Amazingly, Pat Robertson goes to NEW lows
A few days ago, Pat Robertson said this about Haiti:
And you know, Christy, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it, they were under the heel of the French, uh, you know, Napoleon the third and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the devil, they said, we will serve you, if you get us free from the Prince, true story. And so the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free, and ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor…
What surprises me about this is not that Robertson thinks the earthquake is retribution for godlessness. So much we should expect by now, hateful though it is. This, after all, is the same man who agreed with Jerry Falwell’s statement, made on Robertson’s own program, that 9/11 was punishment for atheism, feminism, and homosexuality. It’s the same man who thought abortion probably caused Hurricane Katrina. No, what surprises is that the curse is supposedly hereditary. Haitians aren’t being punished for anything they did, but for something that supposedly occurred almost 220 years ago. I suppose it’s not such a great leap from thinking that God punishes nations for their collective sins to thinking that God punishes nations for their ancestors‘ collective sins, but, still, this reveals just how medieval Robertson’s mind really is.
Christians traditionally struggle to reconcile their god’s benevolence with the mass suffering of innocents. But when it’s other, distant people who are suffering the problem becomes easy: the “innocents” must really be sinners deep-down, and when the “innocents” are god-fearing people, well, it must be their ancestors who sinned.
axe, pen, & bell 
I really liked this post and completely agree with you. What also distresses me is this subtle hint of “glee’ that many Christians feel when a disaster like this occurs. For many, it’s evidence that God is both mad at the word and coming again very soon…to destroy the it. In my opinion, Christians have no room to talk about shameful pasts.
Not only is the ancestors argument used, but also the “punishing others” argument. For example, the tsunami that killed over 200,000 in 2004. I remember reading more than a few Christian articles attributing this tragedy as both a warning and punishment for sinners (homosexuals, abortionists, etc). Basically, God wipes out 200,000 in the Indiana Ocean to warn the rest of the world to quit being sinful and convert to Christianity. I mean, really.