While flipping through the channels one afternoon I came across the program we all love to hate, Pat Robertson’s 700 Club. On that day, they were talking about the dangers of the New Age movement. While I am no fan of the New Age movement, or any religion, I found a lot of the commentary very hypocritical.
Pat seemed upset about how New Age ideas are “making it into the mainstream and becoming mainstream religion”. The biggest concern seemed to stem from the idea that if enough people believed and followed the New Age movement, it would soon be thought of as a “real” religion. I bet the Romans felt the same about a certain religion about 2000 years ago.
The show blatantly put down the Hindu religion and blamed it for the New Age movement. It made fun of how each year Hindus cleanse themselves in the Ganges river. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with Christians cleansing themselves through baptism! What I found really disturbing is how Pat said that following the New Age religion was just like following Hitler and the Nazis. They then inter-played lots of old film footage of Hitler and the death camps with film footage of New Age and Hindu ceremonies. The 700 Club should be careful — I believe the Nazis used such propaganda towards the Jews.
Heck, they go on about how Xena is leading young women toward Satan! Young women are watching the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess and learning all about Zeus and other ancient gods. Pat calls Xena a “Mystic Warrior” who is spreading Satan’s message. They showed film clips of Xena doing yoga and meditating. Pat remarks. “People don’t realize that when they do Yoga they are opening the door to Satan’s power. Saying a yoga mantra is praying to Satan.”
What’s amusing is that as much as they try to denounce other religions, they come off looking pretty silly about their own religion. Pat tried to compare other religions to counterfeit dollars, “You know there is a real one out there somewhere.” The problem here is this assumes there IS a real religion and it also assumes Christianity is it. Those are two big assumptions.
Yet we are not all fooled. We know what the REAL issue is — money. This is made clear to us as we watch Pat and his sidekick praying for viewers to send in $50,000 before the end of the show. The last half of the show is spent begging for money and showing you how easy it is to send it in. I was amused that when presenting pledge payment options, they were pushing the direct payment option where the money is automatically deducted from your checking account monthly. One donator is shown saying “it’s so easy, I don’t even have to think about it.” And that, my friends, is the real problem: people aren’t thinking.
Hello. My name is Angela Christine Byers (yes, my mother actually named me “Angel of Christ”), and I am an atheist.
Copyright © 1996 - 2002 Angela C. Byers
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