When the World Trade Center was attacked, the Reverend Jerry Falwell said the hideous terrorist act was God’s punishment on the US for offering equal rights to gay people and, worse, women. It was, in Falwell’s view, God striking out at this country for believing that all men are endowed with certain inalienable rights by their creator. Clearly, the Right Reverend felt we are not all so endowed and that the country was being punished for it.
Apparently Mr. Falwell thought God was a not only a Muslim extremist, but also a little slow on the uptake since notions of equality are the principals on which this country was founded several hundred years prior to September 11, 2001. Not sure what God was waiting for and I’ve no idea about Falwell’s whole Muslim extremist/God connection beliefs. Perhaps it’s just one extremist admiring the work of another.
Falwell was creating hatred with his words. He was encouraging the shooting of fifteen year old Lawrence King for being gay. He was arming the lunatic who murdered a doctor for performing medical procedures he didn’t agree with. He was doing the work of evil by creating evil in the world with his words. He was an Anti-Christ — the opposite of Christ in his words and actions.
When a massive earthquake struck Haiti, destroying the capital and killing tens of thousands, the Reverend Pat Robertson said it was God punishing the people of Haiti for throwing off the yoke of slavery and fighting for their freedom. Another Anti-Christ, Robertson was creating evil in the world by speaking it.
I’m gay so I don’t feel welcome to be a Christian, and I would never presume to suggest asking ourselves “What would Jesus do?” Perhaps, though, I could suggest asking “What would Jesus say?” I can’t imagine Jesus saying that gay people getting married is the same as “incest and pedophilia,” as the Anti-Christ, Reverend Rick Warren said.
Apparently what Jesus did say was “Love one another as I have loved you.” He did not say that we should love one another with the following exceptions. Nor did he imply that we should love one another but feel free to work against others sharing our same rights and privileges. What he did apparently say was that “By this all men will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.” This means we can easily recognize those who are NOT his disciples. They’re the ones who don’t love others, or advocate it, or speak out for it or, as in the case of Anti-Christs like Warren, Falwell, Robertson and those like them, speak out against loving one another.
So when in the face of this epidemic nation tragedy of gay teen suicides, Mormon Elder Boyd Packer gives a hate filled sermon claiming that God is incompetent and made some of his children to be unnatural and impure. When Packer rails against sacred bonds of love and marriage, it’s easy to see he’s too is an Anti-Christ.
It is odd to me that the most evil things I hear in the world today are spoken by those who claim to speak for their God.
I don’t know that I’m a disciple, but it’s easy to see who isn’t.
Eric Shaw Quinn 