Pat Robertson needs to shut his pie hole!

It has been a while since I've had an evangelical cringe moment (defined as a moment when you are embarrassed to be an evangelical because of what someone or some group says in the media spotlight in the name of evangelicalism). Even the the Southern Baptist Convention managed to stay out of the limelight this year.

So leave it to Pat Robertson to make up for this cringe deficit by publicly advocating the assassination of Venezuela's leftist-leaning president, Hugo Chavez.

"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson told viewers on his The 700 Club show Monday. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war."

I don't like Chavez's politics or foreign policy anymore than Pat does, but I don't think the US should just bump off the heads of state Sopranos style over a war of words. Mr. Robertson's words fail to demonstrate the love of Christ and gospel of grace that he purports to represent.

Thanks to Pat's latest diatribe, the mainstream media will once again dredge up all the other cringe-worthy comments by Mr. Robertson (and Mr. Falwell) to reinforce the stereotypes of the "religious right" as bunch of ignorant, bible-thumping, violent, homophobic bigots. The time is long over due for evangelicals to pull the plug on The 700 Club and Robertson.