Getting Rid of the ‘Get Rid of Gays’ Pastor
It’s the dream of every pastor. This past week a sermon video went viral. Only for Pastor Charles L. Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, North Carolina, his dream may become a nightmare. And the negative reaction has the rare feature of coming from both the Right and the Left in the worlds of politics and religion.
On May 13th, Worley responded from his pulpit to President Obama’s support of gay marriage. His words, which were filmed by the church, later appeared on the church’s website (though later taken down). Within the week an “anti-hate” group picked up the sermon and posted it on YouTube, where it’s racked up over 500,000 views.
Here is a glimpse of part of Worley’s message:
I figured a way out, a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers, but I couldn’t get it past the Congress. Build a great big, large fence – 50 or a 100 miles long – and put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals, and have that fence electrified so they can’t get out. Feed them. And you know what, in a few years, they’ll die out. You know why? They can’t reproduce. … I’m gonna preach the hell out of all of ‘em. … God have mercy. It makes me pukin’ sick.
This pastor will now forever be known for these words. And the church will be remembered for the sounds of “amen” and laughter at the pastor’s words. And those who claim Christianity and support traditional marriage are in danger of being put in the same camp as these words of hate.
Besides being a freelance writer for PJ Media, I am a pastor. To be more specific, I am a conservative, evangelical, Southern Baptist pastor. We’re the ones those on the Left tend to think are the grand priests of the dark side. I am passionately pro-life and support traditional marriage. I am politically conservative and believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. So many see Worley and myself as the same person. They might be shocked to hear that I, and those like me, am vehemently and loudly coming out against the words of the North Carolina pastor.
Worley’s church is not Southern Baptist. Providence Road Baptist Church describes itself as a “fundamentalist” independent Baptist church. Churches that boast of this title usually have no denominational affiliation but are often known for being “King James only” and legalistic in their approach to Christianity. They want to see people come to Jesus, but their approach is about being anti-culture instead of trying to speak to culture. Sadly, some churches that use this approach come off as pretty hateful.
I spoke with a former Fundamentalist Baptist turned Southern Baptist pastor and he said such attitudes are often the norm in this version of Christianity. Pastor David Colvin said,
I am not surprised at all about the remark. I grew up as an Independent Fundamental Baptist. They are marked by their very ultra-conservative stand, and their bold, in your face attitude to sin and the gospel. What is said was harsh, and insulting. … It is things like this … that have caused me to leave the IFB altogether.
Most of the media reports on this story have featured responses from the religious Left. Their response has been that Worley is hateful and the Bible doesn’t speak out against homosexuality anyway. But what about conservative Christians — those who believe the Bible does call homosexuality a sin? We don’t want to be put in the Worley camp. We have something to say as well.
Dr. Al Mohler is one of the more well known voices for Evangelicals today. He is the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and often called on for media interviews. He even recently wrote an article for CNN on the Bible speaking out against homosexuality. However, his immediate response to Worley on Twitter and Facebook was the opposite of an amen. Mohler posted the CNN coverage of the story and responded: “Here is how to do incalculable damage to our Gospel witness. We must respond with outrage to this message.”
Why does Mohler say Worley damages the gospel? Because the gospel is a message of love and mercy. While sin must be addressed so people see the need to come to Christ, this must always be proclaimed in love and grace. All Christians, especially those of us who stand for Biblical principles for sexuality, must stand up and say this guy does not represent us. His words are worthy of condemnation. Truth without love is no longer truth but hate-filled attacks on the gospel. The Bible is clear on this topic in James 2:8-13:
8 If you really carry out the royal law prescribed in Scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself , you are doing well. 9 But if you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors…12 Speak and act as those who will be judged by the law of freedom. 13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who hasn’t shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
The most important law in the Bible is to love people. And showing partiality to certain people and putting down others is the opposite of that. We are called to show mercy, for all of us sin and need mercy.
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
Love is the ultimate requirement for Christians. We could do everything right, but if we don’t love we’ve missed it all. Worley and his church have missed it all. They’ve missed the whole message. You can be right on calling something sin, but you sin yourself if you aren’t loving about it. And that not only hurts your witness of the gospel, but it hurts the rest of us who are trying to be loving.
Denny Burke, a Southern Baptist professor, put it well:
This pastor’s words are abominable and deserve condemnation and censure from all Christians. This is the kind of thing that props up caricatures of Christians and which harm the progress of the gospel. Anyone who would talk like this in a sermon is not qualified to be a pastor.
How can today’s conservative Christians simultaneously stand for traditional marriage while clearly communicating love to those with same-sex attraction? I’m not sure we’ve found the answer to that yet.
What he says is so nuts I’m not sure why Conservatives would feel more pressured than anyone else to respond. It’s like someone coming up to me and saying “Hitler: for or against?” If the Dems are that smug, quite frankly, who cares?
I’m not going to make a list of obvious outrages I am against, like child slavery, biting the heads off cats, torturing kangaroos or eating wood. If I am a comic collector at a comic convention and a splinter group says they like to eat wood, it’s nothing to me. I don’t take it on the chin for people with black hair who murder either.
I was thinking the same thing. His frenzy is as attention-worthy as global warmenists who say we’re gonna die in ten years and quack doctors who claim they can clone dinosaurs.
How big is this freak’s congregation? His words have reached half a million listeners through the miracle of the internet, not his popularity or wisdom. Why are we even giving him oxygen, much less a discussion?
Why you ask? Because liberals will use this nutcase as a prime example of religious intollerance and paint every single Christian out there with the same brush, that’s why. We MUST marginalize him or be branded as the same as him. MOST Christians are not like this creep.
So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved. Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.
Hey genius. They’re just as infertile when in the mixed population.
You have to wonder how some people get their socks on.
So…let’s see, no one’s mother could be homosexual and no one’s father could be homosexual. That is if this premise is correct. But sexual orientation has nothing to do with fertility, and of course further, if They don’t reproduce then heterosexuals must be producing them. Anyway you look at it they are here to stay.
Hadn’t thought about that, but you’re right. Does this fool really think that any more babies born after we locked up all the gays would all be straight? What an idiot. Does he think it’s a disease we can irradicate? This fool does not represent the majority of good, loving Christian people.
And if homosexuality is really genetic, there will be a home test kit for that. I’m willing to bet that the replacement rate will be even smaller.
some people help the cause of destruction by becoming leaders of the resistance..
could this be one?
it’s so stupid it seems planned like he’s an agent for the Spartans..
I don’t like the Rev. Worley, and I certainly don’t agree with him. He reminds me of Dan Savage.
Still, I believe in free speech, even for people like Savage and Worley, who make an ass of themselves when they speak freely.
I think he may have been misunderstood here. It doesn’t seem like he was actually recommending interning homosexuals; just pointing out that homosexuality cannot perpetuate itself except by converting others.
Sometimes it’s better to say nothing, ang let people think you are a fool, than to open your mouth and prove it! I am gay (and was born this way!) but you are just a fool.
Allow me to introduce you to the autosomal recessive gene: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recessive_allele
If that is how homosexuality is determined, then the population as a whole can perpetuate them with no activity on their part whatsoever.
False – no such animal as a gay gene. Ask. Gays know that if there is an identifiable “gay” gene people will abort those children.
There is no identified gay gene.
That is different from there being no identifiable gay gene.
Just because it has not yet been identified does not mean it cannot exist.
And of course it could be more than a single gene, which would make identification even more difficult.
As for it causing people to abort them, are you admitting that those people who otherwise object to abortion would choose to actively sex-select for non-gay children this way?
Are you sure?
Nope – I’m just telling it like it is.
You liberals WILL kill your babies if they are gay. Period. End of story! That is just who you are.
I wonder who converted Mary Cheney. She came out to her parents when she was sixteen and nothing has budged her since then — not even two pregnancies!
I do not think the Pastor intends that people should create any concentration camps for homosexuals. I think he is trying to speak his outrage at the damage homosexuals have done to society.
He has a right to speak his mind and voice his outrage.
The homosexual agenda has been given too much prominence in society. What possible good can come to a nation that places perversion in high esteem?
Everyone is deprived somewhat for this utter stupidity. It is not clear thinking.
You know, especially after reading some of the comments here, I can certainly understand his rage. Sounds here like these people would have no problem killing 200 million people.
Detractors back in the 70′s warned about what would happen if you started normalizing homosexuality and they were destroyed.
