He tells one of his elderly viewers on a fixed income that they still must tithe their paltry income in order to "rebuke the devourer". He even says that her husband is sick precisely because she is not tithing.
"Your husband has all these medical problems because the 'devourer' has not been rebuked. You need to rebuke him. You give your tithes faithfully and God said 'I will rebuke the devourer, the person that is eating up your money and eating up your health.'"
That is Pat's response to an elderly woman asking Pat if she should continue to tithe on her fixed income despite being poor. She wonders if she should instead use tithe money to pay for her husband's medial expenses. Sad to think that she doesn't know the answer to the question, sadder still that she thinks Pat Robertson is the person who can give her the answer.
Before you dismiss this as just "crazy 'ole Pat" doing what he does...consider that he is logically extending the tithing nonsense that evangelical preachers like Steve Gaines, Perry Noble, Robert Morris, Ed Young and others teach to their followers. Pat is practically applying the false theology that a Christian is obligated to fork over their first 10% of income to the church in order to secure God's blessings and to avoid God's cursings.
As nutty as Pat sounds, if what Robert Morris and Perry Noble and Steve Gaines and Ed Young preaches on tithing is true, then what Pat is saying makes perfect sense - that yes, even an elderly person on Social Security should FIRST give 10% of her Social Security check to Ed Young's church before she thinks about paying for her husband's medical care. And oh by the way, if she would only give more money, her husband wouldn't be so sick in the first place.
Hence, as more of these mega church pastors push this storehouse tithing nonsense, the more modern evangelicalism is moving down a road that is not sustainable beyond the current generation of gullible sheep who tolerate it.
20 comments:
Even if a person truly believes tithing is required of Christians, they ought to have the sense to realize that Social Security isn't the same thing as an earned "income." It is a government contract between generations that one generation pays for the current generations retirement so that the next generation will pay for theirs.
Nice try, but to a mega church pastor, income is income. Have to tithe on the incoming revenue to rebuke the "devourer". So you get it from both ends: the "devourer" is eating your resources, aided by God himself who either pokes holes in your purse, or who blows it all away. All OT doctrines preached by mega church pastors.
Boy, that God guy sure sounds like a nice guy. He protects you from Satan only if you give him money. Sounds like the Mafia to me.
What truly unnerves me is that there are people who take this stuff seriously and think preachers know how God runs the world.
Can't you see this poor woman turning to her husband to deliver Pat's message: "Honey, Pat says you're sick cause we aren't tithing. I know you were taught that God loves you and takes care of you, but obviously that's not what's happening here. Don't you feel guilty now for being sick?"
Boy, that God guy sure sounds like a nice guy. He protects you from Satan only if you give him money. Sounds like the Mafia to me.
What truly unnerves me is that there are people who take this stuff seriously and think preachers know how God runs the world.
Can't you see this poor woman turning to her husband to deliver Pat's message: "Honey, Pat says you're sick cause we aren't tithing. I know you were taught that God loves you and takes care of you, but obviously that's not what's happening here. Don't you feel guilty now for being sick?"
Tithing establishes three things: power, prestige and profit for the mega pastors. Keep the money flowing its a scam.
I guess that explains Robertsons obvious mental condition. He needs to pony up more for The Lord and then his mind might clear up just a little bit.
Social Security is not a contract between generations. It is a system that most of us have paid into since our first working days as teenagers. It is ALREADY our money, just being meagerly dolled back out to us (and taxed a second time BTW).
To get down to nits, if a tither tithed on his income as he was working, then technically this money has already been tithed on.
If you just use common sense, what a person gives or tithes at any point in his or her life is strictly between that person and God. And Pat's or any pastor's admonishment is totally out of line.
Appreciate the efforts here, but applying logic doesn't work. Income means money incoming. A SS check is income. You're on a fixed income. According to these charlatans you must tithe on a SS or pension income. If there was such an exclusion surely these men of God would have explained it at some point. But not a one has mentioned that God has an "exemption" from the tithe for the elderly on fixed incomes. Sorry, grandma and grandpa, as Frank Page said, PONY UP!!!!
Interesting that these guys never mention Mark 7:6-13 and the fact that Jesus rebuked them for using the excuse of it being "Corban" to justify not taking care of parents. I think he made it clear setting aside a gift for the Temple did not invalidate the command to honor parents and since we are to leave our parents to cleave to our mate for life would not this principle apply here also?
Ex. From the book of Ruth. As Boaz was required to leave a portion of his fields for the widows and fatherless to pick from to survive then I guess they inturn were required to tithe or leave a portion for ? .
I guess to bring for the fat cat lazy priests. Sounds like slave labor to me.
I Do Believe All Christians Should Tithe However Pats an idiot! and Sorry WD but your STILL not right.
Income means ALL coming in IE Cain and Able didnt have cash flow (first tithing story) so...
The next time a preacher says so and so is in this situation because they didnt tithe I want to see them plaster a picture in the background of one of the little south american snotty nose sad starving children standing in a garbage heap scrounging for food!
This is hardly particular to "mega church" pastors with crushing financial goals. In the little 100 person rural church I grew up in, the pastor said you can either give your tithe to the church or you'll end up giving it to the doctor, but God will get it.
I watch "The 700 Club" regularly. I'm not sure why I watch it.
