Duck Dynasty star preaches to America: Repent
Cast members from the A&E hit “Duck Dynasty” got a little preachy on Sunday, delivering sermons at White’s Ferry Road Church of Christ in West Monroe, La., as part of the church’s Duck Commander Sunday.
Family patriarch Phil Robertson delivered a particularly impassioned sermon, suggesting that America’s liberties are imperiled if the nation’s citizens don’t recognize them as God-given.
Oh, and he also declared that the nation would “be better off” with a unanimous love of God.
“I’m not the only one that needed to repent. The whole lot of you needs to repent. All the rest of America. Right? Yeah,” Robertson preached. “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure? ‘Oh, we’ll always be here. We’ll always have our freedom. We’re America, the greatest country on Earth!’ Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis — a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?”
“God loves you,” Robertson continued. “Come on; you know we all be better off in America if all of us loved God and loved each other, right?”
The Robertsons have made no secret of their faith on their hugely popular series, typically ending episodes by sitting around the dinner table saying grace.
Phil Robertson has said the A&E hit downplays his family's religious faith -- but the intensity of his beliefs comes through in a recently released videotaped speech condemning abortion.
Robertson says in the speech that he is in Pennsylvania, though it is unclear when it was shot. It was posted by the conservative site CNS News, and linked on the Drudge Report, giving Robertson a huge forum. His show is the highest-rated reality series on cable, and his remarks put him in the middle of one of the country's most contentious issues.
In the speech, he talks about presidents he says relied on the Bible, then turns to abortion.
"Listen, from the time you started inside your mother's womb, Thomas Jefferson had it right, you have the God-given right to live, for crying out loud. You're this long!" he said, holding out his finger. "You're a week old inside your mother. They suck you out of there when you're about like that."
"And, when you got to be the size of my thumb, they suck you out. You wouldn't be here. Then, you grow a little bigger, like my fist - and finally eight, nine months later you come out. "And we debate whether it's a - some woman has the right to tear you out of there, a piece at a time? C'mon! You have a God-given right to live. And of all places, inside your mother - what in the world happened to us?"
Robertson told The Wall Street Journal in June that his shows plays down his family's religion. The show follows Robertsons family of Louisiana hunters, who are rich from selling duck calls.
"We can't get into spiritual matters on the show too much," he said. "That's a little much for the production company. They say, you know, it's not the Pat Robertson show."
