I tend to avoid discussing religion unless invited to do so. I do not attempt to force my religious views onto people, and find it abhorrent when others do not extend me the same courtesy. Let me be clear: I am a Christian and I support gay rights. Aside from my personal convictions, though, I would like to point out some flaws and hypocrisies in Pastor Steven Anderson’s logic and way of practising his religion.
Pastor Anderson is the founder of and a pastor at the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Arizona, a fundamentalist Baptist church which describes itself as “an old-fashioned, independent, fundamental, King James Bible only, soul-winning Baptist church”.
The word “soul-winning” (used by Anderson to describe his work with those outside his church) is telling, to me. His church cares about “winning” souls – they make it a competition to fill out some spiritual scorecard with souls “won”.
In 2009, the church and Anderson received a lot of attention from American media after Anderson a public spectacle of praying for the death of American President, Barack Obama. This murderous intention was conveyed during a sermon he entitled “Why I Hate Barack Obama” (I would like to point out that Christianity encourages us to let go of hate, rather than foster it). Anderson did not explicitly encourage members of his congregation to attack Obama, but he stated that America would benefit from Obama’s death. Later, in an interview with KNXV-TV, Anderson explained that he would like Obama to die of natural causes, so that he would not become a martyr.
This in itself is very much against what I see the Christian belief. Anderson prays for death – he prays for God to smite down one of His own children. Anderson does not ask God to “save Obama’s soul” or to “save America [which, in Anderson’s opinion, needs saving] by not allowing Obama to rule as president”.
This is very similar to Anderson’s recent statement that he does not condone violence, but that, according to him, all gays should be executed. Again, this statement seems wildly opposed to central elements of the Christian belief. He does not pray for forgiveness for the people who he believes are sinning. He does not ask for their salvation. He merely claims that they should be killed.
It is no wonder that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) listed the Faithful Word Baptist Church as an “anti-gay” hate group, citing its pastor’s “extremely radical stance” that homosexuals, if judged “according to the Law of Moses, should be put to death”.
Leviticus 18:22 reads “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”
This is among the few examples of passages that Christians like Anderson use to excuse their hatred of homosexuals. According to Noah Kaminsky*, an expert** in theology and on the Bible, these texts and others like it were often written about a common practice in those days: the act of raping men to shame them (especially in the military). In the New Testament, according to Kaminsky, some of these passages refer to heterosexual men who temporarily give up their heterosexuality for something like a “one-night stand”. Kaminsky says: “To read these texts without historical context can easily be, at best, misleading.”
Kaminsky continues to say that it is “absurd to think the Torah [the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, once thought to have been written by Moses] was written by Moses. How did he describe his own death? The truth is, often we simply do not know who wrote certain books of the Bible.”
Jesus Christ spoke of a God of love and forgiveness, a God who goes out of His way to reach out to and include lost souls. Anderson preaches about a God of wrath and hatred, of exclusion and prejudice. He abuses God’s words as an excuse to justify his human emotions and prejudices.
There is ample research indicating that homosexuality depends very little one choice: instead, one’s genes determines how likely one is to become gay and, after that, the environment one grows up in may or may not trigger these genes. It is also a little-known fact that no species on Earth has been found in which homosexuality does not occur, with the exception of species that do not have sex at all. Now, if homosexuality is determined by one’s genes and occurs in nature, why would a God who created homosexual people for something that they literally cannot control?
There is no “cure” for homosexuality. It cannot be changed.
On 12 June 2016, in a terrorist attack in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, 49 people were killed and 53 injured. Anderson condoned this, commenting that there were “50 less paedophiles in the world.” These are the terms Anderson uses to refer to gay people: “paedophiles” and “perverts”; carefully selected inaccuracies used in an attempt to legitimise his blind hatred.
“People like Desmond Tutu go parading around and talk about their pro-homosexual beliefs but they did not get that from the Bible and any Bible believing Christian will know that,” says Anderson. “The religious leaders are a bunch of perverts themselves like that Desmond Tutu who goes around in a pink dress.”
According to Anderson, any religious leader who preaches tolerance of homosexuality, like Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, is not following the Bible’s teachings. The problem with this, and many will disagree with me on this matter, is that the Bible was written, edited and translated by men – human beings with their own agendas. There are many passages that did not make it into the Bible because it was edited. However, we rely on the Bible as Christians.
What Anderson does, however, is use some of the Bible and disregard those parts of the Bible that disagree with him – for example, Jesus’s teachings on love, tolerance and forgiveness. He ignores pages upon pages of advocacy for tolerance by word and example, particularly from Jesus, in favour of a mere handful of references from the Old Testament.
Anderson was recently banned from entering South Africa due to his aggressive hate speech towards the homosexual community. Home Affairs Minister, Malusi Gigaba, declared Pastor Anderson and all persons in and associated with his church undesirable persons. His purpose for coming to South Africa was to embark on a “evangelical crusade”, a crusade of “soul-winning”, where he and members of his congress would go door to door and preach to people, trying to convince them to join the Faithful Word Baptist Church.
Anderson called South Africa a “den of iniquity” and a “demonic stronghold” in response to those who wanted him banned from visiting the country. He proceeded at that point to lay out an arsenal of invective, disparaging comments and vague accusations aimed at South Africa and everyone residing there.
“I literally believe that South Africa is some kind of a demonic stronghold,” he said in a Sunday sermon titled There Are Many Adversaries. If you find yourself struggling to believe something so nonsensical occurred, you can watch the sermon here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoumJJMTy2U
“I have been banned from South Africa AND the United Kingdom. I am not even allowed to have a connecting flight in London,” Anderson posted on Facebook and Twitter. ““And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean; from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles,” he quoted from Acts 18:6. “I feel sorry for people who live in South Africa, but thank God we still have a wide open door in Botswana. Stand by for reports of multitudes saved in Botswana, where religious freedom still exists.”
We have banned this American “pastor” over his anti-gay sentiments, a triumph for equality and the fight against discrimination, but what about our own president and his anti-gay statements? In 2006 (when he was deputy president), Jacob Zuma referred to same-sex marriages as “a disgrace to the nation and to God”, and he is well known for his comment that he would punch a gay man in the face if one were to appear before him. This despite that South Africa’s post-apartheid constitution was the first in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation.
So many emotions lie behind arguments like these, over religious debates and debates concerned with sexual orientation, that I do not expect to change anyone’s mind – rather, I hope that I may have given some of those who agree with me some grounds for their arguments, or hope that some of us still prefer hope over hate and tolerance over narrow-mindedness.
Note: * some of the names in this article have been changed to protect the identities of those involved. ** Kaminsky graduated with a Masters in Theology at the University of Pretoria.
Visit A Vigilant Voice for more articles by Lelouch Giard
