Christmas compassion for HIV/AIDS, lumps of coal for naughty pastor

[TexasTowelie]

Donations can be made at https://www.crowdrise.com/coal/fundraiser/Planting-Peace/ .

Faithful Word Baptist Church Deserves A Lump of Coal
By Carol Morgan

The last place we should expect to hear hate speech is in church. Unfortunately, that’s exactly where the most recent hate speech is coming from—the pulpit. From the Westboro Baptist Church to Koran-burning-crazy Terry Jones, it seems to get worse every year.

By now, everyone’s read about the sermon of Pastor Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. On November 30, he preached that if all gays were killed, we would be AIDS-free by Christmas.

Yes, you read it right. He advocated killing an entire group of people.

This isn’t the first time that Pastor Anderson and his hateful sermons have made the news. In 2009, Anderson gave a sermon called “Why I Hate Barack Obama” and actually prayed for PBO to die and “go to Hell”.

Apparently, the Pastor’s words hold so much sway with his parishioners that one of them, Christopher Broughton, was caught with an assault rifle at an Obama Rally in Arizona. He even told gay radio host, Michelangelo Signorile, live on air that he hoped Signorile would “get brain cancer, like Ted Kennedy.”

The Faithful Word Baptist Church is a small church located in a strip mall in Tempe, Arizona. According to their website: “Don't expect anything contemporary or liberal. We are an old-fashioned, independent, fundamental, King James Bible only, soul-winning Baptist church”.

And a little word to women from Pastor Anderson, you are NOT to speak at all in his church; not even an amen or a question. As quoted from his sermon on YouTube, women may chat before the service and even sing hymns, but "when it's learning time, it's silence time."

If a wife has a question, she must wait until she gets home and ask her husband...

Faithful Word Baptist Church is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and with good reason.

According to SPLC, Anderson is the operator of the True Sons of Liberty website, and he calls for abolishing the IRS, the Federal Reserve, Social Security and Child Protective Services state agencies. In April 2009, he refused to get out of his car or answer questions from Border Patrol agents at the California-Arizona border. Agents broke his window and tasered him as a result.

The irrational and hateful rantings of Steven Anderson, and those like him, has no place in a house of God.

In a recent piece, New Jersey Rabbi, Gerald Zelizer, put extreme preachers in their place: “At a time when doubts about both God and the need for religious institutions are increasing, clergy should not get sidetracked by politics. Instead, they should spend time focusing on how to recast their church and explain God more effectively -- to ease the doubts of the young and to draw more people through the doors.”

As we head toward Christmas, church congregations, whatever their religious label, should be mindful of keeping what is Caesar’s separate from that which belongs to God.

For that reason, Pastor Steven Anderson, and those who support his hate church, should be rewarded with a lump of coal, just like the naughty children of Christmases past.

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Carol Morgan is a career/college counselor, writer, speaker, former Democratic candidate for the Texas House and the award-winning author of Of Tapestry, Time and Tears, a historical fiction about the 1947 Partition of India. Email Carol at [e-mail] , follow her on Twitter and on Facebook or visit her writer’s blog at www.carolmorgan.org

http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/carol-morgan/2014-12-07/faithful-word-baptist-church-deserves-lump-coal#.VIUWU8nuPoE

Permission granted to post Carol's blog in its entirety.

Donations can be made at https://www.crowdrise.com/coal/fundraiser/Planting-Peace/ .

[TexasTowelie]

1. I am thrilled to report that this fundraiser

has already exceeded its goal of $10,000. There are 879 donations for over $18,800 at this time.

[dballance]

2. The next Ted Haggard.

I'm betting it's only a matter of time that he gets found in a hotel room with a male prostitute and drugs.