The Reverend Pat Robertson recently presented a commentary on a 700 Club television program to the effect that conditions in Haiti are a direct consequence of ancient rites, hexes, and dark covenants with the Devil that may have been practiced in colonial times, prior to Haiti's independence.

Ironically, recent tragic events in Haiti have shown that the people of Haiti are strongly allied to their Christian faith, and survivors interviewed frequently make eloquent and tearful allusions to their faith. The destruction of a substantial number of houses of Christian worship is said to bring special grief.

For a well-known American Christian commentator to attribute the distress of the Haitian people to ancient superstitions that may have been practiced on the island presents a totally false picture of the grace of God.

The Bible nowhere suggests that God's grace toward a people or nation can be overridden by hexes, covenants, and other superstitious connivance-however ancient. Nor does the Bible present earthquakes as a method of either divine or satanic punishment–Jesus simply predicts that at the end of time, earthquakes would occur in "divers (random) places."

In fact, earthquakes are also seen throughout Scripture as signs of impending deliverance: A mighty earthquake occurred at the time of Jesus' death (Matthew 27:54);  in Acts 16:26, an earthquake delivers Christian missionaries from prison; the Book of Revelation is filled with allusions to earthquakes at or during the time of Christ's appearance at the End of Time.

The Adventist Today family, like all Christians of good will, laments the loss of thousands of lives in Haiti, and urges fellow Christians of all persuasions to rededicate themselves to assist in the resurgence of a better and more progressive Haitian society.

The tiny nation has been devastated by past defoliation and failure to address issues of soil and resource preservation-realities rarely if ever discussed by the Reverend Robertson in his analysis of world history. Adventist Today suggests that financial assistance for Haiti be directed to your local Red Cross or ADRA.