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Jesus said to his disciples: A rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man enter into the kingdom of God. Matthew 19: 23-24

Once again, TV evangelist Pat Robertson has become buddies with a murderous African dictator. In 1992 he invested millions in Zaire diamond mines because his friend, dictator Mobuto Sese Seko, asked him to do so. Now, according to the latest issue of Church and State and an article by Colbert King in the Washington Post online, Robertson is befriending Liberian strongman, Charles Taylor, in order to get gold out of that west African country. Freedom Gold Limited is the name of the mining company that Robertson created to extract the gold from Liberia. He and Charles Taylor, as well as members of Taylor's cabinet signed the mining agreement in 1999.

If you know anything about Liberian history, you'll remember Taylor as the "friend" of Samuel Doe, who led a bloody coup in April 1980 against Liberian President William Tolbert. Tolbert was disemboweled in the executive mansion and ten years after, Samuel Doe met the same fate as president. Meanwhile while being part of the Doe government, Taylor absconded with more than 900,000 dollars. He ended up in a jail in Massachusetts, escaped by cutting through the bars and getting out the window on knotted sheets, and managed to end up in Libya, where he became friends with Moammar Gadhafi, who trained him as a terrorist. Besides all the Liberians that were tortured and murdered when Taylor came to power, presently his government has been accused of running guns and smuggling diamonds out of Sierra Leone. There is also an al Qaeda connection with Charles Taylor's government. What a nice guy.

So, Robertson just loves to cozy up to these creepy nasty dictators. If only the United States became a theocracy, he could become a dictator himself. Besides using Taylor and Mobutu as good role models for his dictatorial aspirations, Robertson can always fall back on his fond memories of Guatemalan dictator, Rios Montt. While Montt was president of Guatemala in the 80's, thousands of Mayan Indians were tortured and slaughtered. But hey, Robertson said Mobutu and Montt were both good Christians and deserved our support. Robertson, needless to say, does not have the Christian gift of discernment. He wouldn't recognize the Devil if he was in bed with him. Oh that's right, he is in bed with him.

How did Robertson get this way?

To begin with, as an Aries with the Moon in Capricorn he's not a very warm or endearing individual. Aries is impulsive, and wants its own way. Robertson never seems to understand how his actions affect others, and he jumps into sleazy situations without analyzing them carefully. The Moon in Capricorn makes him cold and manipulative, as well as selfish and materialistic. This is a very ambitious combination. According to Jesus, it's going to be very difficult for Robertson to get into heaven. Maybe deep down he knows this and that's why he almost given up any pretense of being a real Christian. He's too weak and hypocritical to follow Jesus' admonitions in his daily life. He'd rather go after the money, anyway.

There was a time in Robertson's life that he had a chance to break free of a fixation on money and power and actually follow a selfless Christian life. According to the book, Pat Robertson, by David Edwin Harrell Jr., after becoming born again, Robertson was interested in starting a slum mission but his father, a conservative US Senator from Virginia, "lectured him on a misguided spiritual idealism that would subject his family to a dangerous and unhealthy life in the slums." Senator Willis Robertson was not much for helping the poor with his opposition to the labor unions and the repeal of the right-to-work law. He didn't like the idea of racial equality or civil rights much either. He opposed the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in public schools. Although he supported Robertson's choice of the ministry as his profession after a failed attempt to pass the New York bar exam in 1955, he didn't like Pat's unrealistic ideas about money and his unconventional religious extremism. Had Robertson continued with his idea of starting a slum mission, despite his parents’ disapproval, perhaps his path would have been much different. The religious extremism may have fallen away and his heart may have turned to gold instead of towards the grasping for material wealth and power that we see in him today. After he got out of prison, Jim Baker, the former TV evangelist, did just that. He began working in a slum mission in Los Angeles and certainly seems to have changed his spiritual perspective for the better. Robertson, on the other hand, has lived out his life combining the worst of both worlds. Religious extremism married to the empty search for greater material resources produces a devil, or an individual that can't tell that he's in bed with one.

I suspect that Robertson's born again experience was genuine at the time, and in the early months after having it, he was probably capable of many good works. But after he chose to buy his first radio station in 1960, he seemed to have reverted back to the superficially, morally lax, and unexamined life he was leading before he became born again. While in Korea, for example, he was worried that he would get a venereal disease from a prostitute. He once had an affair with a roller derby queen, and he and his wife had to get married because she was pregnant. These experiences would not be uncommon for an individual that Venus conjunct Uranus in Aries(a desire for unconventional and unstable love affairs) square Saturn in Capricorn. But unlike St. Augustine who converted to a saintly life from a dissipated one, Robertson is not a Scorpio, which is a sign that stays fixed in its purpose. Although Robertson may have refrained from becoming involved in later years in sleazy sexual affairs like Jim Baker, he continues a superficial, materialistic life, which is presently expressed through the trappings of an extremist religious orientation that adversely affects millions of people. With Neptune (the planet of illusion) in his 9th House of religion opposing Mars in Pisces, Robertson's spiritual perspective is clearly delusional.

In the beginning there may have been a strong desire to experience a oneness with the Creator but with the opposition between Mars and Neptune square to Jupiter in the seventh house of relationships, it has degenerated into foggy, dangerous liaisons with evil individuals that seriously put into question Robertson's own spiritual motivations.

As I've mentioned in other diary entries, karma seems to be more instantaneous than ever before. I expect that the karmic repercussions for Robertson's disastrous choices in life will come to flower sooner now rather than later. In August of 2003, Saturn, the planet of loss, will be moving through Robertson's 8th house of debts and death. Astrologers don't like to predict death, but at the very least, with Saturn moving into an opposition to the birth chart Saturn in his Second House of money, and then into a conjunction to Pluto, his financial foundation will be very shaky indeed.

Astrologers always look for the dark cloud with the silver-lining, hoping that an individual will use ugly difficult cycles as a chance for self-reflection and transformation. In the Christian religion, there's always the possibility for conversion, even while on one's death bed. We can pray that Robertson will finally see the Light once again, turn from his present path of greed and prejudice, and be able to follow the path of Christ and make it into heaven.