Everything they said would happen, has happened. Society today is lousy and amoral and they want MORE amorality.
Sin is sin. No sin is worse then any other sin. All sin leads to death without the Gift of Salvation through Jesus the Christ of G*D. Those who justify their hatred of homosexuality by pointing out the versus in the Bible where it is mentioned are disingenuous. As every one of those versus only includes homosexuality as one of a list of sins. Why don’t they rail against lying or gossiping as fervently as the rail against homosexuality? Sin is sin.
We do rail against all manner of sin. Divorce, adultery, abortion…
Homosexuality has activists. That’s why there’s a fight here. (You’ve probably noticed a little tumult over abortion every now and then if you check the news.) There was a fight against loosening divorce laws and that went exactly the way its detractors warned it would – exactly.
If you want to talk about adultery, I think that should be illegal. It’s a breach of contract and I think anyone who cheats on his or her spouse should be ruined for life.
There. Is that railing enough for you?
No it isn’t.
If you are going to use that biblical basis, then the punishment for adultery is the same as for homosexuality.
Ruined for life is not death.
Of course whether death or ruined for life still demonstrates the lack of mercy mentioned in the article, so either way you wind up wanting on that account.
No – ruined for life is just fine – or at least ruined until you learn your lesson. You shouldn’t profit on sin.
The NT says nothing about killing people for sin. We want the sinner to repent. You don’t learn anything dead.
So indeed you have no interest in mercy.
At least you admit it.
@Sam – Don’t play games with me you hatemongering, hypocritical, little snit.
YOU are the one who wants people dead. We just want them to repent.
Who is the more merciful? The one who wants someone live up to their full potential or the guy who wants you dead?
Exodus 22:18 commands us to execute witches. Leviticus 20:13 commands us to execute homosexuals. For most of the history of Christianity, these commandments were obeyed. Nowadays, there isn’t a Christian who openly advocates executing witches and homosexuals. Religions evolve, just as presidents do.
Homosexuality serves no purpose, and it should have simply died out. Nevertheless, it has always existed in every society and every epoch of history. Why? Apparently it is a miracle, part of the variety and glory of the Creation.
Wow. “A miracle.” What’s next on your list of “miracles” after anal sex?
You know, even Satan can quote scriptures when they suit his own purpose. Next time you attempt to attack Christianity, try getting out of the Old Testament. Jesus – you know, whom Christianity was established upon – changed everything; that’s why there is a whole other testament.
Jesus: “I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law.”
That’s reight – He FULFILLED the law. We now live in the Age of Grace. The 10 Commandments still apply, but I wasn’t aware that not eating shrimp was listed in the 1- comandments…….We are not Jewish, we are Christians.
If Christians took this verse seriously, there would be an awful lot of one-eyed Christians.
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time,
Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you,
That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her
hath committed adultery already with her in his heart.
And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and
cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that
one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole
body should be cast into hell (Matthew 5:27-29).
I guess most of us can read things in context. You know, like when Jesus said “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” (Matt 7:5) We know they are not literally wearing wool. You did bring up a good point though, as both verses bring out, it is what is internal in sinful man that needs to be addressed/guarded against.
Certainly Christians should be fighting this sinful nature daily. But, at the end of the day it is just testimony to why we need a Saviour.
Those passages command Jews, living under the full Laws of Moses, in a state governed directly by the Creator, to do those things, in accordance with certain specific requirements which make passing the actual sentences extremely difficult.
Leaving aside the lack of a divine state run by Judges established by the Creator, the proper court, and being Christians rather than Jews, for the moment, let us just simply check living under the full Laws of Moses.
Do you eat pork? Or shellfish? Or even just cheeseburgers?
Do you forgive all debts every seven years?
Do you make the appropriate ritual sacrifices?
If not, then claiming the Laws of Moses as as a basis for any judgements for or against is nothing but pure hypocrisy.
It is Christians who burned witches in Europe and hanged them in Salem, Massachusetts. It is Christians who executed hoimosexuals during the Middle Ages. In England, buggery was a capital offense until 1828.
So?
They were wrong. Someone’s sin should not condemn them to death.
Those acts should not be a reflection on today’s Christians any more than the doctors of Japan and the Nazis, that did “experiments” on POW’s and the invalid, are to today’s doctors.
Gee. It’s enough to make me think we ought to start looking critically at the texts involved and discuss if there are logical bases for considering some passages superseded, for deciding that others have current force, and for deciding where and how things such as Levitical proscriptions might apply under current circumstances. We could come up with some methods and call them … I dunno … hermeneutics and theology. Maybe some Church will take a stab at them. Or has already: who knows?
Enough!
Here is a clue – Old Testament = Jews
New Testament = Christians
Do.You.Understand?
Well, let’s see:
Jews no longer execute people for homosexuality or witchcraft.
Most Christians no longer execute people for homosexuality or witchcraft.
You find that lack of executions to be suspicious, and demand some form of harsh punishment, including a general denial of basic rights.
It seems the problem may be that you do not qualify as either a Jew or a Christian, and not that the Bible ever condemns homosexuality.
Wow! So you are a bigot AND a liar.
Thanks for clearing that up for us.
Actually, my “So?” comment was to display my utmost disregard of people who will continuous bring up things that MEN did some 800 years ago.
Who cares? Try caring about something that is going on today? Is that at all possible for you?
I can at least say that the name “Marcion” rings a bell–a fatuous OT/NT dichotomy was one of his pet theories as well. Do a little homework on the man yourself, if you like: the part about his well-earned excommunication is enlightening and instructive.
“Homosexuality” is a word and a concept. It was created in the 19th century. The Old and New Testament authors had no understanding of it. The same sex acts that they refer to are Pagan fertility rituals that involved raping both men and women as a form of worshiping sex gods like Ashera, Astarte, and Ishtar.
In the new testament, actual punishments for sins are severely toned down (he who has no sin throw the first stone etc.). However, the criteria for sin is made stricter and only dietary law is abolished.
Pardon me if I’m not outraged.
I’ve frankly had enough of this “we conservatives have to police our own” stuff. Why? What do we get for it?
I’m tired of this dance:
Gay Activists: “We just want this one little thing!”
Sane People: “And then what’s next?”
Gay Activists: “How dare you ask that! You’re trying to scare-monger with hyperbole when all we want is this one little thing!”
Sane People: “Oh… OK. There. Are you happy?”
Gay Activists: “We’re just getting started!” And then they move right on to the next thing…
Now, of course, they want to use legislation to demand that they be adored by everyone. If a kid says, “I think it’s a sin,” he or she is sent home from school in shame. (And it’s the Christians who keep getting attacked, while the Muslims get a free pass.)
It’s like the Israelis pulling their own people out of homes and relinquishing land to the so-called “Palestinians.” What did they get for it? Palestinians firing guns into the air and screaming, “Now we’re going to take Jerusalem!”
I’m sick of being lied to with foot-in-the-door statements like “Who cares what people do in the privacy of their own homes?” only to then see a guy masturbating atop a parade float. I’m pretty sure that “parade” is the opposite of “privacy.”
I’m fed up. I’m not giving in to one more request from homosexual activists. They are insane. Every “pride” event they hold proves it. There’s an unquenchable compulsion in their sideshow-circus concept of sex. There’s something seriously wrong with them. (I guess if I tried to eat by shoving food in my ear I’d be hungry all the time.)
Mind you, I spent years trying to “live and let live.” They’ve driven me to this absolutely mad state.
Amen Brother/Sister! I’m am soooooooo there with you!
Rkae: You are a “hate-mongering homophobic” for daring to want truth from the homo’s and for not accepting joyfully, one of them masturbating on a float (in front of innocent children who are foolishly taken to these gay pride exhibitions.) You are also a “danger to society” for not wanting homosexuals to rule in every sphere of society and force their agenda on us and innocent children through their influences within the Board of Education.
Love what you said about if you were eating through your ear, you’d be hungry too! Well put! They do have an unquenchable lust, and seriously now, I feel genuinely sorry for them on this point, I really do. I thank God for the sins he saved me from, I do not know had I been allowed to rot any longer than I did, that I might have ended up queer. God knows I did everything else before He moved into my heart and changed me. I am filled with His holiness and purity now-I had none of my own. You all may be much better and cleaner than I was, but until you allow Jesus to forgive you and cleanse you, you are unclean in His sight.
