UNITED STATES
The Epoch Times
By Bishop James Alan Wilkowski
Special to The Epoch Times Sep 12, 2005
It has been nearly two weeks now since television evangelist Pat Robertson made his horrific remarks calling for the assassination of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. While the American public has grown somewhat desensitized by those of the theocratic and fanatical religious right, the Robertson episode breached the generally unspoken code of pastoral conduct within the American pastoral community. Despite the fact that Robertson could theologically and pastorally benefit from a refresher course on the Ten Commandments, it is his breach of the code of conduct I believe will have a much longer impact on the American pastoral community.
Though Robertson and I do not belong to the same faith denomination, we are members of the larger American pastoral community. As members of this community, I believe that each of us regardless of denomination or jurisdiction has been called by God to build up His Kingdom here on earth. Robertson's call for the assassination of President Chavez fails to fulfill God's mandate to those who minister in His name. Robertson has been graced with a gift from God to ministry. He is not James Bond with a license to kill.
The Robertson fiasco come at a time in which the American pastoral community is still reeling and struggling to survive the priest sexual abuse scandals afflicting our pastoral colleagues in the Roman Catholic Church. The Robertson fiasco is now yet another burden the American pastoral community will have to shoulder and bear. Polls and surveys have shown that the American public has lost respect for the American clergy and that this lost respect will take a very long time to recover.
So how can the American pastoral community survive the Pastoral and Ethical Breach of Pat Robertson and others?
I believe that the first and foremost important matter is for those in public ministry to choose between theology and politics. As an American citizen, Robertson and all members of the pastoral community have a right of participate in the political process. The problems begin when Robertson and others bring their partisan politics to the pulpit. I am not sure of the type of academic studies Robertson had as a seminarian, but the history of the Church is littered with the names of those who mixed partisan politics with their pulpits only to experience disaster. What Robertson and the rest of us do within the sanctity of the polling booth is our private choice. As ministers of God, we are obligated to preach His Word and not the gospel of any political party.