As Pat Robertson looks on at left, Mitt Romney campaigns at the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach, Va., Sept. 8, 2012.
Back in January 2012, after his annual new year’s powwow with the heavenly father, the televangelist Pat Robertson was certain God had told him who the winner of the presidential election would be—and it wouldn’t be the candidate he clearly disliked, Barack Obama. Robertson went on to endorse Mormon GOP nominee Mitt Romney—despite his past snarking about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints being more cult than Christian. And so the preacher was clearly flummoxed on TV on Election Night when Obama was declared the winner. A few weeks later, he would reflect on his ability to know God’s will when a viewer called in to talk about disappointments. “So many of us miss God,” he said, “I won’t get into great detail about elections but I sure did miss it, I thought I heard from God, I thought I had heard clearly from God. What happened? You ask God, how did I miss it? Well, we all do and I have a lot of practice.” Robertson’s error would have fit right into an old adage pastors like to tell. It involves a person with so intimate and personal a relationship with his god that he ponders Romans 12:19 and thinks it refers to himself. The verse begins, “Vengeance is mine.” Psst, Pat… That’s God speaking.