I sure don't agree with every view of Pat Robertson's.
I caught this bit you have cited on your blog from The 700 Club when I watched the show a few days ago and was upset that he would tell a financially struggling lady with a sick husband with big medical bills to keep on tithing anyhow.
I have a larger problem with the outlook of any Christian who presumes to tell other Christians, "You are having a problem with 'X' because of 'Z'."
I mean, for Robertson to tell this lady he knows for a fact her husband is sick because she has not been tithing is very insensitive and un-biblical.
If you look at the book of Job in the Old Testament, Job's "friends" did the same to him:
they sat there and presumed to know exactly why calamity befell him.
They told him his trials must be his own fault.
Many in the Wealth and Health Gospel (and other branches of Christianity) do this to Christians today.
If you are undergoing some sort of hardship, they will say it's your fault, because you didn't pray long enough, you must have lacked faith, you must have some hidden sin, or, of course, with other clowns, they say you are not tithing enough.
The Bible warns believers from making such assumptions!
Making these assumptions can be so hurtful and discouraging to the person who is in some kind of pain or tribulation.
Not every bad thing that happens to a Christian is the consequence of that person's actions, or their sin, or some shortcoming in their spiritual life (such as lack of faith or prayer).
The Bible says good and bad things will happen to good and bad people.
The Bible says that being godly (and/or tithing, etc.) is NOT a protection against suffering in this life.
Jesus Christ, who was SINLESS, was horribly beaten and died a painful death on the cross.
Should we assume Christ was killed because he lacked faith, didn't tithe regularly, or didn't pray enough or hard enough? No?
How about Stephen the martyr who is mentioned in the book of Acts? Was he stoned to death for a lack of faith, for not tithing, etc?
Then why do Christians throw these incredibly rude assumptions at other hurting people?
Pat Robertson is in his 80s now, and is out of touch. He should not be hosting the show any more.
Some of Robertson's answers to viewer questions are weird.
On a recent show, Robertson made odd, rambling comments about how avoiding carbs in one's diet can give one "clinkers" - what does that even mean?
In the last two years, Robertson has basically excused pre-marital sex (he thinks no person can control their sexual urges, so he tends to excuse hetero sexual sinning);
Robertson on past show has blamed wives for being unattractive (even though he has no idea what these women look like who send his show questions) for why their husbands become alcoholics;
Robertson has joked on his show about wouldn't it be great if Christian men could beat their uppity wives as Muslim men do, etc.
(You can find videos of Robertson saying all these things on his show on You Tube videos, just do a search.)
Every once in a while, Robertson gives advice I agree with, or think is okay, but the man regularly more often than not, gives sexist, insensitive, or weird advice.
I have no clue why that show permits him on camera to answer questions.
Maybe they enjoy the media backlash he receives when he makes his outrageous comments? Does it bring them higher ratings?
The show co-hosts often give better, wiser, more biblical, more sensitive, and nuanced replies to viewer questions than Pat Robertson does.
Anyway, my big issue is with Christians who immediately blame another Christian for their heartaches.
As in, "If you have problem X, it is obviously because you are not tithing/ not praying enough/ lack faith/ have hidden sin."
That attitude is so rude and heartless, but it even crops up among TV preachers I use to consider more respectable.
Pat contradicts himself and actually makes the point the Dog has been making. The lady's note clearly says she has been tithing since she was a little girl, giving part of her babysitting money. She says tithing has been a blessing and a joy. Yet Pat says she has not rebuked the devourer in her life! What else can she Pat? She has tithed all of her life, cheerfully, and yet finds herself in this dire financial situation (unlike Pat) and her husband's health is failing, and those bills are real, yet she has no blessings or health because she did not rebuke the devourer? It is all nonsense. Great video to illustrate how illogical and untrue it ALL is.
"I have no clue why that show permits him on camera to answer questions."
Here is a clue...His audience demographic believes in talking donkeys, and the sun standing still, and the tower of babel causing different languages, and on and on. So nothing he says is going to be more outrageous than any of that. YOU are the reason they allow it. They know YOU are a gullible viewer who they can shake down and get money from. Think about it.
Yeah, the woman has been tithing faithfully all of her life, but Robertson just glosses over that and says that the reason her husband is sick is because she hasn't been tithing!
He must be just senile.
"I Do Believe All Christians Should Tithe However Pats an idiot! and Sorry WD but your STILL not right.
Income means ALL coming in IE Cain and Able didnt have cash flow (first tithing story) so..."
Really? How many tithes should they give? They paid three in the OT.
Where is the word tithe or a 10% amount mentioned in the Cain and Abel story?
Since they did have cash flow in Jesus' day, why is there no mention of a cash gift (only food or livestock) in the entire OT?
Why were the poor given the tithe money in the OT and required to pay it today?
The disciples asked Jesus one thing "teach us to pray". Note he never told them to tithe and if the had it would have been mainly fish.
We will all be dead from some illness in the next 100 years whether we tithe or not.
The question has to be raised whether Robertson, et. al., are Christians. People believe the wrong things about themselves all the time. I prefer to call people like Robertson "professed Christians." I believe they are false prophets. Their behavior and their professed beliefs have too big a gap. Christianity should not have to take the hit for these fakes.
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