Pat Robertson’s Improper Predictions

For the uninitiated, every year televangelist Pat Robertson has predictions dressed up as prophecy. He contends that the Lord speaks to him [in his heart presumably] and let’s him know about things for the future.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think that God can and sometimes does speak to people. He does this for His reasons. I must admit that I don’t think that God and Pat are on very good speaking terms.

Now I have made my predictions for 2009. Prescient or imbecilic, they are mine. Other than creating my weak little brain, God had nothing to do with it. The stupidity is my own. Pat is not satisfied with such personal prognostication so he often infuses them with the aura of a prophetic word. To Robertson’s ear, the Lord is a part time commodities trader.

“The Lord said the dollar is going to go down dramatically,” Robertson said in the interview. “If I’m hearing him right, gold will go to about $1900 dollars an ounce and oil to $300 a barrel.”

Does God really inspire his own to predict commodities futures? Now I am not saying that Pat is wrong, just presumtuous to claim this is from God. For instance, Pat says:

Socialist policies and massive government spending, Robertson told Meeuwsen, could lead to heavy hyperinflation, sending prices through the roof and the value of the dollar through the floor.

I have said as much in my predictions, but I think it would be rather uppity of me to claim God’s imprimatur.

It is one thing to make a fool of yourself with faulty predictions, quite another to smear God with your own stupidity. Pat has done just that in the past. In the past Robertson has predicted a massive attack on U.S. soil [2007], predicted that the Republican would retain congress [2006 – Ouch!], a tsunami to hit the U.S. in 2006, the stock market will surge this year [2005: Closed down 67 points for the year. And so on.

Do your predictions Pat, they are very entertaining even if mostly spectacularly wrong. Just stop claiming that God is telling you these things. It’s embarrassing.