I know a lot of blogs yesterday and today will be focused on Haiti and how you can help the efforts there but I'm not going to focus on that.  (However, it IS something you should consider doing and you can click here to find out how.) 

I know a lot of people are condemning Pat Robertson for his inane comments yesterday.  I'm not going to do that either...although I am going to address them because yesterday Proverbs 14 came up in my discussions with friends.

First, verse 11: The house of the wicked will be destroyed, but the tent of the upright will flourish.

Yesterday I was having a discussion with some guys I know regarding this situation and the guy defending Robertson referenced this verse.  He didn't know it was Proverbs 14:11, just that he read it in Proverbs somewhere.  In his defense of Pat, he said that the verse showed God would bring his righteous judgment on those who did not follow his commands.  He started to go on about voodoo and other ways that Haiti was not a "Christian nation."  (I should add here that my friend only mentioned the first part of verse 11.)

As you can imagine, the non-Christians among the group started to rip into him like a kid looking at a giant package on Christmas morning.  It contained all the blanket condemnation of Christians that comes from people who accept without question the media driven perception that Pat Robertson or Fred Phelps represent the body of Christ as a whole. The other Christians in the group started saying that Robertson was someone who just causes damage to the body of Christ and how he's a joke that no one should try to defend or take seriously.  

Once the bluster of the moment wore off, I turned to my Christian friend and told him that perhaps, to a degree, he was right.  My non-Christian friends then started lobbing insults toward me until I told them to shut up until I was done.  (Yes, I used the term "shut up."  Sometimes when dealing with those who are acting out of emotion and not really thinking clearly you need to hit them with a bus to get them to pay attention.)  I turned back to my friend and said that it's entirely possible that people who practice voodoo or any other religion that doesn't worship Christ as Lord were killed when their houses collapsed on top of them and they died from either suffocation, crush injuries, broken necks or loss of blood.

"Maybe, just maybe," I said, "it took a long time for them to die so they could know they were about to spend eternity in hell."

I could see my Christian friend starting to turn red wanting to jump back at me but he also knew where I was headed.  He's passionate but he's not stupid.  My non-Christian friends were salivating thinking this was going to be a Christian-on-Christian bloodbath.  (Amazing how those things always seem to happen when issues like Haiti rise up?)

I went to point out some of the things I've seen from blogs today about various rescue groups that had entire Christian families wiped out when their homes fell on top of them.  I looked at my Christian friend and asked him point blank why those people died if the judgment was on the people who had sold their soul to the devil (as Robertson claimed.)  If they were followers of Christ, they couldn't be sold to Satan.  My friend just looked at me but didn't say a word. 

I agreed with him that yes, the Scriptures do say that God will judge all of us and if we're not following Him that He will turn His back on us.  It's not like I can deny the words of the Bible.  I went on to say that even if what Robertson said WAS true (and I'm not saying it is but for the discussion accepting the premise) it doesn't change a single thing about what we as Christians are called to do.  We're to love, show grace, show compassion and show mercy.  On top of that...even if Robertson was right...it wasn't the time to say it.

"Honestly, bro," I said, "what Robertson said was crap."

My non-Christian friends...and a few Christians who were very anti-Pat...started chuckling enjoying what they were seeing with no idea I was about to turn the spotlight onto them.  I looked at them and asked point blank: "What did you do to help the people of Haiti before this disaster happened to avoid the crushing poverty that led them to live in houses that were less stable than most treehouses in the backyard of American kids?"  They started to mumble things about giving to the Red Cross last year or donating leftover clothes to a local shelter.  One of the Christian guys said he gave $20 last year to World Vision.  (Not $20 a month...$20 total.)  I looked at them and said perhaps before they ran around condemning Pat Robertson for something he said they should step up and start sending money and aid to groups helping the Haitians like Robertson was doing before he ever uttered those controversial phrases. 

"If I had to choose," I said, "I'd rather take Pat Robertson and his dumb comments while helping Haitians over your condemning him while sitting on your wallets."

I then told them that those of us who believe can't pick and choose which verses we believe from the Bible.  There is a Scriptural precedent for Robertson's assertion that God could use nature to bring divine justice on those who reject Him.  That doesn't mean it happened but it doesn't mean it's impossible.  It doesn't mean that we're to do anything other than to show love, mercy, compassion and grace to those who've been impacted by the disaster.

"The bottom line," I said, "is that I love you guys and I believe that without God you're going to spend eternity in hell.  (Those that are non-followers of Christ know Christianity so they know that part of our beliefs.)  If anything, Haiti scares me more because I know something like that could happen to any one of us at any time.  I don't want to see that happen to you any more than it happened to them.  And I'm embarassed that it seems many Christians are as or more interested in cutting down Pat Robertson than it seems we are helping the people of Haiti."

As you can imagine, no one was really happy after I jumped in.  They probably would have been much happier wailing away on each other.  The discussion continued but it was much more subdued than it had been previously. 

But I'll say this one critical thing of Pat Robertson and I base it on Proverbs 14:31:

Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him.

I would say that Pat's comments oppressed any Haitian that would have heard them.  I'm sure that some Christians out there are not giving to help the Haitians because Pat Robertson implied it was because of their satanic activities that they were killed or wounded.  That is the height of absurdity but some people will believe that.  If even one person doesn't give because of Pat's words then he and Pat are violating the first part of that proverb. 

That's no reason for us to run around insulting and condemning Pat as I've seen done.  We're all brothers and sisters in Christ.  We A L L sin.  We all violate some part of the Proverbs every day.  The grace we want to see shown to the Haitians is the same grace that needs to be shown to Pat Robertson.  

The same grace they all need right now.