Pastor Disaster
If you haven’t heard of Steven Anderson, he’ll be greatly disappointed. The pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Ariz., Anderson has courted infamy by calling for gays to be stoned to death.
His pronouncements are so vile that many nations won’t allow him entry. Last year Australia became the 33rd country to ban him.
If you’ve been gay for more than five minutes, you can smell where I’m headed. Toward that ever-popular connection between LGBT people and natural catastrophes.
Along with a link to a sermon of Anderson’s titled “Natural Disasters as Judgment from God,” his church recently posted these words on its Facebook page: “Maybe if Australia weren’t banning and deporting preachers of the Gospel, they wouldn’t be under the judgment of God.”
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There we are. So offended that Australia wouldn’t let Anderson in, God is murdering people, burning homes and slaughtering a mind-boggling number of animals, because he’s just that kind of deity. The vengeful Old-Testament kind who responds to a slight to one of his boys by setting fire to koalas.
I’d rather worship one of the koalas.
As a rule, I believe preachers of Anderson’s ilk are decidedly egotistical or insecure, or both. But with this declaration, he now looks like a full-fledged narcissist: God is burning a continent on his behalf.
As Christmas presents go, that’s way more impressive than a tie.
God chose to torch Australia because the country forbade a preacher from offering up hate speech about LGBT people. Which means, at base, we’re the cause of the disaster. As usual.
I’d like to know when headquarters is going to let me in on the secret to causing weather events. On the days when I don’t feel like going to work, how handy to be able to whip up a nice blizzard. In August.
