The members of the Faithful Word Baptist Church have gathered to affirm their support for their pastor, Steven L. Anderson, who has called for the death of President Barack Obama and “melted like a snail.” Anderson went out of his way to reaffirm his desire to see Obama die.
A couple dozen members of the Faithful Word Baptist Church carried Bibles and rallied around their hate-filled preacher, who they insisted is a “caring human being.” One member appropriatedly wore a shirt reading “Hating is not a Crime.” I agree, though I doubt that he was stating a constitutional principle as much as a personal preference.
Anderson wants to spread God’s word by calling for the death of those with whom he disagrees. What is scary is not just his shaping his family but his religious flock.
Here i a transcript of his Jan. 18, 2009 sermon from talk2action:
“…in the prayer closet with David,
`Break their teeth, Oh God, in their mouths. Break out the great teeth of the young lions, Oh Lord, let them melt away as waters which run continually. When he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.’ [Psalm 58, KJV]
`As a snail which melteth’, Barack Obama, since you want to use your salt solution to kill babies in this country, Barack Obama, you’re going to REAP what you SOW because one day, Barack Obama, you’re going to be burning in HELL and you’re going to feel a burning sensation all over your SKIN – which was the same sensation felt by every baby that was aborted in his mother’s womb.
And David, praying, is saying, `As a snail which melteth.’ See, I’m very scriptural when I brought up about snails being salted. He said, `as a snail which melteth let every one of them pass away like the untimely birth of a woman.’ He’s saying `like an abortion,’ right ? Like a miscarriage. Because that’s what an untimely birth is. He’s saying, let Barack Obama perish like an abortion. Let Barack Obama perish like a miscarriage. – `As the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.’
Let me tell you something – somebody needs to abort Barack Obama. It’s true. Now, I’m not to do it. I’m not saying vigilanteism. I’m not saying that somebody should go kill. I’m saying there should be a government in this country that, you know, under God’s authority, that takes Barack Obama and aborts him. On television. For everybody to see in the whole world.
Did you hear me ?
Now, I’m not saying I’m going to do it. I’m not a vigilante. But I’m going to tell you something – if there was any justice in this country, if the judicial branch of this country meant ANYTHING they would take Barack Obama and all of his colleagues and take them and they would abort him. They would melt him like a snail. That’s what they – they’d break the teeth out of his head, my friends…
And you say, `oh, I can’t believe you’re threatening the president,’ I’m not saying I’m going to do it, I just wish God would do it. And he will do it, my friends. And I wish we had a government that would act on God’s behalf. Like the government is supposed to do. You know, the government is supposed to carry out God’s law – enforce God’s laws against murder, against stealing, against lying, against deceit, against adultery. That’s the purpose of human government.
And so I’d like to see Barack Obama melt like a snail. I’d like to see the teeth knocked right out of his head. I’d like to see him perish just like an abortion. That’s what David preached. That’s what he prayed to God.
Let’s read him one more time:
`As a snail which,’ — I think this is Barack Obama’s life verse. If you’re one of those people that doesn’t write in your Bible, fine. But if you like to make notes in your Bible, just put Barack Obama’s name next to Psalm 58:8. I think this is a great verse for him –
[Psalm 58:8-11]’As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.’
`Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.’
`The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance:’ [Anderson ad-libs, `he shall wash his feet in the blood of Barack Obama.’ continues] I’m sorry, `he shall wash his feet in the wicked.’
`So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.’
Now look – we could sit there and say you know… and we’re only talking about one thing that we don’t like about Barack Obama. I could name for you a hundred things that he’s wrong on. I could name for you a hundred… [unintelligible ] We’re just talking about one aspect of it – the abortion that he’s fighting for, the murder that he’s fighting for.
What about the fact that he’s turning it into a communist nation ? That he wants to redistribute the wealth, like Levi Mordachai – also known as Karl Marx ? And his Communist Manifesto – [He] wanted to redistribute the wealth. You know, you think I want taken the wealth that I go out and work by the sweat of my face and the sweat of my brow and give it to some lazy jerk in the ghetto, somewhere, who’s never gone to work in their life ?
