Steven Anderson has recently been in the news. As a pastor, he prays for Obama to die. The other day, Sirius XM radio host Michelangelo Signorile had him on the air, and the linked blog is about that exchange, and it includes a Youtube video. What I found most intriguing about the exchange was the questioning about murder. According to Anderson, if someone assassinated the President, it wouldn’t be murder, but the legal abortion provider George Tiller  was a murderer.
I have written before critical of Christianity, and even been accused of “hating God,” but the reality is I think Faith is important, and I believe we all deserve to be free to follow the faith tradition that speaks to us. Yet, I have to wonder, how extremist views like this grow and are so easily expressed as if they are rational thinking?
I also think that the rhetoric surrounding homosexuality and GLBTQ issues is going to get far more intense. We are at a critical juncture in history, when Science and culture are at odds with somethings written more than 2000 years ago. As Faith Traditions have handcuffed themselves to the Holy Bible, almost in isolation of fact and reason, it is going to be a pretty bumpy ride. Even denominations which claim to include reason and other methodology to understanding the true Will of God, such as the Methodists (I actually thing John Wesley would be astounded that the denomination that has grown from him ministry has forgotten so much of where that denomination came from) now find themselves clinging only to this very, very old book.
It is true that even Science doesn’t have a full understanding of Human Sexuality, but at one time, nor did it have any awareness that all of the planets in our solar system rotate around the sun. I guess the church didn’t learn much over that mix up. I am not bothered that some preachers can speak with so much condemnation of gay people. They are ignorant and we don’t yet have the Science that makes it as clear as Galileo’s work began to make the movement of the planets clear.
But murder?
Is the Church (in the most general sense) and God’s Will really so conflicted about what is murder? I feel sad for anyone who follows this preacher.