Grace unto you, and peace,

from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

My pre-amble: Indeed, it is a great and greater "pity" so "many" deceivers and so "many" deceived thereby give Pat Robertson and what comes out his mouth so much notice, and so "few" give "that God" and "that Jesus Christ is come" so little notice. In this, I agree with what Bishop Spong says here; But would also clarify Spong is not (yet) aware of "that gospel" of "that God" was in Christ of Jesus Christ, and "that Jesus Christ is come", came with grace and truth to shew who is the blessed and only Potentate of twain such in his (plural) times of Jesus: born under the law and Christ: the end of the law. And "that gospel" shall "also" go globe-all, as did "this gospel" first, the notable result of "this (beginning) gospel" being fear (hath torment) and sorrows (hath grief) of the global sort; But that God is love, perfect love, has neither fear nor sorrows, but that will be globe-ally told "also", that y(our) Father, which art, in heaven, is not only just "perfect" love(God), but "also merciful" (no sacrifice at all) God, as is the God of "all grace" (no law at all), who is Maker of Creator & Maker, who "makes" you perfect, and "after" ye created imperfect suffer awhile due to ye [do err, alway and greatly, by not knowing the truth, as if childish servant to ignorance is bliss]. Selah.

Not to mention JC said God said:
Go tell that "fox" 3 things; Behold:

1 - I cast out devils

2- I do cures to day and to morrow. 2 days = 2,000 yrs

3- The third [day] I shall be perfected

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Christina, a television producer at 'Fox' News, asks Bishop Spong:
"How do you respond to the Rev. Pat Robertson when he warns the citizens of Dover, Pennsylvania, that God might strike them with a disaster since they voted out the School Board members who favored "Intelligent Design?" "

Spong replies: Dear Christina,

Pat Robertson has said so many silly and ridiculous things that I wonder why anyone would pay much attention to him on any subject. He warned Orlando, Florida, that God would send a hurricane to destroy them when Orlando's decision makers added "sexual orientation" to that city's civil rights ordinance making it illegal for an employer to discriminate against a person because of race, ethnicity, gender, creed or "sexual orientation." He suggested that Hollywood would be the victim of an earthquake because that is where Ellen Degeneres works. With Jerry Falwell he agreed that the 9/11 disaster was brought upon this nation as God's judgment for harboring "feminists, abortionists, homosexuals and the American Civil Liberties Union." He suggested that the CIA should assassinate the duly elected President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. He has said that the feminist movement is about those women who want to "leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft and become lesbians." The tirade of absurdities goes on and on.
This country treasures the precious gift of free speech and Pat Robertson can obviously say any foolish and ignorant thing he wishes. When he pretends to speak in the name of God, however, I think his fellow believers have a right, indeed a necessity, to speak a word of judgment on his behavior since his words slander the Christian definition of God as Love given to us first by the author of the First Epistle of John and even more important, lived out by Jesus, who called us even to love our enemies.

I want to make only two points about this issue. First, I wonder who, other than Pat himself, designated Pat Robertson to be God's spokesperson? How dare Pat assume that the God revealed in the Jesus I serve is filled with all of Pat's peculiar prejudices. Why does he not understand that God is God and Pat Robertson is not? Why does he not see that when he tells the world with an unashamed certainty what God thinks and what God will do, he is only revealing what he thinks and what he would do if he had God's power? Pat needs to understand that he is acting out the very meaning of idolatry. He has confused God with himself.

Second, some one needs to inform Pat Robertson that the idea of God sitting on a throne above the clouds manipulating the weather in order to punish sinners is so primitive and so naïve that it is staggering to the educated imagination. It is bad enough that his mind cannot embrace the thought of Charles Darwin from the 19th century, but Pat has yet to embrace the thought of Copernicus from the 16th century or Galileo from the 17th century. No educated person today believes that the earth is the center of the universe and that God lives above the sky, playing with low-pressure systems and planning revenge on those who are not believers in Intelligent Design. Indeed why would anyone be drawn to the demonic deity who emerges in Pat's thinking and teaching? It is surely not a God of Love who punishes New Orleans' poorest citizens with a hurricane that New Orleans' wealthiest citizens could and did manage to escape at least with their lives, because they had cars. Did God kill the poor in New Orleans in order to send a message to New Orleans's prostitutes and those who create its raucous nightlife? Is that a rational concept? Did God cause two tectonic plates to collide under the Indian Ocean because there were some 350,000 evil people, with fully one-third of them children, whom God desired to kill in a tsunami wave? Is that how God communicates divine displeasure? Is that a God worthy of worship? Were the 3000 who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11 or the 2100 members of our Armed Forces who have thus far died in Iraq during this war somehow worthy of this ultimate punishment either because of their own evil or because God sacrificed them to send a message to someone else? Those ideas are so ludicrous as to be laughable, except for the fact that for anyone to suggest such incredible things is still painfully hurtful to those who are the victims of both natural and human disasters to say nothing of their surviving loved ones. I, as a Christian, am embarrassed by the public face that Pat Robertson puts on the religious tradition to which my life is dedicated.

I have known the Robertson family for a long time. His father was the Democratic Senator in my state of Virginia from 1946, when he was first appointed to succeed Senator Carter Glass who had died in office. He was re-elected by the people of Virginia in 1948, 1954, and 1960. In the Democratic Primary in 1966 he was defeated in a very close vote by my first cousin William Belser Spong, Jr., who went on to fill that seat in the United States Senate. Pat is a 1955 graduate of the Law School at Yale University and received a Master in Divinity degree from New York Theological Seminary in1959. He cannot possibly be as dumb as he sounds in his wild and thoughtless utterances. If ignorance is not his excuse, then one has to wonder what motivates him. In academic theological circles he is treated as a buffoon. No one takes his thought seriously. It is a pity that some people do actually believe the things he says, but they are far fewer than he imagines. It is an even greater pity that the news media think that his continued utterances are worthy of any public attention at all.

-- John Shelby Spong

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The end, already written, is: T"g"ooLJCw"y"a. Amen.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ with you all. Amen.

Daniel Miles

Three Wishes: Grace => Mercy => Peace.
(Pst: takes 3/3 to make 1, AD=> 'only')

I FIN-ALLY found something to 'agree with GWB II' on: His comment, about Pat Robertson's comment, about Airiel Sharon being sick and dying because it's God's will. GWB II's 'White' House repsonded with: such Pat Robertson law law has NO PLACE in any debate. I agree.

NO PLACE: Two Examples where JC gave law 'no place' at all are found, by seek and ye shall find, in Mt 24:21 (great trib of law "was not since the beginning to this present time, no, nor ever shall be"), and in Jn 10:10 (the thief[law] "cometh not"), etc...

TgooLJCwya. Amen.