But they should all go “back to the closet” they came out of and leave our kids and those of us who are happy being heterosexual in peace.
How about this. Don’t apologize for others’ acts and worry about your own? Besides, the fact that you are a devout Christian already makes you a bigot in the eyes of supporters of gays and gay marriage. One man is not going to make that belief worse because it is already worse for you.
You’ve got that right. I suspect when such outrageous, burlesque language is used, money has likely changed hands.
No authentic Christian would speak in such a manner as to make the objects of such vitriolic attacks be regarded in a sympathetic light.
“Poor oppressed victims of bigotry/intolerance/prejudice/discrimination” need men like Phelps and this guy to stay in the public spotlight, keep the conversation from getting stale and drum up support for their agenda.
Pastor Cooper, why do you feel the need to blindly attack other denominations? I am a King James-only independent Baptist, but I do not condone this man’s words. I suppose I just shattered your hypothesis. In fact, I am the exact opposite of the individual you quoted; I became a IFB precisely because they are the most caring and honest Christians I have ever met. While I applaud you standing up for Christianity, you are not doing too good a job of it when you are selective of whom you will defend. Should we expect future articles from you attacking Catholics and Methodists en masse? The culprit here is this one individual, not his slightly-different-from-yours Christian faith.
Generalizations lobbed against those you do not approve of are the tools of liberals, not conservatives. Do not treat dandruff with decapitation.
Exactly. I’m a Baptist, too. I stay with them because they are old school believers. None of this new age mumbo jumbo about getting along and fitting in.
I’m not sure how I blindly attacked any other denomination. I used qualifiers like “some” in my words about IFB. You may have a problem with the quote of the person that used to be part of your denomination, but I was just quoting him. I’m sorry if you were offended. If you take issue with anything I wrote and not what I quoted please let me know what part, and I will try to address it.
Not everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord is a Christian…
Did anyone watching this remember when Fidel Castro actually put HIV positive people in “concentration camps” to isolate them from society, a practice that continued up to 1990? Of course, most of them weren’t gay but had caught it working as mercenaries in Africa.link.
And not a peep of protest from the Hollywood types that love him.
Three operative lines from the article:
I am a conservative, evangelical, Southern Baptist pastor
Worley’s church is not Southern Baptist
I am politically conservative
The over-riding question: Do conservative evangelical pastors support the Constitutional Freedoms of Speech and Religion? Worley’s beliefs, and those of his flock, differ from yours and must therefore be silenced? I’m sorry but in a free society we must accept that somewhere, somebody is doing something that we don’t like. But, by all means, declare Worley’s action as “hate speech” and silence him. Prosecute him and toss him in jail. It’s really quite simple, good and gracious people have Constitutional rights while vile and disgusting people don’t. Yeah, that’s certainly the “conservative” approach. Freedom for me but not for thee.
Nothing in my article suggests the government taking away free speech or prosecuting for certain forms of speech. In fact, the article does not once promote any government involvement what so ever.
I am sure there is plenty of need for the pastor’s services in gay-free Iran.
“The most important law in the Bible is to love people.”
With all due respect to Pastor Cooper, not quite:
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Matthew 22:37-40 NIV
Furthermore, what does “love” mean. Being commanded to love is an act of will, not emotion. This is agape, not romantic or sentimental feelings. In this context tolerance for sinful behavior is not an act of love. A rebuke for sinful behavior is an act of love. The New Testamnet actually prescribes a form of progressive discipline in this regard, beginning with a private conversation and progressing to expulsion.
I do not agree with Pastor Worley’s political recommendation of quarrantine because it is the same trap that so many conservatives and liberals fall into – trying to combat spititual problems with secular tools. Human history shows that laws of prohibition, government programs, and state coercion fail to eradicate human sin while furthering the power and scope of state oppression. We remain slaves to our sin while we also become slaves to the state.
Christ never claimed He would unite the world (John 15:18-19 NIV):
18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”
Pastor Cooper, Why are you so worried about what non-believers think?
What’s wrong with “King James-only?” The other versions are for the products of inferior educations.
The good Reverend has problems with his filter. Many others THINK those thoughts, he blurted them out. We have now established that the the time-honored traditions of spouting in the classroom or pulpit, in the age of cell-phones, will become more like yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. That is appropriate evolutionary balancing for the fact that we can now all spout in relative anonymity online.
Well, so much for Christian love and compassion. Gays first, then Catholics, then the accursed Jews, all go to the gas chambers. Haven’t we seen this party before soewhere? What a wonderful place heaven must be without all the dregs of mankind there to crowd out the true belivers like the good pastor. I would hate to base my whole being on a holy book that teaches such abhorent nonsense. No proof whatsoever that this mystical creature even exists! Ah faith, how it doth cling to some dear falsehood!
First off, Hilter was a pagan, not a Christian. He smugly “used” Christian rhetoric to get the crowd behind him.
Secondly, yes! We have seen this song and dance before and it is always the godless that initiate it. We saw it in Stalin’s USSR, in Mao’s China, and in every other atheist stronghold were people start disappearing when a strongman takes power.
Right now, the authoritarians are in power and the NBPP is out there telling black people to lynch the crackers. At least while this was a Christian nation people may have “felt” bad, but nobody was encouraging the death of anybody.
So, you were saying?
Baddabing!
“No proof whatsoever that this mystical creature even exists!”
Why yes, you are correct. Of course, no proof He doesn’t exist either.
So, we both have faith. Me that he exists. You, that He doesn’t. Welcome to the household of faith!
I have a much larger problem with people who want to run other people’s lives. The harm caused to me by gay people is nil. I wish I could say the same of the authoritarians.
You don’t have kids then. I don’t, yet what they’ve done to the schools has touched me through my nephew who was forced to take a “try being gay” test because he self identified as straight.
I’m sick of it! I’m also sick of them not taking NO!!!! For an answer like they did in California. 3 times those people said NO!!! And yet, one gay man overturned (illegally) the will of the people when they finally tried to amend their own constitution.
THEY did everything right and by the book and the gays still wouldn’t take NO!!! for an answer.
Lolly: you pretty much nailed it re your nephew. Where I live, little kids 7 years and upward, are made to lie on their backs for half or full hour (forget which) a day, and imagine the whole world as being lesbians and homosexuals. One kid when being read a book in class about two queers living together (two kings as husband and wife), asked at the end: “I don’t get it? Where is the queen?” Without letting his parents know, he was taken to a class where everyday for a week, he was brainwashed into how “normal” and “lovely” homosexuality is, in the most graphic ways. They filled his innocent mind with smut and filth. They do it in class anyway.
You simply do not understand that there is a strong militant community among “gays” who will not be satisfied with mere acceptance, but want everyone to be queer. If you are straight, you are “homophobic.” Manipulation and deceit are helping them win their cause by degrees. Janet Folger (don’t know her new married name) of Faith2Action has all the stats on gays and the statements they have made about their agenda.
Do you want your child taking it up his rear canal, and suffering the diseases that come with it? Or would you not prefer he live in a happily married heteorosexual marriage, with kids? Or would you prefer him to grow up a tired old gay, full of disease and hanging out at gay bars, eyeing up young men, living out his days in loneliness and frustration? Many do. As for gay monogamous relationships, they are very few statistically, get on Janets’ web-site and find out how few.
I think I recallher name – read some of her stuff years and years ago. I believe the REAL agenda is to destroy the institution of marriage altogether. They succeeded in the Netherlands. After gay marriage was legalized the hetero’s stopped marrying altogether – in fact they (their youth) will actually marry in secret and lie to people and say they are living together.
With regards to my nephew, that is a true story and you’re right. The teachers tell the kids NOT to tell their parents. He told me (I think he HAD to tell SOMEONE) because I wasn’t his parent – so he wasn’t breaking the rule. The whole test revolved around questions that kept asking, “How do you know you’re straight UNLESS you try sex with your same sex FIRST?” Same sort of questions, over and over with an emphasis on trying gay sex just to make SUE you’re straight.
Finally, I really think this whole gay-marriage thing is just an excuse so they will be able to sue churches that refuse to marry them so they can bankrupt them. People being driven out of their churches have sought solace in meeting in homes – except cities have begun to outlaw that as well.
We are seeing the beginning of making Christianity illegal in this country.
Who does that guy think he is? Fidel Castro?
