Sunday I began preaching through the Letter of James. My first sermon in the series was entitled: “Overcoming Worthless Religion,” as in, “If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless” (James 1:26). I am sorry to report the following example of “worthless religion” that emerged on my computer screen this morning.

Seems a Phoenix-area pastor has started to draw protesters to his congregation after he delivered a sermon titled, "Why I Hate Barack Obama." The “pastor” told his parishioners that he prays for President Obama's death and encouraged them to join him in praying for the president's death. "I hope that God strikes Barack Obama with brain cancer so he can die like Ted Kennedy and I hope it happens today," pastor Steven Anderson told MyFOXPhoenix on Sunday.

He called his message "spiritual warfare" and said he does not condone killing. Huh? 

Apparently Pastor Anderson's inflammatory message stems in part from Obama's abortion-rights stance.  In Anderson's controversial sermon, delivered at his Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe before Obama arrived for a speech in Phoenix earlier in the month, the pastor said he wants the president to"melt like a snail" with salt on it.  "I'm gonna pray that he dies and goes to hell when I go to bed tonight. That's what I'm gonna pray," he told his congregation. 

The Anderson sermon also drew concern after it was reported that one man carrying an assault rifle outside the Phoenix arena where Obama spoke was a member of Anderson's church.  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/31/phoenix-pastor-draws-protests-telling-church-prays-obamas-death/

Anderson’s got it wrong. In the infamous words of Pogo: “We have met the enemy and it is us.”

James got it right: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27).

0 comment(s) so far...