Stealing Jesus: how fundamentalism betrays Christianity by Bruce Bawer

Author:Bruce Bawer [Bawer, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Christian life & practice, Christianity, Religion, Church history, Essence; genius; nature, Religion: Comparative; General & Reference, Christian theology, Christianity - History - General, Christianity - Essence; genius; nature, Social Issues, Christian Life, United States - Church history, United States, Fundamentalism, Christian Church, Religion - Denominations - Religions, Biblical Criticism & Interpretation, History, Religion: general, General, Fundamentalism - United States, Biblical Criticism & Interpretation - General
ISBN: 9780517706824
Publisher: New York : Crown Publishers, c1997.
Published: 1997-10-15T05:00:00+00:00

Robertson's trilogy offers a bizarre account of biblical prophecy that is in the direct line of Darby, Scofield, and Lindsey Like Lindsey, Robertson offers a twisted account of history and current events by way of supporting his biblical prophecy. The principal difference is that Robertson places more emphasis on the political lessons and prescriptions that he draws from that prophecy. Like Lindsey, Robertson relies on the fact that his readers know little about the history he is manipulating. One illustration of that ignorance is a glaring error that appeared in The New Millennium in 1990 and, astonishingly, remained uncorrected when that book was reprinted as part of The Collected Pat Robertson four years later. I am referring to Robertson's condescending reference to "Henri Beyle (pronounced baal), who wrote under the name of Voltaire" and who "was essentially an atheist." In fact Marie-Henri Beyle—whom Robertson here tries shamelessly to link with Baal, the Canaanite deity whom the Israelites identified with Satan—was the birth name not of Voltaire (whose birth name was Arouet) but of the French novelist Stendhal. What is to the point here is not the error itself—which I have never seen pointed out anywhere—but the fact that it went unnoticed and uncorrected in the four-year period between the book's initial publication and its appearance in the Collected volume. The perpetuation of this error only indicates how little Robertson's readers know about most of the things he writes about—and how manipulable they therefore are. Robertson can distort history to an outrageous extent, yet his readers will accept the conclusions he draws from the historical record because they don't realize how much he is distorting it.

The perpetuation of this error also underscores the fact that Robertson's readership is almost entirely confined to the Religious Right. Members of the mainstream media, intelligentsia, and political establishment—people, that is, who might notice slipups like the one about Voltaire and call them to the attention of his publishers—don't read Robertson's books. Few of them even look in on The 700 Club occasionally to see what America's most politically powerful Republican is up to these days. Consequently these mainstream opinion makers have only the most rudimentary acquaintance with the theological ideas of the man at the Christian Coalition's helm. If you asked many of these opinion makers, some of whom cover the Christian Coalition on a regular basis, they would probably say that the coalition members' theology is not their affair and that they are interested only in the movement's political manifestations. Yet because they take this attitude, Reed has been able to go on TV and routinely soften the coalition's image without the other participants recognizing the extent to which he has been doing so. Robertson and Reed, then, have made a highly efficient team: One of them distorts history and the Bible by way of fashioning a theology for his followers, and the other misrepresents that theology by way of fashioning a viable national political movement.

As I have noted, one way in which Reed

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