Pat Robertson & Dietrich Bonhoeffer

IN RESPONSE to the uproar he created, Pat Robertson has compared himself to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German church leader and theologian who shed his pacifism to involve himself in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler (and for which Bonhoeffer was executed). But Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez doesn't have a gas chamber that he is feeding millions of people into. And his anti-American rhetoric is hardly an executable crime. Nor is the POSSIBILITY that he might affect US oil supplies and create a society which is welcoming to Communists and Muslim extremists an actual crime.

Chavez is no Hitler. And certainly Robertson is no Bonhoeffer.

The Houston Chronicle says, "Pat Robertson's call for assassination should mark the end of his credibility as a minister or politician."

For some of us, Robertson wasted his credibility years ago. So this isn't really any big surprise. What is perhaps even more troubling than the things he said about the Venezuelan president (and his ridiculous attempt to enlist Bonhoeffer) is that the 700 Club has millions of viewers and a board of directors which instead of helping him to retire will blow the whole incident off as another example of the liberal media trying to silence a prophetic voice and persecute conservative Christians. These are the people we need to challenge at this point.