Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson also said America’s bad behavior led to 9-11 attacks
April 30th, 2008 at 12:23am Chuck Sweeny
In case you’ve been led to believe the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is the only nut job clergyman who blamed Americans for carrying out policies and behaviors that led to the 9-11 attacks, I provide you with this transcript from 9-13-01, courtesy of Beliefnet.com.
It’s the Rev. Jerry Falwell talking to the Rev. Robertson, on Pat’s popular 700 Club TV show.
JERRY FALWELL: And I agree totally with you that the Lord has protected us so wonderfully these 225 years. And since 1812, this is the first time that we’ve been attacked on our soil and by far the worst results. And I fear, as Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, said yesterday, that this is only the beginning. And with biological warfare available to these monsters - the Husseins, the Bin Ladens, the Arafats–what we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be minuscule if, in fact–if, in fact–God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.
PAT ROBERTSON: Jerry, that’s my feeling. I think we’ve just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven’t even begun to see what they can do to the major population.
JERRY FALWELL: The ACLU’s got to take a lot of blame for this.
PAT ROBERTSON: Well, yes.
JERRY FALWELL: And, I know that I’ll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way–all of them who have tried to secularize America–I point the finger in their face and say “you helped this happen.”
PAT ROBERTSON: Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we’re responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And, the top people, of course, is the court system.
JERRY FALWELL: Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU, and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang “God Bless America” and said “let the ACLU be hanged”? In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time–calling upon God.
PAT ROBERTSON: Amen
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12 Comments Add your own
1. ROTStar | April 30th, 2008 at 4:54 am
Oooh Chuck, different context and different evils — Reverend Wright’s blamed America for being terrorists in the world where the passages above blamed Americans for affronts to God.
You understand that don’t you? They are really not the same thing.
Additionally you might want to compare the following:
The Reverend Wright at the National Press Club:
While I agree with you that they are all nut jobs, do you really believe they are accurate comparisons?
Global terrorist murders getting what we deserve versus sinners suffering the wrath of God — very different meanings.DavidBy the way, stop by my blog if you would like to see some blogging that is to the Right of the Star.
2. redrover | April 30th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Rev Wright is not the first African-American minister to condemn US government state-sponsored terrorism.
“As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked — and rightly so — what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. ”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” April 4, 1967
Is MLK also a “nut job”?
3. Chuck Sweeny | April 30th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Two comments:
First, there’s no comparison between King and Wright. King spoke truth to power in a dignified manner, always moving Americans toward becoming a society that lived up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.
Wright is a trash-talking egomaniac who is stuck in the past. Shame on him.
Second: I really don’t think God had anything to do with 9-11, or Hurricane Katrina or earthquakes, mudslides and the Rockford Labor Day flood.
But, let’s say God actually was disgusted with our immorality in 2001, and he decided to remove his protective hand from the U.S. to allow the terrorist attack so that we’d learn a thing or two and change our evil ways.
.
Using the same logic, what the heck were we doing that was so evil on Dec. 7, 1941?
Or on Sept. 17, 1862, the bloodiest day in American history, when 23,000 people died. (Look it up, it’ll give you something to do.)
God gives us free will. We choose the narrow path of goodness, or the freeway of evil.
4. Sense of Five | April 30th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
“Is MLK also a “nut job”?”
Ask that of LBJ in 1967. Oh, and he actually got the Civil and Voting Rights Acts through, too.
5. Chuck Sweeny | May 1st, 2008 at 7:46 am
Already answered the first part of your comment, Mr. Anonymous.
As to the second part, the Voting Rights Act was signed in 1965, the Civil Rights Act in 1964, so I’m not sure why you would want me to ask LBJ about that in 1967, when the Vietnam War was dragging him down.
Besides, LBJ isn’t taking questions these days.
6. John Biltmore | May 1st, 2008 at 7:58 am
Chuck,
I just have a question for you about your post. Not exactly sure what point you are trying to make. Is it that since Barack Obama’s pastor is apparently as extreme — if not more so — than Falwell and Robertson, we should all feel OK about it? Whew, I’m relieved to hear this! Thank the heavens that the pastor of Barack Obama is only as whacky as Falwell and Robertson!
7. Chuck Sweeny | May 1st, 2008 at 9:26 am
Well of course not. Why would you draw that conclusion, John? IT makes no sense. The point is, Wright wasn’t the only guy to try to explain 9-11 in the context that it somehow was our fault — the chickens coming home to roost argument. It was a pretty standard argument, on the left and the right ends of the spectrum.
What really happened is that bad guys from Saudi Arabia — our FRIENDS in the middle east, remember — came here, took courses in flight schools, hijacked planes and flew them into buildings. All while we were not paying attention. That’s the real scandal.
8. John Biltmore | May 1st, 2008 at 10:10 am
Well, I would draw that conclusion in light of the context in which it’s presented and in light of other opinions you’ve expressed (before this week.) Previously you have argued —- ostensibly in defense of Sen. Obama —- that the Rev. Wright controversy is not relevant in evaluating this candidate. Your post seemed to be another way to “explain away” or “minimize” the association between Obama and Wright —- i.e. that because Wright “wasn’t the only guy” to espouse such trash, then why get so worked up this time?
9. Chuck Sweeny | May 1st, 2008 at 10:31 am
The Rev. Wright issue became red hot because Wright himself went on a three day media extravaganza tour, that’s why. He decided to make himself more of an issue than he had been previously. I watched his complete interview with Bill Moyers, his speech to the NAACP and his remarks to the National Press Club, He seemed to want to bring Obama down.
10. John Biltmore | May 1st, 2008 at 11:02 am
I think you misunderstand me. Viewed in context, your invoking of Falwell and Robertson seems another attempt to quote - get Obama off the hook - unquote. The truth is, while Obama has properly distanced himself, we do not really yet know how much Rev. Wright’s thinking has influenced the Senator over the years. I am more than a tad skeptical that in the time between Obama’s announcement of his candidacy (when they prayed together in the basement) and today, that Rev. Wright suddenly morphed into this fire-breathing radical. My other point is, if I am in Obama’s camp, I’m not sure that “my pastor is as bad as the whackos on the right” is the message I want out.
11. Chuck Sweeny | May 4th, 2008 at 12:37 am
I wonder why Sen. John McCain has not repudiated the support of evangelical pastor John Hagee, a champion of the “Whore of Babylon” school of thought regarding the Roman Catholic Church. It’d be a good question for Hillary Stephanopolous to ask him, eh?
12. John Biltmore | May 5th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Sounds like a fair question. But it’s still a bit of a “two wrongs make a right” kind of argument.
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