The “pact with the devil” is a reference to the Voodoun [1] ceremony at Bois Caïman in 1791 which is widely accepted as the starting point of the Haitian revolution.

He’s got past form as a disaster ghoul; Hurricane Katrina was divine retribution for New Orlean’s Mardi Gras, and of course 9/11 was punishment for American not being a totalitarian theocracy that persecutes those icky gays and pagans. It shouldn’t need to be said that Robertson’s beliefs are far removed from orthodox Christianity. It’s a sort of syncretism of bronze-age Judaism (his Bible stops at the book of Judges) and the Manichean heresy.  But you can’t dismiss Pat Robertson as a fringe figure with no influence, like the infamous Fred Phelps. He’s still a major player in America’s conservative movement.

It’s time for all Christians, especially those who self-identify as conservatives, not just to distance themselves from individual statements of his, but to publically disown him, and condemn him in the most robust and undiplomatic language possible.  He’s the west’s answer to The Taliban.

[1] As you ought to know, Haitian Voodoun is really syncretism of tradition west African religion with bits of Roman Catholicism – any associations with devil worship[2]  comes from a combination of fundies believing all other religions are ‘of the devil’ and watching too many bad B-movie horror films.  Yes, as the Wikipedia article says, there are corrupt practitioners, but their method of operation seems remarkably similar to those of TV preachers like Pat Robertson.

[2] Satanism is basically Ayn Rand’s sociopathic Objectivism with a parody of Roman Catholic ritual sellotaped onto the front for flavouring.  It’s really all about teenage rebellion and really bad taste in music. [3]

[3] OK, so this post has managed to insult fundies, Randroids, Satanists and Venom fans.  I’d probably better stop here.

I suppose The Conservative Bible Project is the logical end-point of this. It’s a project to ‘re-translate’ The Bible to remove centuries of ‘liberal bias’.  For example, it gives these goals.

Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning.
Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story

Now, I know this reads like a parody, but reliable sources say this is for real.  There is no response to things like this other than mockery.

Some excellent commentary on this from Slacktivist, a blogger I’ve reading for several years, who always has something to say about the idiocies of the religious right.

Plenty of other recent posts of his are well worth reading – especially the one on the significance of the Book of Jonah, which explains why the fundamentalists go on about the whale, and ignore the rest of the story, and the reason Vampires hate crosses.