Kill a commie for Christ.
That’s what televangelist Pat Robertson suggested this week when he told his TV flock that the U.S. ought to assassinate Venezuela’s Castro-loving, U.S.-hating President Hugo Chavez.
If Robertson were Muslim and called for George Bush’s assassination, we’d rank him with Osama bin Laden.
So Ted Haggard, the Colorado Springs preacher who serves as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, has his work cut out for him. If Haggard meets as scheduled today in Mexico City with a liaison to the Venezuelan government, job one will be to explain that “Thou shalt not kill” remains part of the Christian creed.
Haggard, whose organization claims to represent 30 million evangelicals nationwide, said he “will send an official message” to Chavez saying Robertson’s remarks about killing the Venezuelan leader misrepresented Christianity.
Robertson “is a member of NAE,” Haggard acknowledged in an interview. “So I will apologize to the president of Venezuela on behalf of evangelicals that this was said out of place.”
Haggard won’t say with whom he will speak today in Mexico City, only that it is a woman. The Venezuelan Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Haggard said he received an invitation to the Mexico City meeting after appearing on CNN to criticize Robertson.
The rendezvous is not official, he said. “This is a casual meeting in a hotel, not in an embassy,” he said.
Besides saying he’s sorry, Haggard plans to discuss Chavez’s “policies and the role of Christians and evangelicals.”
“Should the meeting go well,” Haggard said he was told, it “might lead to a meeting with (Chavez) to discuss the same subjects.”
Haggard doesn’t know what his chances are of talking directly to Chavez about the ability of free-market politics and freedom of religion and freedom of speech to empower the poor.
“He says he wants to be the poor people’s president,” Haggard said.
The preacher from New Life Church in Colorado Springs also wants to talk about democratic elections in Venezuela and constitutional guarantees.
“I’m shooting in the dark here,” he said. “I’m responding to their initiative.”
Haggard said he has met in the past with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for policy discussions.
But those meetings didn’t come about because Haggard had to clean up a mess left by an icon of conservative Christianity.
“We don’t need a $200 billion war to get rid of a strong-arm dictator,” Robertson told his Christian Broadcasting Network viewers Monday. “It’s a whole lot easier to have some covert operative do the job and get it over with.”
Robertson said Chavez should be taken out before he turns his country into “a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism.”
Robertson then tried to wiggle out of responsibility.
“First, he said he didn’t say it,” Haggard said. “Then, he said he didn’t mean it. It was very Clintonesque. Now, he’s apologized, which is the appropriate thing to do.”
Amen.
Haggard said the people who set up the Mexico City meeting “gave me an indication that (Chavez) is sympathetic to evangelicals.”
Perhaps. But when an evangelical leader as important as Pat Robertson calls for your murder, you don’t exactly get warm fuzzies for the rest of the tribe.
So Haggard will need a miracle of biblical proportions if he wants to use an apology for Robertson’s terrorist talk as the catalyst for Venezuelan change.
“That’s the nature of my work,” Haggard said. “Good things come out of bad things.”
In this case, the best thing might be wristbands for his own flock that read, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