I don’t care whether you like that or not, it’s wicked. God said to the man that works, `if a man will not work neither shall he eat.’ That’s what the Bible preaches. Why should I go out and work so that some fat slob in the ghetto can get fat off of my food stamps that I’m paying for and EBT – you know, [to audience], what, is it – EBT ? You know, `I want Domino’s Pizza’ – we’ve got a big sign, `We Accept EBT.’ You know what I mean ? And they probably deliver it on EBT. They don’t even have to leave the house, my friend, they’ll get the pizza delivered to them.
And, you pay for it. It’s wicked, it’s stealing. You say, `It’s not a moral issue.’ – Uh… last time I checked, stealing’s a moral issue. Take money out of my pocket and give it to somebody else – isn’t that in the Ten Commandments ? Oh, you know, you just care about these financial issues, gotta care about the moral issues… financial issues are moral issues my friend. Somebody takes money out of my bank account – it’s immoral. OK ? It’s wrong.
Now, let’s keep reading, let’s get back to the Bible here.
So many other things that we don’t like about Barack Obama. Does anybody… let’s have a little open forum here. Is there a man — and, only men speak in this church — is there a man here that can tell me something else that’s wicked about Barack Obama tonight ? Do you have some other policy that you think is wicked ?
[audience member] – Pro queer.
[Anderson] – Gay rights. Thank you, sir. All right, this is great. Gay rights. — interactive preaching with pastor Anderson — gay rights, right ? Promoting the Sodomites. Pushing not only that but a sodomite agenda in schools. Schools teaching sodomite curriculum. Teaching alternative lifestyles. See, your five-year olds, your six-year olds, you seven year olds… [you] say they don’t start that young.
Well you know what ? – You only have to drive two hours, my friend. Get in your car and drive two hours and you’ll be in California. And it’s by law being taught in elementary school in the earliest grades. Only drive two hours to get there !
What else ? What other wicked policies in Barack Obama’s policies besides promoting sodomites and pedophiles and perverts ? Besides murdering children ? Besides wealth redistribution and communist stealing of the property of hard working men and women – and to pay for lazy jerks to get rich off them and to sit around and, and – you say `nobody gets rich’ – oh yeah ? I grew up in South Sacramento California and people got rich off welfare. Because there will be people living in a house – a whole bunch of people would get together in a house, they’re all on Welfare, and this was back in the 1980’s, this was a big thing that was going on. Who’s ever heard of the `Home Invasion Robbery’ ? Has anybody ever heard of it ?
It’s when somebody jumps through the front window of the house, just busts in , runs in, you know – ransacks the house, steals everything and gets out of there with a bunch of guys. Gang violence – it’s what we’re talking about.
You know… and, this has nothing to do with race. I’m so sick and tired of people calling me a racist for being against Barack Obama. You know, I thought we were past that in this country. You know what I mean ? Let it go ! I love all people equally – red, yellow, black and white – they’re Christians inside – I’ve won more black people to the Lord, probably, than I’ve won white people to the Lord my friend. I love black people, I want to see them saved. I want to get them the Gospel. I have very close friends, right now, that are black.
One of my best friends is black. But, you know what ? I’m not going to sit there and dwell on it and cry about it. Let’s get over it. They’re perpetuating the hatred between races by bringing it up all the time. Oh WOW – you know, the first black president ! No he’s not – he’s white.
He’s just as white as he is black. He’s half black, half white. But, yet, he’s just BLACK, BLACK, BLACK. Why not say he’s white ? I mean, if he’s half black and half white, I’m going to say he’s white. That’s the half I want to chase ! You know ?
I’m calling him a white man. We have a white president coming in, my friend.
He’s WHITE !
Don’t tell me he’s black, he’s WHITE
His mom is WHITE. Her mom is WHITE ! Her dad is WHITE ! His parents are WHITE.
He’s a WHITE MAN !
Barack Obama is WHITE… DEAL with it !”
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“what I resent and will continue to resent is the notion that adults with 4 to 6 decades of experience stomping the terra are vulnerable to trading in our entire world view because someone like sassy shows up and pasts a few bible verses on a blog.”
GWLSM,
There is nothing I can add to this summation of what are also my own feelings on the subject save that I have found myself enraged when approached on the street by some pimply faced “Jews for Jesus” types, Christian proselytizers, or LDS teenagers on a mission. I am not one to quickly lose my temper, but the smug stupidity of their attempts is something I find insufferable.