Something I don’t get…
Why are Christians all worked up about Homosexuals? Why do they even care? I mean really, if two men or two women want to enjoy sex together or get married, what difference does it make to you?
Last I checked, we have religious freedom in this country, and that must include the right to not follow the codes of any one religion if it is to mean anything.
Why is it so hard to believe what you believe without demanding that everyone else agree? This is a problem both the Left and Right have.
If everyone kept their nose out of their neighbor’s business and their hand out of his pocket, we would have far fewer problems.
You cannot live in liberty unless you are willing to grant others the same right.
Simple. Sexual sins are the most condemned by God in the Scriptures because they are among the most damaging to the society. More details can be found elsewhere, particularly at the sites of the National Organization for Marriage and the Ruth Institute, but to summarize: nothing destroys a society faster than damaging the family. Even among those societies that accepted homosexuality as normal, e.g. the ancient Greeks and the Roman Empire, the husband-wife-children-relatives extended family was sacrosanct. (And yes, the Roman Empire dealt with efforts to legitimize homosexual “marriage” – and rejected it.)
The concept that your beliefs effect only you is a modern concept which philosophers and citizens of previous ages would have laughed at. Your actions have ripple effects that touch everyone around you, even if only as an example. We allow blatant sexual behavior, we tolerate single-parenthood, we prostitute our teenage daughters – and then we wonder why there are so many fatherless young men robbing and raping their ways through our inner cities.
Christianity (as with all religions) teaches what it does because those teachings form the necessary infrastructure for a stable and sane society. They are not arbitrary, and they are usually timeless because they derive from fundamental human physical and psychological characteristics. I defy anyone to show me a society in which they would want to live where the Ten Commandments (or at least the second table of it) are not embedded in the law of the land somewhere.
The Bible was written by MAN. Very primitive men.
If you show me a signed copy, then we’ll talk.
And so was our Constitution. And so was Plato primitive. And Newton. And even Einstein.
All primitive by our lofty standards today. I doubt any of them had an I-phone; not even a microwave oven.
Give me a little more primitive and a little less enlightened and we’ll all be better off.
The BIG difference is your examples aren’t trying to insist upon an absolute truth. Your examples are produced by reason, not superstition.
@Paul of Alexandria:
“Simple. Sexual sins are the most condemned by God in the Scriptures because they are among the most damaging to the society.”
You start with two grandiose assumptions. That your holy book is the correct and true guide for organizing a society and furthermore that it was authored by God. In other words; you are expecting the rest of us to live according to the dictates of your religion because they are handed down from God. There are a lot of holy books, and this world has known a lot of Gods. Who put yours in charge of your neighbor’s sex life?
“More details can be found elsewhere, particularly at the sites of the National Organization for Marriage and the Ruth Institute, but to summarize: nothing destroys a society faster than damaging the family.”
If the disintegration of the family is your concern, homosexuals seeking marriage should not be the object of your scorn, but rather the laws governing divorce, child custody and support, and relationship violence, and the Feminist concept of man the eternal oppressor of long suffering women, which is the guiding principle of our schools and government. That is what is destroying American families.
“I defy anyone to show me a society in which they would want to live where the Ten Commandments (or at least the second table of it) are not embedded in the law of the land somewhere.”
Which Commandment outlaws same sex relationships? Which societies officially condone dishonoring your parents, theft, adultery, lying, and coveting?
Furthermore, and I don’t expect you to accept this rationale, homosexuals would not be here if they did not add to our propensity to survive as a group. Humans are a pack creature, as are most monkeys and apes. The characteristics we have today are those that helped us survive in the past. For a very long time, dating back to Homo Erectus, we have been the apex predator, so our survival competition was with other packs of humans. Had homosexuals been a hindrance to the survival of a pack they were in, packs of humans without homosexuals would have out competed those with them and there would be none today. Plus, the presence of homosexuals everywhere, in every society, is a strong indicator that they gave some sort of competitive advantage to the packs they were in.
“Furthermore, and I don’t expect you to accept this rationale”
Good, because I don’t.
I’ve come of age while every single thing you liberals wanted was set into motion by conservatives who were battered down and just wanted you all to shut up and leave them alone. The problem is, you don’t. It is NEVER enough for you people. It is one thing after another and society has suffered as a whole.
This place, the nirvana of the left, is a hell-hole compared to the America I grew up with. As far as I’m concerned you can take your change and shove it.
What I REALLY want right now is an amicable divorce. Draw your lines and I’ll move if I have to. I just really don’t want to share a country with you any longer because you don’t want to share. You want it all and you want us to shut up as you force it down our throat and steal our money to fund it.
@Lolly:
“I’ve come of age while every single thing you liberals wanted”
Ah… I’m a Libertarian who votes GOP if their candidate isn’t too odious in which case I abstain from voting for that particular office.
I just want to return to Constitutional government. As I read it, the Constitution does not address people’s choice for a sex partner, nor does it make Christian sexual mores the law of the land. It does guarantee religious freedom, freedom of association, and equal protection under the law. Furthermore, I am not Gay, nor am I a Gay advocate. Just a defender of Liberty.
@Old Guy – The courts have decided that sex is, indeed, in the constitution.
The courts have decided that morality is, indeed, the governments business.
Good luck with your libertarianism. The feds made that a mote point with the civil war.
To me libertarianism (I lean that way) is just fence sitting. You either make a stand or you stand on the sidelines while the devil takes to the streets.
You decide!
Old Guy,
Well, murder has been with us from the beginning. But it does not add to the building of a society.
Nor do homosexuals add to the building of society. They were here early, like murder, and continue to remain ..
because people have a choice. Not all will choose wisely, even in ancient days there were many fools.
ps: fools remain too … right to this very day.
@Waterwillows:
“Well, murder has been with us from the beginning. But it does not add to the building of a society.
Nor do homosexuals add to the building of society. They were here early, like murder, and continue to remain .. ”
You are equating those who find themselves sexually attracted to others of the same sex with murderers. Unreal.
@Old Man: You wrote, in response to Paul of Alexandria, “You start with two grandiose assumptions. That your holy book is the correct and true guide for organizing a society and furthermore that it was authored by God.”
You’re missing the very first grandiose assumption upon which all else in this discussion is based: That any “God” of ANY sort (not just the Christian one) even exists.
I don’t buy it; do you?
I agree fully. Unfortunately we have constructed a society that forces everybody’s hands in everybody’s pockets (e.g., public education and medical care).
It’s a tricky line to walk. To hate the sin, and to love the sinner. On the one hand, one must have pity and love for and witness to those who are caught in the grip of homosexuality. Far too often, though, pastors and laity both make the mistake of confusing loving the sinner with accepting, or even approving of, their actions. Homosexuality is ranked by the New Testament writers pretty much evenly with the other sexual sins: adultery, fornication, rape. All are to be despised and are rejected by God and faithful believers, yet none put one beyond redemption.
Just a question out of curiosity. Since it is just a translation anyway what is the significance of the King James version over others?
As someone already pointed out – education. The translators back then would have been fluent in Greek, Hebrew and any other language that made up the bible.
Today people are idiots with no concept of language. They really don’t understand how to translate Middle English into modern English and maybe they shouldn’t.
Part of the fun of Sunday services is when pastors teach the deep meaning of the language to emphasize the importance of a certain passage in the bible.
Because it was the first, and more accurately translated from the original Hebrew and Greek. Updated versions put the language into modern form.
The most important thing is to have one at all. Ignorance of the most basic of scripture verse is widespread in America, but somehow secularists and liberal Christians always can quote, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” This was spoken in context of being a busy body meddling in other peoples matters.
Christians are admonished by Apostle Paul to discern immoral/illegal behavior, and confront it in a spirit of love and truth, not an easy thing to do when facing off against strident liberals who control our culture.
King James Version is special because it was pretty much the only Protestant translation of the Bible in the English language for centuries. Until the last 80 years or so everyone who spoke English and was Protestant had this one version that they used. That familiarity and wide acceptance made it special in the hearts of many including today. However, today’s translation work iss actually far superior to the times of the KJV. Why? We have far more and older original manuscripts of Bible books. That is a huge deal. Older manuscripts of let’s say 1 John are probably more accurate than later manuscripts because copyists could make an error or even add something to try to clarify. And having more original manuscripts is helpful because if you have 40 original manuscripts of 1 John saying one thing and only 1 or 2 other manuscripts saying something different – most likely the majority will be right. So thanks to archaeology we now have a much better idea of what the original letters and books of the New Testament said. So some modern word for word translations are actually superior to a KJV – versions like the NASB or the ESV for example. But because of massive devotion to the KJV (which still holds up as an excellent translation by the way), many reject the newer translations.
