That "Terrible Plague" May Be Donald Trump

On Monday during the legendary 700 Club, a co-host raised a question from a listener who asked

Pat, last week you were talking about COVID-19. You quoted Chronicles 7:14. How can God heal our land and forgive the sins when abortion and same-sex marriage are laws and many people are anti-Israel. Doesn't this prevent his healing and forgiveness?"

Co-host Pat Robertson responded

You know, I think you put your finger on something very important. You know the Bible says -- they turn from their wicked ways. They didn't get forgiven. They will turn from their wicked ways. And part of what we've done is turn. We are not turning when we have done terrible things. We have broken the covenant that God made with the mankind. We have violated his covenant. We have taken the life of the innocent, slaughtered them by the tens of millions. Children made in the image of God. And we have abused the poor. I mean, we've allowed this terrible plague to spread throughout our society. And it's a small wonder God would hold us guilty. But the answer is, you know, you confess your sins and forsake them. Then he heals the land. It's not before. You are right.

Even from a Christian perspective, this is demonstrably false or at best, starkly disingenuous.  As the video below explains, the Old Covenant has been replaced by the New Covenant described in Jeremiah 31:33 by the Old Testament prophet as

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

The New Covenant has nothing to do with abortion which, according to Robertson, has "taken the life of the innocent, slaughtered them by the tens of millions." There is nothing anywhere in this entire chapter of Jeremiah, all 38 verses of it, about about abortion. Moreover, if God brought SARS-CoV-2 upon mankind or permitted its introduction in order to punish mankind for condoning reproductive freedom, the Lord has displayed very curious timing.

The Centers for Disease Control reported that the induced "abortions ratio per 1,000 live births" was at its highest in 1984, at 364. By 1996, it had dropped to 354, rose to 356 in 1987, and has fairly steadily declined since then.

It was 186 in 2016 and the Guttmacher Institute, with statistics through 2017, determined

The number of abortions fell by 196,000—a 19% decline from 1,058,000 abortions in 2011 to 862,000 abortions in 2017.

The abortion rate (the number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44) fell by 20%, from 16.9 in 2011 to 13.5 in 2017.

The abortion ratio (the number of abortions per 100 pregnancies ending in either abortion or live birth) fell 13%, from 21.2 in 2011 to 18.4 in 2017.

Worldwide, abortion has become considerably less common in developed nations while the trend in developing countries is mixed  Thus, the procedure has not suddenly burst upon the USA or upon the world. But what has defined the world in the past few years has been the triumph of despots (erroneously referred to as "populists"), including (but not limited to) Viktor Orban, Jair Balsonaro, and  Donald J. Trump.

Clearly, if God has inflicted the world with SARS-CoV-2, it is not because fetuses have "slaughtered.... by the tens of millions." Nearly as obviously, if God has taken this action, it is because of the likes of Donald Trump.

Of course, it is more likely that this plague emerged because of the complete disregard of health and human safety characterizing Communist China's evil regime, in itself headed by a dictatorwith lifetime tenure. The notion that God has wreaked terrible vengeance upon the world, or specifically upon the USA, because of abortion is belied by facts. Alas, facts are unlikely to change the opinion of  Pat Robertson or anyone who sees in a pandemic an opportunity to push his forced-birth ideology.

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