Pat Robertson

I think it's very important for Christians to realize precisely why Pat Robertson's words on Haiti were wrong.

There's a lot of sneering going on in the media, basically implying that his sheer religiosity amounts to insanity. This reaction is as irrational and misguided as Robertson's, if not more so. The problem with Robertson's claim isn't that it asserts the existence of a very real God who is active in the world and in the lives of individuals. Rather, the flaw with his argument is that it reflects a skewed conception of the role of suffering in Christian theology.

This article by Peter Wehner of NRO explains beautifully the danger of Robertson's overly simplistic theological view that righteousness leads to temporal reward while immorality leads to temporal suffering. He points out that the suffering of innocents is central to the claims of Christian theology, and Robertson's view is fundamentally at odds with this reality.

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UPDATE: Here's more great insight from Mike Potemra.