As to Sassy, my guess is she’s a recent convert and thus uses her verses to protect her from what she’s as impulses from her baser nature.
martin writes: It seems to me that so many of the people who are identified as “hate speakers” are assumed to have, even be filled by, the emotion of hate. When I look at them, I don’t see it, and, of course, being in a “state of hatred” is not a legal element of hate crimes.
maybe its time to take a closer and longer look at the history of hate, political hate, social hate. not “I hate New Coke” but “I have blacks and jews and asians and hispanics. I don’t come clean with this in most places, but when I find like-minded folks, we like to talk about these others being inferior and would love to be able to do something about it”
these people don’t run around with pitchforks, faces twisted in wretched emotion. they seem normal and rational most of the time. they go to work and love their kids. they are ordinary people. they are your neighbors. the people who own shops in your town. they may be your kid’s pediatrician or your tax attorney or your pastor. and when they feel that they just can’t take it anymore, the jewish banking conspiracy or illegal hispanics doing all that yard work and charging “white” rates, or uppity blacks in national office they act out. maybe they use words only.
maybe this escalates.
but it is still bigotry and hate and they are very adept at passing their prejudice through the generations until their superstitions and beliefs of inferiority of the “other” are finally granted permission to be acted upon.
mespo writes: Sassy is a mindless reciter of cherry-picked passages hoping for some cache among this crowd. Good luck to her. Her best advice was if you don’t like what she has to mouth, don’t read it. Done and done.
what I resent and will continue to resent is the notion that adults with 4 to 6 decades of experience stomping the terra are vulnerable to trading in our entire world view because someone like sassy shows up and pasts a few bible verses on a blog.
evangelists, the worst sort, always think that they have the secret key… the magic sequence of bible verses that will affect the change they seek in others, that will bring our error into sharp relief and compel us to believe as they do, worship as they do.
it isnt like we all have not been given the adult choice to transfer our religious or spiritual beliefs. we are not idiots. we were not reared in the forest by wolves. we know what the church is and who the church claims jesus was. we have the option to to enter any christian house of worship at any time or check into a hotel and open the bible they stash in the drawer for such occasions. the world does not need evangelicals ringing doorbells. maybe this was the only way, the best way to sell their product 1700 years ago. it is isn’t anymore. we have christian tv now. or we can just pop into Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility to check it out for ourselves.
I really dislike being told what I should do, what I need to do and what my current beliefs or lack thereof are doing to anyone else. I don’t ignore. I don’t.
GWLawSchoolMom RE: you asked a question. I gave an answer.
Fair enough.
I don’t quite agree though; maybe that is the problem.
It seems to me that so many of the people who are identified as “hate speakers” are assumed to have, even be filled by, the emotion of hate. When I look at them, I don’t see it, and, of course, being in a “state of hatred” is not a legal element of hate crimes.
MIke S:
Anyone who tells us all with utter conviction and supreme confidence in their omniscience that God said this or that has narrowed their mind to such a sliver that no prying by your logic is likely to make it budge. Sassy is a mindless reciter of cherry-picked passages hoping for some cache among this crowd. Good luck to her. Her best advice was if you don’t like what she has to mouth, don’t read it. Done and done.
“Why didn’t they receive Jesus?”
Sassy,
Jews didn’t receive Jesus because his message came from Paul, an admitted Roman Citizen, who had never known Jesus. You are probably unaware of this, though you should be, that the Jews were among the most rebellious of the peoples against the Roman Empire. They hated Rome and they hated Romans. Why do you think James the Just sent Paul to go preach to the “goyim?” Jesus disciples knew Jesus best and knew he believed in Judaism and they also understood Paul was preaching what to them was false truths. If the Gospels have some truth to them then most probably Jesus was a Pharisee Rabbi, who were the ones leading the revolts against Rome.
However, it all got screwed up when after Paul’s success preaching something that had nothing to do with Judaism or the Torah gained converts, when Constantine needed allies to become emperor. He took over Christianity and beginning at the council of Nicaea changed it into a mixture of sun worship, Mithraic legend (the “God” Mithra’s traditional birth date was 12/25) and edited versions of the Torah and Gospels to de-Judaize them. Now that’s admittedly the Jewish point of view so you can take it or leave it, the historical data is fairly valid.