I disagree. I’ve seen some of the newer versions and they completely destroy the meaning of some scriptures – sucking everything special out of them.
I like the KJV because it actually was a prophesy come true.
lolly, you didn’t disagree with me. Some of the modern translations are very poor. We can agree on that. But solid word for word translations like the New American Standard and the English Standard Version are actually superior because they are done with the best and most up to date research into the original manuscripts. The issue about more and older manuscripts now compared to the 1600s is not a debatable opinion – it is just fact.
I disagree with this statement Paul Cooper, though I agree completely with Denny Burke’s assessment of this “pastor.”
No, truth is the ultimate requirement for Christians. Without truth first, love is simply what we wish it to be, Mr. Cooper – doing what is right in our own eyes by our own conceptions of right.
However, this “preacher” isn’t fit to be in a pulpit and should be loudly condemned for abject stupidity amongst other things. Burke is absolutely right in hatemongering flakes like this doing more damage to the legitimacy of the Word than any pagan or scoffer could ever muster. It provides the perfect caricature of buffoon the secular world so dearly loves to pen on us who believe in the authority of Jesus Christ.
My quote is in reference to how love is defined in 1 Corinthians 13 – which includes being about truth. You have to take my sentence in context to what I am referring to.
Tex Taylor,
Nonsense. He is perfectly fit to be in the pulpit. There is no abject stupidity in the words of the Lord. None at all.
First, get understanding and then decide what ‘stupid’ really is. The decisions to take the homosexual path will lead to men becoming extremely brutal and cruel.
Women and children would suffer greatly in the re-direction of male sexual preferance. That can not be allowed because that is an abomination to all. It is nothing short of great evil inflicted upon mankind.
Well, I disagree. Where does it tell us to starve homosexuals to death? To wall them off?
You however, sound like a perfect candidate to sit in his pews.
Read this and come back and tell me this man is fit to lead a flock:
Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
Do you know something the Disciple John didn’t? Because frankly, I find this man an anathema to everything Christ stood for. What this clown is, is nothing but a legalistic Pharisee. And we all saw how Christ dealt with Pharisees, didn’t we?
Tex Taylor,
The Scriptures do not tell anyone to starve homosexuals. However, the homosexual nation of Afghanistan does proscribe starving the females if there is any lack of obedience. So it is in fact, the other way around.
Should she not get pregnant or birth any boys, she can also starve in the stables, thrown outside of living in the house.
Where would you get the silly notion that perversion is my brother or my sister? I think you are confused on that one.
I find myself in accord with Cooper’s negative judgment of the pastor’s condemnation of homosexuals, etc. to a hugh fenced in area where they would be fed like non-reproducing animals and, hence, fated to die out in old age. To illustrate his contempt Cooper (or someone) placed a photo of a Nazi concentration camp fence as an introductory symbol. In doing that Cooper, I fear, “sinned” more vilely than the sickening pastor. Why? Does Cooper have any idea what was carried out in the confines of such fenced in areas under the Nazis? Pity any homosexual, particularly one with a “pink” Star of David on his clothing! A quick death would have been mercy. The Nazis, when not torturing and hungering said victims, killed them, dead!!! The Nazis did not feed the inmates and leave them physically alone to die of overweight as old people. They KILLED them! Look up, Mr. Cooper, in internet the superb Polish composer, Henyrk Gorecki, III Symfonia (Symfonial …. “Symphony of Sorrows”) (i.e. Symphony No. 3, Op. 36). You will hear the “Song of Sorrows” (adopted as the music for a documentary on the Holocaust)interspersed with comments by Gorecki on the “sorrow” of the camps. As a 11 year old boy in Poland he was taken with his class to see Ausschwitz (and please do not forget that, besides the 3 million Polish Jews murdered, ca. 1.9 million non-Jewish Poles plus about 500,000 other slaves were liquidated). Listen to Gorecki’s final words about what he discovered between the barracks that housed (sic!) the victims. It will shatter anyone (and I believe also the errant pastor )who hears such evil. I cannot listen too often to the horror. It distables me mentally. Why my tale of internet horror?
What the not so “good” pastor said constitutes a condemnable insult because he denigrates a group of people by suggesting their very being deserves being confined for life. But, “being confined” between thfences mentioned by the pastor pales in significance to what happened to those confined between the fences shown in the photo introducing the article. Any intent to suggest a parallel between the asinine pastor and his confused policy of confinement with Himmler’s planned construction of concentration camps for the murder and torture of inmates, including homosexuals, is groteque. I do know something about the constructions of said camps. In documentaries I have even seen the architectural first plans. Well made. From the beginning annihilation was THE inspirational motive. With respect to the vulgar pastor, I do not see any intended murder, gasing millions, burning bodies and using their ashes as fertilizer and their bones a material for pathways. But the photo used by Cooper does imply such a comparison. In my perhaps confused judgment, Cooper has committed a MUCH greater demeanment of Pastor Dummy than Dummy did of homosexuals. Two wrongs to not make a right, specially if the second wrong is worse.
If I am overreacting to Cooper’s comparison, I apologize for my failing judgment. Old age dies that to one. Also, I have spent too much time asking myself why so many Germans could do the horribly murderous things they did. The bob-wired fences of the Nazis speak tales of horror. My exposure to true abominations makes me sensitive to extreme demeanments. Many Jews rightly react when non-Jews compare their woes with Jewish suffering under the Nazis. Understandable! But, it is also false to use images of the most murderous system of the 20th Century as a symbol for condemning an ass, be it merely that of a pastor or not.
Paul didn’t pick the photo. As his editor I did. You’re reading too much into it. The pastor called for concentration camps for gays. I picked an image of a concentration camp to illustrate the story. Your distinction of the difference between the two scenarios is noted, but really is just a distraction from the real point of the article.
I guess I know where you are coming from, having seen “Rick Steeves’ Europe” visit Poland and Auschwitz last night. I didn’t learn anything new, but was strongly reminded of the horror. However, my reaction to this article was to note that both the Nazis and the Reverend in question went after the homosexuals, not that the Nazis, killed them and the good Reverend postulated their “dying out.” So did the Nazis; they just got impatient and decided to accelerate the process. The libs have their wacky schoolteachers, the right has its wacky ministers…and God bless the United States of America.
Let me try a stab at some numbers here: 95% of the population seems to acknowledge that gays have the right to exist (because they do) but maybe 90% would prefer that their own children be straight; more than half (and let’s hope it is much higher than that) would still love and accept their child if they did “become” gay or lesbian. More than half are uncomfortable with the pushing of the gay agenda in schools, somewhat less than half actually angry about it, and about half vote NO on gay marriage.
Still, it is clear to me that it is something which is coming, it is merely a question of the timing. Any movement, which pushes too hard too soon, is wrong by definition, when they get rejected or cause an over-reaction, but it seems to me that most gay and lesbian people are essentially born with that inclination/need. Some unknown small percentage probably could go either way. I preferred that my sons not be homosexual and raised them “a certain way” (if such a thing is indeed possible) to push them toward be comfortable and confident in a muasculine role, but was also prepared to accept them if they turned out to be gay. I cannot identify with those who feel that being gay-lesbian is so wrong, so sinful, that they have to reject their own children, or the equivalent, were they to be gay.
What does it mean to be an indvidual?
