This Wednesday on his 700 Club show, Pat Robertson took a few questions from viewers during his “Honest Answers” segment and addressed a viewer’s crisis over her son’s upcoming marriage to an atheist.
At the outset of the segment, the question from a viewer named “Ethyl” was displayed on the screen, reading:
When my son told me he was going to marry an atheist, it was a tough pill to swallow, but I managed to get through it. I raised my son to believe we, as Christians, should only marry inside the church, but I know he loves her so much that I can’t bring myself to say anything about it. Should I respect his right to make his own choice?
According to Robertson, the woman’s predicament leaves no room for compromise, since shacking up with an atheist is just as bad as sharing a bed with the Devil.
“The Bible is very clear … the Bible says ‘do not be equally yoked with unbelievers,'” Robertson responded. He then quoted some parenting advice from the late televangelist Billy Graham, who said that if you marry an atheist, “then you got the Devil for your father-in-law.”
“But what can you do as a parent — you can advise him, you can counsel him — but the Bible says ‘raise up a child in the way should go and when he’s old he won’t depart,’ but you haven’t raised him very well if he’s going into atheist right now,” Robertson said.
From The Friendly Atheist’s Robyn Pennacchia:
Jeez, that’s a little harsh, no? Even if Ethyl is definitely the mother-in-law from hell, it is pretty crappy to tell someone that the reason her kid is doing something she doesn’t like is because she was a bad parent who raised her child the wrong way. Does Robertson think his own mother, whom he refers to as having been a “beautiful and gracious Southern belle,” was a terrible mother just because his own first child was conceived out of wedlock and he lied to cover that up?
Watch the video below, via CBN:
Featured image via screen grab
