Pat Robertson, please be a Christian first, politico last

Pat Robertson is supposed to be a leader within the Christian community, but he repeatedly ventures into politics, making amoral statements on matters of war that I might expect from a general or a Lockheed exec. For example, prior to the Iraq War, he was recommending simply assassinating Saddam Hussein because it would be "a whole lot cheaper than starting a war." In this latest instance, he warns not to get carried away with anger at Saudi Arabia "over one person." Billions in arms sales are at stake! In both of these cases he skips way past the long chain of sins that led to the present circumstance, and seems to take for granted that the side he identifies with is basically blameless.

Yes some American press is pouncing on Saudi Arabia right now because of one event. The long wake of unnecessary death and destruction wrought by the US/SA partnership has stayed under the radar all this time because so many people in DC benefit from it, and the effects are far outside the everyday experience of Americans. But killing one of their own is something the Washington Post is going to notice. So be it.

To decide on a reaction to the Saudis, now that our attention is on them, we should remember a few things. The 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, some of them subsidized by Saudi royals. Our government actually knew this for a long time but hid it from the public for reasons the newspapers never try to confront. The ruling family has been exporting toxic Wahhabi Islam around the world, and their crown prince has been waging a war on women and children in Yemen for three years to restore a dead government. Obama chose to participate in the Yemen debacle to placate the Saudis, who were angry that he defused the perceived nuclear threat from Iran.

And that's just the stuff we know for sure. Killing a journalist and chopping him up into tiny pieces in a consulate is egregious but not exactly out of character.

In terms of political analysis, what we should really be asking is why the American government deigns to sell these people a single bullet in the first place. Maybe there's some Machiavellian case for keeping the Saudis around that makes intellectual sense, but I kind of doubt it, and I am sick of it just being taken for granted and not discussed.

In terms of a Christian commentary, my hot take would be that evil happens all over the world all the time. Our mission is to make and strengthen believers. If we do that, we will add to the number of people who are trying to decrease the sin in their lives instead of letting it rule them. The amount of suffering this work removes from the world is incalculable. If our Great Commission includes any political action at all, it is to see that our state does not add unnecessarily to the misery.

People can coast through their Christian lives with a chronic sin plaguing them, which always stays like a monkey on their back because they don't want the unpleasant experience of confessing and thinking about it and figuring out how to repent. This looks to me like a chance for the nation to take a hard look at its unexamined habits in the Middle East.