Thank you for the reply. Perhaps I overreacted. But the difference does carry weight for ME. I am sensitive and have reasons for being so. Be it but as an amateur, I have sought to answer one question since moving to Germany 30 years ago. Just how was the acceptance of such murderous “discrimination” possible for such a “Kulturvolk” (as many East European slaves considered Germans dating from the Kaiserreich)? My interest is not just directed at Germans of that time, but also towards the destructive potential in all human beings, including in myself. The negative evaluation of the pastor is correct and applaudible. But, I did not pick the photo which, from the outset, radiates the evil aurora of Nazi “fencing-in’s” into the mind of the potential reader as sort of a pre-program. You may think that the Nazi fence is but a “distraction” from the “real point”. But, you got a reader in me for whom such symbolism does, indeed, call forth hefty response and thereby gets in the way of the “real point”. Perhaps not for a blithly ignorant American. Alas, that I am not any more. Your pictorial “distraction” is FOR ME much more “immorally” suggestive than the explicit words of the pastor. (I know you did not mean anything so damning.) Little destractings about the value of Jews (and I’ve seen a documentary on them) led up to “big” things as the early Nazi period evolved into total demeanment. (I hear troublesome “little” remarks about Jews in my stays in Russia. Just detractions. I wonder.) The real “distraction” for this historically informed reader is your illustrating Cooper’s point by means of the incommensurable comparison between the pastor’s fences and Himmler’s. An overkill, however how well meaning the intent! The “real point” for me is that, perhaps, the pastor’s asininities, if there are enough of them spreading about, could transmorph into real danger, real concentration camps, really dead homosexuals. If such a worry is Cooper’s “real point” we find accord and peace reigns
Just curious; have you read Victor Klemperer’s diaries “I Will Bear Witness” of the period during Hitler’s ascension to power? If not you should; you will find them fascinationg.
If you have read them, how would they in any way lead to your fixation on the misuse of the Nazi camp pictures?
Dear Dwight: I have never been to Poland. Nor to Ausschwitz. I have visited Dachau many times, with my children. I am not a “Rick Steve’s” visitor of the horror places of Europe. (I do not even know who the man is!) I have lived more of my life in Europe than in America, am multilingual, possess three doctoral titles (including in German philosophy, literature and language), my own personal library has 3000 books, have studied in universities and libraries in five countries in Europe plus America; in short I am informed about Nazi symbols in a way I doubt you may have any inkling. You certainly do not have even the slightest idea from where I may be coming. My reactions are those that are inculcated in Germany as Germans seek to understand their history. Because my grandparents were German, I take personal and professional interest in the “old homeland”. There is not a day that I do not view documentaries on the Nazi period. The fathers of some of my friends barely made it out of Stalingrad. A wonderful woman in Russia whom I love dearly would not be here today if the Wehrmacht had got past Leningrad. The second Holocaust was to be the slaves. Your experience and understanding of Nazism is, I suspect, primitive and not to be compared with my erudition on the matter nor with my sensitivities resulting therefrom. I feel unjustly belittled to be called a “Rick Steve” connoisseur of the horrors in Europe, let alone of the 20th Century history of the place. So let’s drop that put- down. It is unbecoming of you and uncomfortable for me .
I do not wish to compare too much family histories. I do have a Lesbian daughter. A very close friend of 50 years is a homosexual. As a professor I used to go to a mixed (homosexual and straight) bar to dance with my wife and fend off a Sammy Davis sized black that took to me. I often acted as a doorman and bouncer there. I taught some homosexuals Karate so that they might have their egos built up(alas many homosexuals have a poor ego structure). I was often taken for one of the “boys” and joined in the conversations. That gives me some personal contact with homosexuality. I appreciate and sympathize with your family history. There is, however, a distinction to be made. 1. Sympathy for and understanding of the life of a homosexual. Such sympathy can be compelling. 2. But such sympathy is not obligating in the realm of norms. (In many ways here I am echoing a recent article by Krauthammer in “The Jeruslalem Post”.) I suspect our ways would and do part here.
You ask what does it mean to be an individual? You cannot be serious with that apparent question. I suspect it is in reality a surreptitious thesis to justify homosexuality within your family. Whatever, the question is excellent, but not susceptible to a line or two answer. I will tread where treading is foolish compressing some ideas of Massimo Borghesi in his “Secolarizzione e Nichilismo. Cristianesimo e cultura contemporanea”. Homosexuality, if normatively (sic) accepted, implies a de-essentialification of the individual, i.e., the individual has no structure to which he is formally to correspond, including sexually. He is a mere “nothing” to be filled out in anyway s/he chooses: homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality, polisexuality, animal sexuality, transgender, whatever. His individuality “liberates” him from any obligatory norm (called natural law by some old fashioned philosophers). The liberation from norms is what constitutes the nihilism of modern gnosticism (which is highly sexual in form). Enough! Just a couple of abstractions cast out for stimulation.
However much my sympathy is with the plight of so many homosexuals, my normative reasons leads me to reject it. If one wants to understand my negative reaction to homosexual marriage, one would do well to understand that I do not wish to be de-essentialized (history is full of such examples including the one here in Germany in the last century). I am not a “nothing” that chooses to be this or that or both. Thank you for the dialogue. I suspect that we both have had our say. Let silence be the last word.
Leonard, you are getting carried away with trying to figure out my apparently unclear communications, so let me try to be clear.
I saw Rick Steeves’ Europe, not you. I, too, have been to Dachau, but not to Auschwitz. I have read Victor Klemperer’s Diaries, apparently not you. If you are a scholar of the period, I am shocked that you have not read them. You should, because they concern EXACTLY what you are talking about (the violence piece, not the homosexual piece.) Every day, Klemperer, a Jewish WWI vet, writes extensively in his diary about many things which include the rise of Hitler, his election, the rapid takeover of German society, the language of the Third Reich, his own status with a German/Aryan wife, which eventually saves his life. Is it presumptuous for me to think that you would find it fascinating?
From a strictly Christian standpoint, the error was made when churches began to accept divorce, adultery, fornication, contraception and even abortion as normal behavior. Almost three out of four black children are now born as bastards, and three out of ten whites. When the churches abandoned Biblical standards as they relate to the vast majority of their own members, they became obvious hypocrites when they suddenly tried to hold non-member homosexuals to some sort of absolute moral code, a code totally abandoned by their own members in anything that inconvenienced themselves.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. That is why leftists can so easily attack Christians on their aversion to gay-marriage.
I also loathe that some Christians tell homosexuals that they’ll burn in hell. With sin, ALL sin, you can repent. Homosexuals can be Christians, but they must change their behavior. If they can’t marry the opposite sex then they are to be celibate. This goes for unmarried heterosexuals, as well.
Homosexuality is an obsolete leftover from the Stone Age. When the cavemen used to go out hunting and warring for the tribe’s survival, they needed guys left back at the cave to protect the women and kids from marauding wild animals and enemy cavemen. Functional eunuchs were needed so the real men didn’t have to wonder who was fiddling with the harem in their absence. Any women who were perverted enough to be lesbians could also be put to work with babysitting tasks in the absence of grandparents, back in the Stone Age when few lived to be older than 40. Today, civilization is still so new that the genes for homosexuality haven’t had a chance to go extinct yet. So, homosexuality will be around like murder and rape and stealing and other primitive savage practices until a few thousand more years of societal conditioning into the future can improve these retrograde behavioral standards that have been recognized in writing as harmful ever since Biblical times.
Sam: You need to understand that those laws and ordinance which you quoted are under the Levitical Law, and no longer apply; the Law of Moses as in the 10 commandments given to man by God, are what stand today. We no longer make blood sacrifices for sin, because all these were done as a type and shadow of the Messiah (Yeshua) who would come and shed His sinless blood for the sins of the world. Once He had entered the world and paid the price for us all (though we must avail ourselves of that sacrifice through faith toward Him and repentance toward God) there were no more blood sacrifices necessary. Read Isaiah 53 to see a marvellous prophecy of the sinless one dying for us sinners.
The sacrifice of Christ did away with all symbolic rules-He is the fulfillment of the Word of God.
In a country that drains vast wells of energy fighting interminable culture wars, however, Mr. Obama’s May 9 move may only have drawn yet another bitter dividing line in American politics. From abortion to school prayer to contraception, Americans never stop debating issues most developed countries settled long ago. Gay marriage may just be the latest addition to this list.
Twist the Bible to fit your needs. Got it.
If I remember my Bible stories correctly, didn’t God DESTROY a town for SODOMY and other VILE acts?
My Bible tells me that homosexual actions are against God. Nothing anyone says will change that. That is my opinion.
What this Pastor said is his, and his congregation’s, opinion. Nothing anyone says will change that.
If you want others to accept your opinion, you must also accept theirs. You may not like it, but you must accept it.
I’m more concerned about the hate vile spewing Black Panthers openly calling for the KILLING OF INNOCENT BABIES than I am some Pastor calling on the extinction of homosexuals.
When was the last time you made an article on the Black Panthers and their call to WAR on the White man? Blatant calling of MURDER?
We’ll never see this, it might make the Black community mad.
