Subject: Pat Robertson & CO whip Felix?
From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 1995 23:19:56 -0400

To:  The "c.c.watch" Internet Network
Subject:  Christian Broadcasting Network saves East Coast from Hurricane
Felix?
Date:  August 19, 1995

Pat Robertson may not have won the Iowa Presidential Straw Poll today like he
did in 1988.  But that didn't stop him from being in the news.  Hurricane
Felix has backed away from the East Coast with minimum damages and loss of
life--due to prayer led by the staff and partners of the Christian
Broadcasting Network (CBN)! Yessiree, Bob...er, Pat.  This miraculous turn of
events was reported by Pat himself last Thursday and later confirmed by CBN
media relations manager Patty Richardson, who told reporters, "We believe
that prayer had a lot to do with it."  That shameless effort to take credit
where credit probably was not due was reported by news media on Friday.
 Tongue -in-cheek?

There is certainly nothing the matter with believing in Jesus Christ or with
praying to Him for help.  But anyone who watched the "700 Club" this week
with any semblance of objectivity saw the CBN heading toward the self-serving
pronouncement re Hurricane Felix--one of two options that were carefully
being set up by each broadcast in the inimitable style of Pat Robertson &
Company.  For Pat it's usually a win-win situation: damned if it happens and
saved if it doesn't!  

If the hurricane hits and causes great damage, its another "Sign of the
Times." As Pat puts it in reference to all recent weather disasters:  "God
has turned the screws on America to get America back to its senses...to warn
Americans to repent for the way they've been living...These disasters should
drive people to their knees...God's people should be praying."  We are fast
heading for the end!

If the hurricane fizzles out, it's because of all the praying at CBN.  They
prayed all week--on the air, in the CBN Chapel, and on the Internet...the big
push coming on Wednesday with fierce prayer by Reinhart Bonkke, a
missionary-type who had just hyped his work in Zaire  (one of Pat's favorite
places).  He prayed hard and loud for the Lord to "take the sting out of
Hurricane Felix," and Pat held his hand and praised the Lord, too.  On
Wednesday Pat told us, "Tonight's the night!"

But on Thursday Pat Robertson told us that the hurricane that "first appeared
as a 300-mile-wide monster" was now going out like a "cat purring off the
NC-VA coast barely more than an oversized storm"...because of CBN and the
fact that he and Herr Bonkke had asked America to pray.  But "it was more
than an answer to prayer," he said.  Pat and friends had prayed in "about
1960 or it may have been 1961" to abort a killer storm, and that prayer had
built a wall of protection around the Tidewater area.  CBN was especially
sorry to disappoint CBS which had been planning to set up the "Evening News"
in anticipation of the hurricane's land fall.  "I'd love to see Dan Rather
come to be with us," he said.  

Just a couple of problems with that scenario.  Review Pat Robertson's own
book  "Shout It From the Housetops," which tells about the early years of
CBN.  Do you find anything about a hurricane threat in 1960/61 or the praying
that staved it off?  CBN didn't even go on the air till October 1, 1961.
 Most of the time (and most of the book) was devoted to documenting prayer
for money for Pat's TV mission.  In fact, the last time a hurricane hit the
area was 1933 (according to CNN and "The Virginian-Pilot").  When Pat arrived
in the Tidewater area in 1959, he described  it as "a spiritual
wasteland...rampant with sin." Convenient in one way;  but who, pray tell,
was protecting that horrible place between 1933 and 1959?

At the end of the Thursday broadcast, Pat suddenly said the following in
regard to the hurricane and the losses [$2.1 million a day in VA and $4
million in NC] that business owners had suffered: "We don't want to seem
overly jovial in relation to what could have been a tragedy.  We're just
delighted that the tragedy has not struck the Outer Banks or here. And we, of
course, would ask people to continue to pray all up along the East Coast.
 We're hoping that this storm will go north and then east and move out to
sea."

Pat didn't look too happy then.   Had people complained?  Had his producers
thought twice about all the back-patting earlier in the show?   Or about the
fact that sidekick Ben Kinchlow had stood on the roof of Pat's Founder's Inn
doing quite a commercial for the place?  Or about the fact that Pat and Terry
Meeuwsen used the situation to peddle Pat's upcoming novel ,"The End of the
Age?"  "It's right on the money!" Pat crowed.  "I don't think you want to
miss it!"

But Thursday's broadcast of the so-called news portion of the "700 Club"
didn't just include hurricane talk and related commercials.  At least half of
the show was devoted to some of Pat Robertson's favorite subjects: the
spotted owl and the dratted Endangered Species Act of 1974 ("It's nuts!");
 the shocking possibility that Hillary Clinton might attend the
anti-Christian and anti-family UN Fourth World Conference on Women in
Beijing; and the question of Bill Bradley running for President as an
Independent.  All of this in just 30 minutes!

Now that's a miracle.

Copyright 1995 Public-Spirited Enterprises

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