September 21, 2009
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things are getting scary
This is the sermon Pastor Stephen Anderson gave the day before the President came to Arizona:
Highlights:
- “God wants me to hate Barack Obama. God hates Barack Obama”,
- “I’d like to see Barack Obama melt like a snail tonight. Because he needs to recompense, he needs to reap what he’s sown.”
- “He has voted on legislation to not only kill the unborn but to kill the new born”
- “any Christian will tell you that someone who commits murder should get the death penalty…And when Barack Obama is gonna push his partial birth abortion, his salty saline solution abortion, hey, he deserves to be punished for what he’s done”
- “God is a god of wrath and vengeance. And that is the message that ought to be thundering from every pulpit in America”
- “I’m supposed to pray for the socialist devil, murderer, infanticide, who wants to see young children, and he wants to see babies killed through abortion and partial birth — and all these other things — you’re gonna tell me I’m supposed to pray for god to give him a good lunch tomorrow, while he’s in Phoenix, Arizona. Nope. I’m not going to pray for his good. I’m going to pray that he dies and goes to hell. When I go to bed tonight, that’s how I’m going to pray”
The next day a man named Christopher Broughton brought a loaded AR-15 Assault Rifle to the event Obama went to speak at. He was allowed in. It was, apparently perfectly legal to do so in Phoenix Arizona. The secret service chose not to do anything.
Christopher Broughton attended the Church of Pastor Stephen Anderson. Not only did he attend it but he speaks proudly of it and called it “the best church in the world”.
The language we use, matters. It has a decided predictable impact. And when you use your words to incite violence you are as culpable as the people who commit the violence.
We need to tone down these debates, get a grip and start looking at things with a little detached rationality. We need to find a better way to express ourselves and our disagreements than simply raising the ante in this ever ascending rhetoric arms race. We should answer disagreements with facts and principles not vile hatred and calls for assassinations.
Like the fact that the nation isn’t substantially different than it was six months ago. That alone should be a sign that the predictions of the apocalypse are VASTLY over stated. Yet why all this fear? Why all this terror? Why all this anger? How exactly is Health Care reform sooo much more terrifying than the Patriot Act or the War in Iraq or the Bailouts?
I just don’t get it.
Comments (6)
Stephen Anderson gives conservative Christians a really bad name for saying horrible things like that. Where does he get off saying that his wife deserves to be husbandless and his children fatherless? That makes me sick to my stomach. I follow a pretty conservative republican political platform, and I’m definitely not a fan of the Obama administration but to wish things on another human being like that and to sincerely hate is deplorable.
i wasn’t surprised to find hime saying the things he did because the minute he said god hate barak obama i was done with anything this man has to say, but what frustrates me is the fact that at the end he mentions wars our country shouldn’t be involved in, which, truly has nothing to do with barak obama other than he is left to clean up the mess one, george w bush got us in. this is so frustrating, and i CAN NOT believe that i heard cheers coming from that audience. that is not okay. and it’s downright disgusting.
whoaaa
This disgusts me.
As I understand it, the guy with the gun was in compliance with Arizona’s open carry law, and he stayed away from any restricted areas. I’m sure the Secret Service was aware of him, but as long as he didn’t try to enter any restricted area, there wasn’t anything they could do.
And that pastor has it wrong — God does not hate Barack Obama. He might be disappointed with some of the things Barry O is doing, but He still loves Barry O. Just as He loves that pastor, even though the pastor is doing and saying things that are also a disappointment to Him.
Scary, horrifying. To say the least. Christians liek that made me leave the church. Hell, not even that bad. Damn.
I completely agree with you.