Minister Thinks Many Christians Wimps

Fire and Brimstone

Many Christians today, he says, are wimps because of their lack of courage and conviction when it comes to their religious beliefs.

In other words, never stop and wonder, "Are my beliefs going to make me look like a raving lunatic?". Be the raving lunatic!

"Christians have used truth to beat people over the head," said Mr. Jeffress, senior pastor of the 9,000-member First Baptist Church of Wichita Falls.

Oh. Yeah. Truth is a big weapon in the arsenal of Christian theology. What's next? Compassionate Conservatism?

People are turned off [to Christianity] because of the offensiveness of other Christians, not because of Christianity itself.

That's true. It would be nice if the good Pastor would realize, though, that he's one of those offensive Christians. If people like him would simply leave the rest of us alone about the "truth", I'd have no problem with him. But people like this continue to try to ram their theology down everyone's throat. He's trying to find a kinder, gentler way of beating people over the head with his theology, while we want him to leave us alone completely.

"Ministers have been soft-pedaling the doctrine," Mr. Yeats said.

For the life of me, I can't understand why. Why would ministers want to downplay misogyny, bigotry, racism, and elitism? I can't figure it out!

"There is nowhere in the Bible that advocates killing unbelievers as it does in the Koran," he said.

Ahem. And I quote...Exd 22:18 "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." See also...Dt.13:6 "If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die." Or the simpler...2 Chr.15:13 "Whosoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman."

Mr. Jeffress argues that the separation of church and state is nothing but a fallacy.

"Nowhere in the Constitution can you find those words," he said.

"America is a Christian nation. Christians need to start speaking out that ... this is a Christian nation."

What part of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." do these people not understand? But if the Constitution isn't enough, maybe a quick read from the Treaty of Tripoli can help clear things up: "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion..."

Mr. Jeffress doesn't want to ban the teaching of evolution, just offer this alternative explanation.

Oh, of course. They don't want to ban the laws of science, they just want to offer their completely baseless fairy tale as an equally valid alternative to reality. And Fundies don't "hate fags", either. They just berate them and demean them and threaten them with eternal damnation if they don't "change" their wicked ways because the god of Christianity does hate them (in spite of having, himself, created them exactly like they are).

"Atheism is a crusade to remove any religious symbols from the public square."

If that's true, then all religion is a crusade to impose their religious symbols on the public square. Unfortunately for the simple minded Fundies, it's a little more complex than "they just want to erase us". Even I admit that there is more to Christianity than just imposing its symbols on the public square. Similarly, there is more to Atheism than just removing symbols from the public square. Atheism is simply a philosophy of living life without theology. And, in reality, the push to remove Christian symbols and theology from government sanctioned/funded venues is less an Atheistic movement and more a Democratic one. Hard as it may be for Fundies to grasp, there are even Christians who would have theology separated from the forays of government.

Groups like the [American Civil Liberties Union] and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State are on this (atheistic) mission.

AU is hardly an Atheist organization. The leader is a Reverend!

This is like the early stages of the Soviet Union.

Oh, here it comes. The tired old, "The Commies are coming! The Commies are coming!"

Fortunately, the article ends with interviews of several reasonable theists, who point out the fallacy of Jeffress' arguments and how divisive and un-Christian he is with his theology.