under the control of the domination mentally of the thought processes that come out of Mecca? If that’s the case they’re not going to be good citizens of Spain so, no being a good Christian ahead of being America is not a bad thing.

The tea party group Constituting Michigan is bringing a hoaxer who claims to be a former terrorist to Allegan High School in Allegan, Michigan, to warn guests of the danger of creeping sharia law. The speaker, Kamal Saleem, was in Michigan late last year for The Call: Detroit, where he denounced Islam as demonic, and continues to work with the Oak Initiative and its state chapter Transformation Michigan. But Saleem isn’t your usual anti-Muslim speaker, as he claims to have been an Islamic terrorist until he converted to Christianity and found work at Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family.

However, Focus on the Family has since distanced itself from Saleem, whose real name is Khodor Shami, and Calvin College professor Doug Howard writes that not only was Saleem misrepresenting Islam with blatant “absurdities” but was also misrepresenting his own background in his book The Blood of Lambs, which Howard called “obsessively, sadistically violent.” “Suffice it to say that if the subject were Jews, this book could not have been published.” CNN also looked into Saleem’s background and found no evidence backing up his claims of having been a terrorist, and Haroon Moghul of Religion Dispatches wonders how anyone who once claimed to be a devout Muslim could claim, like Saleem, to have been “allergic to Jesus” since Muslims consider Jesus the Messiah.

Dawud Walid of CAIR-Michigan pointed out that Saleem is a “complete fraud,” but event organizers say any criticism of Saleem is simply “the result of media bias”:

Allegan County political organization Constituting Michigan-Founding Principles will host a self-proclaimed former terrorist on Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Allegan High School Events Center.

Kamal Saleem claims to have been a former Islamic radical and terrorist before converting to Christianity. He has since published a book detailing his experiences and makes regular tours speaking about his life and views.

”He had entered the U.S. and gotten in an accident, and received medical care,” said Carol Dannenberg, of Constituting Michigan-Founding Principles. “He thought, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t want to hurt these people.’ He was raised to believe that there was no hope, that killing was a good thing.”

”I met Saleem in my travels to Lansing,” said Bill Sage, one of the co-founders of Constituting Michigan. “He’s here to talk about keeping American law in American courts, to make sure that the Constitution is what we’re drawing from.”

Sage characterizes the organization’s main focus as education reform and a return to focusing on the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights in schools. Sage will also be speaking at the event, as will state Rep. Dave Agema, according to organizers. Agema is one of the sponsors of House Bill 4769, which seeks “to restrict the application of foreign laws” in Michigan. Opponents have characterized the bill as discriminatory towards Islam.

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”He’s profiting off the cottage industry of Islamophobia,” Walid said. “If he thinks that I’m lying, that I’m trying to falsely discredit him, he should sue me for defamation.”

Sage claims much of the controversy surrounding Saleem is the result of media bias.

”People don’t like his message, they don’t want him out there,” said Sage. “But if you listen to Kamal, you’ll understand.”

Pat Robertson accused President Obama of being a “dictator” today on The 700 Club for his recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after Senate Republican obstructionism, who refused to confirm anybody to the position. Robertson and other critics claimed that the Senate is actually not in recess because of pro forma sessions, but legal experts and even Republican legal advisers have argued that such appointments are constitutional because pro forma meetings where no work is being done are not the same as a Senate sitting in session. Past presidents have also made such appointments. Robertson, who is certainly not the first Religious Right leader to call Obama a dictator, said that Obama “is power-hungry and he wants to take it all,” lamenting, “I didn’t know we were electing a dictator.”

Watch:

Robertson: I didn’t know we were electing a dictator, I thought we were electing a president who had constitutional powers, and we have shared governmental responsibility between the Senate and the House and the courts and the president, and that division has worked very well in our history. So suddenly you’ve got somebody who is power-hungry and he wants to take it all. There’s no question there’s got to be a challenge to this.

Last year, Pat Robertson claimed God told him that America’s future will be bleak because of debt and divisions, and today on The 700 Club said that God again communicated to him that financial problems and partisan politics are going to bring America into decline. Unsurprisingly, Robertson said God is no fan of President Obama: “Your president holds a radical view of the direction of your country which is at odds with the majority, expect chaos and paralysis.” Robertson claimed that the country would be devastated by an “economic collapse” and “the country will begin disintegrating.” He also claimed that God revealed to him who the next president will be, but that he is “not supposed to talk about that.”

Watch:

I spent the better part of a week in prayer and just saying, ‘God show me something,’ some things I’ll share with you. I think he showed me the next me the next president but I’m not supposed to talk about that so I’ll leave you in the dark—probably just as well—I think I’ll know who it will be. I’m going to read just as I wrote down as if I’m hearing from the Lord these words.

Your country will be torn apart by internal stress, a house divided cannot stand. Your president holds a radical view of the direction of your country which is at odds with the majority, expect chaos and paralysis. Your president holds a view that is at odds with the majority, it’s a radical view of the future of this country, so that’s why we’re having this division. This is a spiritual battle which can only be won by overwhelming prayer. The future of the world is at stake because if America falls, there’s no longer a strong champion of freedom and a champion of the oppressed of the world. There must be an urgent call to prayer. The Lord said, a time of maximum stress and peril, greater than at any time since the CBN ministry began. This country will begin disintegrating.

I started thinking, when did we start this place? We started CBN in 1960, you think of all the things that went on, you had the assassination of the president, assassination of Martin Luther King, you’ve got a war in Vietnam, you’ve got all these things, He is saying you will have worse stress than before. So I’m saying, God, let me give you some suggestions and you tell me if any of them is right, pick one. I said, is it an EMP blast? No that isn’t it. Is it a cosmic or solar or radiation blast? No. Is it Mayan galaxy alignment? No. Is it Iranian or North Korean nuclear threat? No. Is it an earthquake or a volcano? No. Is it a massive power failure? No. What is it? It’s an economic collapse. And God said, This is not my judgment, they are bringing it upon themselves.