The upshot is that Jews are happy with their religion, thank you and we don’t believe in an afterlife per se. We believe that good should be done on Earth and we don’t believe in original sin. I’m not trying to convert you, or to tell you one way is better than another, merely trying to broaden your outlook and responding to your annoying smugness of belief, which is incidentally of itself one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Believe as you want to believe, but don’t try to take away anyone else’s right to believe as they choose. Also too, if you don’t find Anderson’s Preachings hateful, I suspect that
the afterlife might surprise you.
gyges writes: I was sincere in thanking you. Like I said, you beat me to the punch. You’re preaching to the choir.
right back atcha, doll.
Martin writes: I didn’t include these because Christians feel that salvation comes through faith, not through the law, and Christ came to save. So how could his greatest teaching be the Law? Is He a rabbi, then? Just a thought.
depending on which Jew you talk to you will get a different response. some Jews like me think that it is unlikely that jesus ever lived and if he did was not any nominal sort of Jew at all let alone a rabbi.
others believe he was a great man, a teacher and possibly a rabbi.
what this suggests is that there is no consensus in the jewish community and likely never will be.
Mr. Anderson’s flock could have been expected to support his position. This is an independent church which answers to no hierarchy. The congregants attend because the pastor’s views provide pseudo-theological justification for their own. He in turn is enjoying the momentary fame and likely is experiencing membership growth. But his preaching appears to have long since crossed the line between even a loose definition of religious practice and political advocacy.
martin writes: I get uncomfortable with mindreading. I know that one does have to look to motives.
you asked a question. I gave an answer.
I was not mindreading. I just happen to know people like this pastor.
want another answer? ask a different question.
GLSM,
I was sincere in thanking you. Like I said, you beat me to the punch. You’re preaching to the choir.
Martin,
The historic Jesus probably would have been a rabbi (assuming the Jesus of the Bible is based roughly off of a person that at one point existed). The mythic Jesus? He probably had his rabbihood de-emphasized and eventually removed throughout the various incarnations of Christian doctrines for a variety of reasons (mostly anti-Jewish sentiment). So the modern incarnation of mythic Jesus? Not a rabbi.
I don’t think the first is particularly relevant to this conversation, and I try to resist any urge to talk theology so don’t really want to get into the second. I use the words “mythic Jesus” so you should be able to figure out why.
Sassy writes: GWLawSchoolMom, it you don’t like what I write, don’t read it!
yeah, you know? I thought of that. and then I decided because I think for myself, to reject that notion. I decided instead to ask you not to preach here.
do what you will.
the more you preach the more you come off as a hyper religious robaton with no original ideas of your own.
Gyges writes: GLSM,
To be fair, Sassy was preaching at me. I’ve never been one to hold a begrudge somebody beating me to the punch, so thank you.
yeah. you know? I don’t really care who Sassy was preaching to.
This stuff comes into my home just like it comes into your home.
I don’t like it.
I get that this is what public means, that you sometimes have to deal with stuff you don’t want to hear or see because it’s public and I know my choices are to stay and take it or leave.
I chose a third choice: to tell Sassy that I don’t care for this style of communication because it has nothing to do with him/her. it isn’t opinion. it isn’t original. it isn’t an idea that stimulates others to have ideas of their own.
it’s just preaching. and its tiresome and tacky.
tmaxPA Re: It is not a person (yet)
When is it a person?
Budda is Laughing re: carpentry
Luke 12:51
Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.
Gyges
Thanks for your comment.
The passage is
I didn’t include these because Christians feel that salvation comes through faith, not through the law, and Christ came to save. So how could his greatest teaching be the Law? Is He a rabbi, then? Just a thought.
GWLawSchoolMom
I get uncomfortable with mindreading. I know that one does have to look to motives.
SASSY
My last name is Gugino, not Gugina.
I see all the bible quotes, but how do you apply them to this case? I wasn’t clear what you were driving at. Can you say it in a sentence or two, possibly?
I have to thank the good insane preacher for pointing this out; 12 years of parochial school and nobody ever mentioned this passage.
What this sounds like to me is an explanation, to all our regressive right wing religionist moralizing yahoo friends, that a baby which is unborn melts away like a snail. It is not a person (yet), it has not been killed (murdered), there is no lasting damage to God’s eternal order done by abortion.
I always kind of figured there must be something in the Bible spelling this out, since most of the Jews that I know are very rational people, but I didn’t know where.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you never suppress free speech, even the vile sort that is trying to stir up violence against elected officials.