Pat Robertson: Miracles Happen to 'Humble' Foreigners More Than 'Sophisticated' Americans
Televangelist Pat Robertson has suggested that miracles are reported much more often in places overseas than in the United States, because Americans have been "inundated with skepticism and secularism."
During a taping of CBN's "The 700 Club" show on April 1, hosted by Robertson, a man identified as Ken posed the question:
"Why do amazing miracles (people raised from the dead, blind eyes open, lame people walking) happen with great frequency in places like Africa, and nowhere in the USA? What can we do to encourage those things to happen here? Is America too far gone for miracles like this?"
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The evangelist replied in jest that people oversees "didn't go to Ivy League schools," but then added: "We're so sophisticated, we think we've got everything figured out. We know about evolution, we know about Darwin, we know about all these things that says God isn't real."
Robertson explained that Americans have been "inundated with skepticism and secularism" in schools, referring to the many polls that show university professors and the college environment tend to be more secular in nature and less accepting of theists.
"And overseas, they're simple, humble. You tell 'em God loves 'em and they say, 'Okay, He loves me.' You say God will do miracles and they say, 'Okay, we believe Him,'" Robertson continued, though the discussion did not point out any specific events or miracles. "And that's what God's looking for. That's why they have miracles."
Various surveys have tried to categorize which religious beliefs prosper more in different regions around the world, and a major 2012 Pew Forum study found that religion was indeed flourishing more in under-developed regions than in Europe and North America on a global scale.
Among Christians worldwide, 24 percent of them are in Latin America and the Caribbean, and another 24 percent are in sub-Saharan Africa. North America has the second smallest proportion of the world's Christians at 12.3 percent.
