You may already have heard about Pat Robertson's latest, that the U.S. should assassinate Hugo Chavez. I cringe when I see articles about him in the newspaper, because they always start with the location, my hometown, Virginia Beach, and I hate to see my beloved city linked with his name.

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network's The 700 Club.

"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

...

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

I don't happen to know a lot about Hugo Chavez, and what I do know makes him sound like someone who shouldn't have authority over anyone, much less a country. But I would never advocate his assassination. Mr. Chavez is a beloved child of God, and killing him is as wrong as killing any other child of God. I don't just say this out of my increasingly pacifistic leanings, but directly out of the teachings of the bible. Is not one of the Ten Commandments, "Thou shalt not kill"? And did Jesus not teach us to love our neighbors as ourselves? Is it loving our neighbors to kill them? Or even to say publicly that they should be killed?

All this by way of saying, Pat Robertson doesn't speak for all Christians. He certainly doesn't speak for me. A few years ago I spent some time believing I was a pagan, and I became very aware of Christians like Mr. Robertson. I'm still very aware of them, because they give all of Christianity a bad name. Unfortunately, you don't see our Presiding Bishop or the Pope issuing a press release to apologize to the rest of the world: "We're sorry about what this man said. He doesn't speak for us. Not all Christians are like him. Honest."

In closing, I quote the last paragraph from the USA Today article, so that you can see just how dangerous Pat Robertson is. I'd call him a lunatic, but that does injustice to the mentally ill.

Robertson has made controversial statements in the past. In October 2003, he suggested that the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device. He has also said that feminism encourages women to "kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

Indeed. Mr. Robertson, just for the record, you don't speak for all Christians. You don't speak for all Americans. You don't even speak for all Virginians. So please, stop making believe that you do.