Christian hate-preacher Steven Anderson of Arizona’s (New Independent Fundamentalist) Faithful Word Baptist Church may not be able to step foot in dozens of other countries, but he can always bring guests to his palace of bigotry.
This week, he invited Oscar Bougardt, a South African preacher who echoed Anderson’s vileness while speaking to a rapt congregation. (Anderson is banned from entering South Africa.)
… when Jesus gave us instruction to go out into the world, Jesus knew that we are going to come across a bunch of f*ggots. He knew it. He knew it. He knew that we are going to… encounter different types of persecution, but Jesus said, “I will be with you.” (1:37)
…
… How can God ask me to count it as joy when a bunch of f*gs want me in prison? (6:19)
…
… I don’t care what you say. If you want to lock me up, too bad. There’s a lot of sodomites in jail. I need to preach to them as well. (7:38)
…
… One thing that I know is that people out there needs to hear the gospel. And they need to hear the true gospel. And who’s going to tell it? Not the Anglican Church because they say it’s alright to be a homo. Not the Catholic Church because the majority of the priests are a bunch of homos… (9:43)
There’s more, but you get the idea.
According to MambaOnline, Bougardt’s history of hate speech has gotten him in plenty of trouble in his home country:
In October, Bougardt was served with court papers for violating the terms of a homophobic hate speech conviction. He was found guilty of hate speech by the Western Cape High Court in May 2018 and was given a 30-day jail sentence, suspended for five years. (It is unclear when the matter will be heard in court.)
This followed years of abuse on social media and in the press against LGBTQ people, including calling for their execution and imprisonment and stating that they are paedophiles targeting young children.
The point is not that these guys represent how most Christians think and act. Obviously they don’t. But when you tell people to take the Bible literally, and that any deviation from that is a distortion of God’s Word, what do you expect? This is a natural consequence of putting the Bible over common sense and reason. We shouldn’t be surprised when some people treat the worst passages as the centerpieces of their faith.
(Thanks to @Ahab_Of_Gilead for the link)