The Laws of Moses do apply and are in full effect. They are not diminished.
The covenant was an everlasting covenant. It is forever.
Nor does the Lord change. His word and His ways remain the same.
However the Laws of Moses do not apply to the gentiles. They were given to the Jews and none other. The nations were given the Way. And Jesus told us that He is the Way to the Father. That is the how of the grafting in.
Nobody, with the possible exception of a Hitler, could deserve to be tortured forever. There is no doctrine more merciless than the idea of Hell. Although there are hints of bad things happening after one dies in the Old Testament, Jesus was the first person to speak openly and repeatedly about eternal damnation. Furthermore, he said, “No man cometh unto the Father but by me” (John 14:6). The Inquisition followed as the night the day.
He also said,
“He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath
not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of
God” (John 3:18).
That means you can’t know the rules; you just have to believe without proof. You can’t be sure of what’s required of you until you’re already in Hell and it’s too late.
Not just believing, but CHOOSING to accept Christ as your Lord and Savior, also.
The devil BELIEVES in Christ – but that don’t make him a Christian.
George Jochnowitz,
In all thy gettings, get understanding.
The teachings of Jesus has lead many a person to wisdom. The bad things that can and do happen after one crosses over are quite real. But they are of your own choosing. If you built nasty, and vile in this life … you can be sure that nasty and evil are waiting for you to receive. Everything is in exact measure.
It is your own energies that do the corrections and they never spare the rod.
How long do you want to take before you learn what is and is not acceptable to the Most High … or what is actually good and what is actually evil … these things are mandatory for us to learn. Take as long as you like; decades or even centuries. They amount and duration of misery is up to you.
It is also important to remember that homosexuals entered the Church as a fifth column and did much damage. They have moved on today, not needing the power of the Church to hide in. They now prefer the media, where they continue with much damage upon society.
The homosexuals are still in the church. Where do you think all these child molestations are coming from in the Catholic church?
In the good ole days the worst things in the Catholic church was that they were not celebate and kept mistresses and would put they by-blows into positions of power.
Yes, there are still homosexuals residing in the waning power of the Church. And yes, they continue to do as much damage as one would expect from a fifth column. But the greater majority have moved on to the all powerful media.
In the ‘good old days’ when the Church was simply stuffed with gays impersonating priest, life was hell for any number of women in the villages they had absolute power over.
Nor was it much fun for any who accepted the God of Israel as valid. They most often considered the Jewish God to be their greatest Enemy.
With homosexuals, there really are no good old days and certainly no good future. Perversion is a path that can not build anything .. expect more perversion.
Why are Conservatives responsible for everything that is crazy?
Jim Jones of Jamestown is an example.
The Koran burning Floridian was another example.
Even the Arizona shooter of Rep Giffords was pinned on conservatives.
Christian does not always = Conservative…
This make evident why Christians are turning away from Christianity. It’s because nothing means anything anymore.
AWAKE! The First Church of the Thermotarians – Anthropogenic welcomes all! The unerrant teachings of the Holy Scientific Consensus leave no room for any doubt. There is but One Truth, and it is revealed by the Holy Trinity prophets Hansen, Mann and Gore.
Let not your soul be troubled by all the uncertainty and strife in those ambiguous biblical religions; dedicate yourself to The One Truth sanctified by Science!
Cast out the sinful Deniers, and let all Believers, Gay, Straight, and Miscellaneous, join in our Holy Creed: There is no Climate Change but manmade, and AlGore is it’s profit!
Dear Dwight: I am not a scholar of the Nazi period (though I can adduce endless sources you have never heard of, I bet). I was a professional in literature and philosophy. I am just an interested amateur who daily sees different documentaries on the Nazi period in GERMAN tv. The fascination has its origins with Germans, not me. If you do not understand why Germans wish intently to understand what happened then, you do not understand what goes on in this country now. If you do understand, then do not cast aspersions at my intersts. It is not just, neither to me nor to the German media. In comparison with Russian tv (which I have watched now and then over 12 years) and its almost absent “Aufklärung” and “Verarbeitung” of its Stalinist and Marxist past, German tv makes me proud that the one time land of mass murderers does, INDEED, not forget, rather makes a system of atrocities an ongoing object of “fascination”. Hurrah!!!(One estimates that about 200,000 Germans actively participated in the liquidation machinery and there is a lack of agreement as to the degree of passivity/activity of the population in general. It all started “small” to become “big”.)But why MY fascination? For afterall I am legally a foreigner. You inquire if you are “presumptuous” to ask a question about my “fascination”? I ask: Why do you pose such a question with a somewhat loaded term such as “fascination” and not the more neutral “interest”? That obscurity is, perhaps, “presumptuous”. Be that as it may, if the German media lose their “fascination” for the period, it will recede into oblivion and just maybe history will repeat itself. (Günter Grass’s recent diatribe against Israel and its, at least for me, surprising positive resonnance in various newspapers cause a certain nervousnous in me. The neonazis of the old East Germany are today but bothersome rowdies, but then too were genuine nazis in the 1920s.) My apparently presumptuous “fascination” is naught but the fascination of the general German media. I just happen to be a foreigner who takes it seriously, indeed personally. Why?
Klemperer is one (of many) wonderful sources. But his approach to the Nazi period is not mine. He sees it from the point of view of a victim. (By the way, a Jew being married to an “Aryan” only helped for awhile.) I see it from the point of view of a victimizer, i.e., potentially. How can I see myself as a potential victimizer since I was born and bred in America during the war? With my youthful body, my 1.8m height, my beaming blond hair, I looked far more Aryan than Hitler or the creepy Himmler. I have seen enough newsreels of rows of young, good looking young SS soldiers in perfect coordination. They became the elite soldiers of the 3rd Reich. I ask the question: If I had been born in Germany a bit earlier than I was in America, if I had experienced the excellently organized Nazi system of education and if I consider my own “gung-ho” personality (which causes problems for your understanding of me), I might have been an ACTUAL vicitmizer. God forbid! Nazis educated! But, then, if I had grown up in the Soviet system of Stalin, I might have become an avid Stalinist. And there were plenty of Germans to kill. What do all these counterfactuals have to do with my factual “fascination” with the Nazi period?
I have come to see the “German” problem as BUT a specific example of the problematic nature of the “conditio humana” in general. “Litte” demeanments then of the Jews or slaves or whoever, led to “big” cleansing actions later. The mutation from “little” to “big” has become a central theoretical problem for my personal reflections on human behavior. I am there, you are there, the pastor is there. It is at that point that I have become VERY sensitive–and it is no easy burden for my waining health to bear. Ed Driscoll wrote a piece awhile back slamming the German contribution to philosophy. I thought that he went too far and was a “little” too demeaning, specially because I have a “classical” German education in literature and philosophy (many of my profs. were “Jud’n” that fled Germany). I learned to appreciate and value the “spirit of the Goethe-time”, a spirit I learned from an “andernacher Jud’” (Andernach not being far from my current dwelling). So I critized Driscoll provoked by my sensitivity to “little” things. The same sensitivity has made me critical of the association of the pastor’s vulgar “fencing-in” policy with the photo of the fence of a Nazi extermination camp (a photo that I have seen many, many times and, hence, know well what it portends). I found Driscoll’s diatribe to an unfair denigration of what I find positive, indeed, wonderful in German culture (and which probably allowed Klemperer to fight in WW I and allowed “Aryan”/Jewish marriages). I can become bothered at times by some conservative remarks about the (non)suffering of the Palestinian Arabs. I do hope, Dwight, that you now have some insight in to the motivation that directs my critical glances.
I will repeat my critique of the article: The vulgar policy of the pastor is “little” in comparison with the “big” policy of Nazi extrmination camps. I, as of the moment, do not see where the man advocates active extermination. If he comes to do that (or I have overseen that he has so exhorted), he should be arrested. The Nazis did not kill homosexuals because they became tired of waiting for them to die a natural death. Not at all! It was “big” time planning from the word “go”. I just do not see that in the silly pastor. I do not think that he deserves a Nazi denigration. If I am wrong, I apologize. At the present moment I hold that the photo changed an excellent article (one I agree with fully) into a non-justifiable demeanment of a specific human being, however vulgarly assinine he was. If, however, his “little” transgression is to be seen as a warning for possible future “big” sins against humans, then the Nazi photo would have found a better location at the end of the article. If placed at the end, the photo would have left the reader with the idea as to whether such “little” demogogy could become “big” crimes, lethal to homosexuals. Maybe are aesthetic sensitivites are just differrent. I do hope I have satiated your curiosity as to my apparently errant “fascination”. I also hope that the last word has been spoken. If not, fire away. But then let us converse in all civility. I thank you for your article and I think I have an inkling of the personal aspect of your article.
