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Still Say The Orlando Shooting Was About Radical Islam?

Still Say The Orlando Shooting Was About Radical Islam?

Last updated on: March 11, 2018 at 7:33 pm by Scott Eric Alt

Still Say The Orlando Shooting Was About Radical Islam? 2018-03-11T19:33:15-04:00 Scott Eric Alt

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The Pulse nightclub in 2006; public domain image

Then you need read these words from Fundamentalist Baptist and King James Onlyist Pastor Steven L. Anderson, of Faithful Word Baptist Church, in Tempe, Arizona. Anderson was speaking in a YouTube video, since removed.

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; 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 go in and 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”; she says 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 listeng to sinners, to suffer with sinners, to see Christ in sinners. It is the work of the Gospel.

***

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