Still say the Orlando shooting was about radical Islam?

hen you need to see this video put out by Fun­da­men­tal­ist Bap­tist and King James Only­ist Pas­tor Steven L. Ander­son, of Faith­ful Word Bap­tist Church, in Tempe, Ari­zona.

High­lights:

There’s fifty Sodomites—homosexuals—[who] have been killed. …

The good news is that there’s fifty less pedophiles in this world, because, you know, these homo­sex­u­als are a bunch of dis­gust­ing per­verts and pedophiles. That’s who was a vic­tim here, are a bunch of, just, dis­gust­ing homo­sex­u­als at a gay bar, okay?

I see. This is good news. And how does Pas­tor Ander­son know that the fifty peo­ple who were shot were peod­philes? Where’s the doc­u­men­ta­tion on this? If he does not know this, he could be bear­ing false wit­ness. Just say­ing.

But the bad news is that this is now gonna be used, I’m sure, to push for gun con­trol, where, you know, law-abid­ing nor­mal Amer­i­cans are not gonna be allowed to have guns for self-defense. [AR-15s?] And then I’m sure it’s also gonna be used to push an agen­da against so-called “hate speech.” So Bible-believ­ing Chris­t­ian preach­ers who preach what the Bible actu­al­ly says about homosexuality—that it’s vile, that it’s dis­gust­ing, that they’re reprobates—you know, we’re gonna be blamed. Like, “It’s all extrem­ism! It’s not just the Mus­lims, it’s the Chris­tians!” I’m sure that that’s com­ing. [Irony alert, dear read­er.] I’m sure that peo­ple are gonna start attack­ing, you know, Bible-believ­ing Chris­tians now, because of what this guy did.

Now let me just be real clear: I’ve nev­er advo­cat­ed for vio­lence. [Wait, you just said the killing was “good news.”] I don’t believe in, you know, tak­ing the law into our own hands. I would nev­er go in and shoot up a gay bar … But I will say this: The Bible says that homo­sex­u­als should be put to death, in Leviti­cus 20:13.

It also says adul­ter­ess­es should be stoned to death. Does Pas­tor Ander­son wish to advo­cate that?

Obvi­ous­ly, it’s not right for some­body to just, you know, shoot up the place, because that’s not going through the prop­er chan­nels. But these peo­ple all should have been killed, any­way, but they should have been killed through the prop­er chan­nels, as in they should have been exe­cut­ed by a right­eous gov­ern­ment that would have tried them, con­vict­ed them, and saw them exe­cut­ed. Because, in Leviti­cus 20:13, God’s per­fect law, he put the death penal­ty on mur­der, and he also put the death penal­ty on homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. That’s what the Bible says, plain and sim­ple.

So, you know, the good news [But you’re against vio­lence?] is that at least 50 of these pedophiles are not gonna be harm­ing chil­dren any­more. The bad news is that a lot of the homos in the bar are still alive, so they’re gonna con­tin­ue to molest chil­dren and recruit peo­ple into their filthy homo­sex­u­al lifestyle.

[And you know they were pedophiles how?]

And then the oth­er bad news is that, this is now going to be used as pro­pa­gan­da, not only against Mus­lims but also against Chris­tians. [You heard it here first: Pas­tor Stephen Ander­son is defend­ing Islam!]

… I’m not sad about it, I’m not gonna cry about it. [But you are against vio­lence. Right.] Because these … fifty peo­ple in a gay bar that got shot up, they were gonna die of AIDS, and syphilis, and what­ev­er else. They were all gonna die ear­ly, any­way, because homo­sex­u­als have a 20-year short­er life-span than nor­mal peo­ple, any­way …

Yes, I see. And every­one in Faith­ful Word Bap­tist Church is going to die one day too, of one thing or anoth­er, so does that make it right for some nut to come in and shoot up the place? They’re all going to die any­way! Of course that would not be right. But I’m sup­posed to believe it’s okay for some­one to shoot up a bar full of homo­sex­u­als. Right!

This video also got play on the Patheos Athe­ist Chan­nel, illus­trat­ing that God’s name is blas­phemed among the Gen­tiles because of Pas­tor Stephen L. Ander­son.

•••

I bring all this up because, on Face­book, Cyn­thia Schrage post­ed an Insta­gram pho­to call­ing for mer­cy and char­i­ty toward homo­sex­u­als. One of the items on that list was this:

Don’t make this about Islam. It’s not. It’s about trans­pho­bia and homo­pho­bia. Oh, and access to AR-15s.

One com­menter dis­put­ed this:

This is about Islam. To not under­stand that Sharia law demands the death of prac­tic­ing gay men and women is to hide your head in the sand. This isn’t rad­i­cal Islam, it is Islam. That does trans­late into a hate crime to sane peo­ple, but to those who fol­low Islam, this is busi­ness as usu­al. You can­not con­tin­ue to ignore the truth.

Well, accord­ing to Pas­tor Stephen L. Ander­son, the Book of Leviti­cus also “demands the death of prac­tic­ing gay men and women.” So I am not sure where the “bias against Chris­tians” is that this com­menter insists is to be found in the meme. The meme does­n’t blame Chris­tians either, only homo­pho­bia and trans­pho­bia.

But Pas­tor Stephen L. Ander­son sure claims to speak for “Bible-believ­ing” Chris­tians, so maybe this com­menter should be hav­ing some words with him. Faith­ful Word Bap­tist Church has a post about it here.

Anoth­er com­menter dis­put­ed the use of the words “homo­pho­bia” and “trans­pho­bia,” claim­ing that they are used to describe “every­one who dis­agrees with the mil­i­tant homo­sex­u­al agen­da.”

Well, sure, they can be used that way, but that’s not why they are being used in this con­text, so I don’t under­stand the objec­tion. In this con­text, they are used to describe the atti­tude, not just of Omar Mateen but of Pas­tor Stephen L. Ander­son. In a dif­fer­ent con­text, we can talk about same-sex mar­riage and wed­ding cakes and bath­rooms. Not in this one.

In this one—however true it is that homo­sex­u­al­i­ty is a dis­or­dered pas­sion; how­ev­er true it is that is self-destruc­tive behavior—our first respon­si­bil­i­ty is to have com­pas­sion on inno­cent peo­ple who were mur­dered. Our first respon­si­bil­i­ty is to acknowl­edge that these peo­ple were beloved of God; that Christ died for them; and to pray for them. Noth­ing else mat­ters today.

The mur­ders in Orlan­do were born of hate; it does not mat­ter what reli­gion the hater belonged to. If a Chris­t­ian shot up the night club, I would not want Chris­tian­i­ty blamed. Despite Pas­tor Ander­son­’s rant, I don’t want Chris­tian­i­ty blamed. And if a Mus­lim shoots up the night club, I don’t want Islam blamed.

What I want blamed is hate. It does­n’t mat­ter if the peo­ple who were killed were mis­er­able sin­ners. I am a mis­er­able sin­ner; you are a mis­er­able sin­ner; Stephen L. Ander­son is a mis­er­able sin­ner. Christ died for mis­er­able sin­ners because he loves mis­er­able sin­ners.

It is not com­pro­mise on sin, it is not giv­ing in to the mil­i­tant agen­da of sin, to have com­pas­sion on sin­ners, to lis­ten to sin­ners, to suf­fer with sin­ners, to see Christ in sin­ners. It is the work of the Gospel.