Leonard, Thank you for the clarification of the specific nature of your concerns. I, too, wonder how much I would have joined the Nazi or Communist causes were I to have been placed in those situations, but as you note, I am not a gung-ho person. I am more of a lone wolf gadfly. Many years ago, someone said to me in the heat of an argument about the Vietnam War that I would make a good storm trooper, but I immediately corrected him. “I do not follow orders, well.” A problem for conservative uber-patriots can be that their loyalty to the Fatherland, be it Germany or America tends to make them despise protestors. The terrible situation in Germany made them all more likely to look to the Fuhrer (Art Chance’s analysis of them as spoiled folks resenting a slightly reduced prosperity, notwithstanding.) Respecting and obeying authority is a problem when the authority has become perverted, but I belabor the obvious.
I still don’t know if you have taken the time to read Klemperer, who was also fascinated by cultural issues. He eventually became a big shot in the East German government after the war and remarried after Eva died. I own, but have not read Vol. III, which covers those post-war years.
Some info about how our founders thought about homosexuality may surprise you. Go to Apolgeticspress.org. and type in, “The founders on homosexuality”, These are from original doc’s. They were definity more legal/regal about homosexuality than this pastor but the outcome was basically the same or worse.
This would not even be an issue if people just minded their own business and stopped trying to force their religious beliefs and agendas on to everyone. The problem is public education. How about just teaching solid objective subjects in schools and leave the rest to the parents and voluntary associations. Allow for legal “marriage” between any two consenting adults and leave it to churches to bless a marriage by their own definition.
In light of some things I have witnessed recently such as the doctoring of the Zimmerman audio, the obscene photoshop of SE Cupp, and outright lies written in smear campaigns; I have learned that seeing and hearing is not always believing. Are you 100% sure that the message is exactly as it was expressed or could it have been doctored to elicit a defensive response? Probably not, but my skepticism of everything has grown lately. Even if he did say it, as distasteful as it is, we should not burn him on the stake. Most people have said things that they wish they could take back. If Dan Savage can be forgiven, then why not this guy. Perhaps he should take a break from being a pastor and Dan Savage should step down from his perch as bully czar.
Ah, how soon they forget!
Prior to Jan.1, 1977, in California, homosexual activity,(fellatio and sodomy),constituted a felony, punishable by prison time. The baptist preacher urges a somewhat more draconian approach; but there is nothing new about locking up sex perverts and segregating them from the rest of us.
God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for their homosexual perversions. And He has made it clear that those who do such things will be eternally punished in Hell.
We do not want to see anyone punished eternally. So we must persuade them that God means business. Since the Government, particularly this President and this Congress have convinced many that God doesn’t know what He is talking about, those Fools are anxious to accept homosexuality as a tradeoff off on homosexual acceptance of whatever sins the Fools are in love with.
“And the blind shall lead the blind…”.
“….and segregating them from the rest of us.” Hmmmm, go back another 10-20 years and you would find many pastors preaching that God approved Jim Crow laws and that those who questioned them were perverts of one sort or another.
Perversion is useless to build any society upon. Only idiots proclaim this path as equal to homosexual building. It is not equal. It is hopeless.
Nor can I find much in the way of blessings to any nation that adopts this path of destruction. A little logic applied and it is simple to see.
Just from some of the comments here, I don’t know how and why many of you (evangelical) Big Church government types are associated with the Republican party when your Dominionist-attitude is essentially a variation of the Big Left government types.
Dominionism, the belief that society should be governed exclusively by the law of God as codified in the Bible, to the exclusion of secular law, is contrary to Jeffesonian Republicanism and Madisonian Constitutionalism.
The Left likes to qualify a person’s humanity by objectifying them according to their material state; if you’re rich you must be evil, if you’re poor you must be good. Similarly, some Worley-type commenters here rely on some bronze-age Kangaroo standard to determine if a fellow American should have his life and liberty taken away.
Madison wasn’t just concerned with securing the Blessing of Liberty against future imperial tyrants but secular and ecclesiastical ones! Throughout past human history, only one civilization managed to originate and codify the concept of Individual Liberty; the early Roman Republic.
It’s from them that Madison borrowed and improved upon our system of government; NOT the Hebrews. It’s also from them that he revived the superior designation of ‘Citizen’. You weren’t a sinner, saint, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, straight, gay, white, black, rich, poor. You are simply a Citizen under which your life, property and religion (or lack of) is equally protected from not only the government but your fellow citizens.
This designation effectively does away the need for identity politics from both the Left and Right. No Citizen is entitled demand special concessions from the government or infringe on the liberty of his fellow citizens.
If evangelicals are truly really concern about ‘declining morality’, they ought to direct their time and money towards Section 8 cities across America where STRAIGHT kids are manufacturing generations of single mothers and juvenile delinquents who go on to become the expanding power base of Socialist bureaucrats. You so-called Christians should be “…pukin’ sick” about those kind subsidized concentration camps. Not gays.
Christianity (together with all so-called montheistic religions) itself is a perversion ‘pur sang’. Full of Lies (e.g. about ‘christ’s resurrection), deceptions and lame myths. It’s time, really, for this joke of a set of dumb doctrines to be thrown out with the garbage of human history! Out, out, out!!!
I was brought up by atheists. I thought “JesusChrist” was a curse word, and as a child expressed surprise that people were swearing, (a gospel channel was briefly tuned in over the radio) and my mother brushed off my question with, “that word doesn’t always mean the same thing…”
I believed in a utopian dream of socialism/communism/leftist/liberalism, a proper comrade for several decades who eventually woke up to the lies and discovered that G-d and Jesus Christ are real, true, and available to all who accept His offer of salvation. He invites examination, and holds under scrutiny of His detractors. The fact that “faith” is involved for salvation is something each person must decide for themselves, like Adam and Eve in the garden:
“Indeed; has G-d said?”
What that preacher said in a closed room isn’t any different in context than what a bare-breasted lesbian, standing atop a Washington monument a few years ago, yelled to an approving “gay rights” crowd:
“BRING BACK THE LIONS!!!!”
Yep.
Where lays the difficulty in this eruption? It lays at the feet of the church. Why is it that the church has reacted so vociferously to this Pastor’s ranting? Did what he say demonstrate the love of Christ? Obviously not; because Jesus was ridiculed for eating with publicans and sinners. I submit for your consideration however that the reason the church has risen up and decried this man is because he exposes the sin of the church. Keith Green brought it to our attention 30 yrs. ago when he wrote, “Asleep in the Light.” The church remains so. The church (as a rule) keeps it’s faith behind closed doors. This must be true. Evangelical, fundamentalist, born again Christians are by all accounts 1 in 10 in America and have remained at that level for a long time. When folks see us coming, one of two possibilities should occur if we understood and joined at the hip 1Peter 2:8-9 and Galatians 2:20. They should either run in terror as we approach with a loving grin on our face, or flock to us so they might hear more about this Glorious Savior that we serve. Folks, that ain’t happenin’! This pastor has exposed us. We have failed to call sin, ALL sin, what it is — death. We have become mealy mouthed practitioners of religion and not the bringers of light that we have been called to be. As we exit the church doors we snuff out our torches (oh some smoulder a bit)so that as we enter the dark abyss that is the world today we will not draw attention to ourselves. Goodness! It could impede a promotion or heaven forbid, we might have heaped upon us -GASP- ridicule! No the practice of homosexuality and adultery/premarital sex, etc. is “pornia.” It is no worse than any sin that brings death (uh, that would be all sin) except on a personal level. The bible instructs us that it is a sin against ones own body and that makes it particularly heinous. Church, God will call you to account because you were not willing to tell those in this sin that it will lead to their eternal death, even as he will call you to account for the sin you allow to exist in your midst and do not call to account. Does the church wish to see America return to the God fearing nation it once was? It will not happen until it seeks and finds repentance before God. Then we may, if we answer God’s command, see the nation repent. There will be national repentance or there will be national death — Church, that begins with us, either the repentance and the death. Remember, judgment begins at the house of God.