“I don’t hate anyone, I am just speaking truth in love.” This is what I am told by some of my fundamentalist “friends” when I suggest that individuals in the LGBT community feel hated by Christians. May I suggest to these sincere friends that their words and the words of those that claim to speak for God betray them.
Four examples here will suffice…
1. Sean Harris, pastor of Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, NC advocated punching in the stomach and cracking the wrist of an effeminate acting child. Later he said it was just a joke. A pastor giving special “dispensation” for parents to beat a gay or transgender child was a joke?
2. Rounding up lesbians and queers, putting them behind electrified fences, dropping in a little food and letting them die off in a few years is Pastor Charles Worley’s solution the homosexual problem. His church, Providence Road Baptist Church in NC defended him. I think that is “solution” was tried once before on a different group of people.
3. Another Pastor apparently doesn’t want to waste time or money by allowing homos to wither away in concentration camps. Curtis Knapp pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Seneca, Kansas thinks that the government, like Israel of old, should step in and execute members of the LGBT community.
And finally, number four. I have to say that this one is most disturbing to me because while the others exude vile words of hate, this one illustrates how some churches actually teach children to hate by exalting hate as righteousness.This church, pastored by Jeff Sangl is Apostolic Truth Tabernacle in Indiana. Here is the YouTube clip.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/p4LHw3KWS9A
Admittedly this video made me cry, not only because it shows adults cheering and applauding a child learning to hate, but because it shows how far removed the church is from the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how it is teaching children something other than unconditional love and grace.
These four snippets of church teaching took place in May of this year. None of them have anything to do with Jesus, God, and the Gospel. Three of them promote violence against people living in the LGBT community. One of them teaches a 3-year-old child to hate.
So to my fundamentalist friends who say that they love everyone…I don’t believe you. If you did, you would condemn and admonish those that continue to perpetrate the corruption of the Gospel.
But you won’t.
And because you won’t you have become the pharisees you claim you are not by placing heavy burdens on those outside the church and doing shit to help them. You drive people away from the God who loves, you condemn, and ridicule, and berate others and call it love. You are blind guides, clanging cymbals, and fancy tombs full of death and putrification.
may God have mercy on your souls.
I am ashamed, and to those in the LGBT community, I offer a sincere apology. This is not how it is supposed to be. There is something much greater in the Gospel.
Musings of a "not so good" Christian 
“So to my fundamentalist friends who say that they love everyone…I don’t believe you. If you did, you would condemn and admonish those that continue to perpetrate the corruption of the Gospel.”
Neither do I believe them and the true artfulness of the deception is that they think they are telling the truth.
I have heard people say “the truth hurts.” It seems like they will use any justification to be and sound angry and hateful. Somehow speaking ” the truth” in love gets lost in their translation. Maybe they don’t understand that if the person hearing them speak their “truth” doesn’t feel or hear love, the speaker has failed to speak in love. For communication to happen, the person hearing must receive the intended message from the sender. If the hearer hears anything other than the intended message, miscommunication has happened. And so I am with you, Mark, I do not believe them when the say they love everyone.
I don’t know. I think very few people hate with that kind of hate. I have also heard conservative leaders repudiate these “preachers.”
The Disciple Paul said it best, “Love does no harm to it’s neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” Romans 13:10
I wish there was a version of this excellent note that didn’t include the word “sh*t” – those four letters make me reluctant to share this where the middle school kids I volunteer with at church, would see it. I’m not saying the choice of words was inappropriate – I’m just saying that it makes sharing with young teens harder …
Some humans have a need to be righteous. It is a need that can never be fulfilled except by Grace through Messiah. at some subconscious level are we all aware of this truth, and many choose to expiate feelings of guilt for their own sins and failings by focusing on the perceived sins and failings of others. It hurts, but it is the truth. “Judge not, lest ye be judged, for with what judgement you judge, you will be judged, and with what measure you use, it will be measured back to you”. In the name of Jesus Christ I condemn these men as speakers of evil and deception. May their own evil fall upon their heads, and may God strike them down for speaking a false Gospel.
i agree with leanne.
Mark, watching the video made me feel sick!
I cannot understand how people who say they believe in God can treat their fellow beings with such disdain.
Sadly, it is not just the LGBT community that suffer, in my own place of work, our clinic is closing, with no other service being offered to our Addiction/Homeless friends .(Not due to lack of funding, nor staff – shortage – just because the powers that be, want to ignore and forget them…and these are the very people who need their help
In God’s eyes everyone matters and is unique and loved.
I so wish my colleagues and some Churches (thankfully there are some great Church loving folk out there) could see my friends in the LGBT and all who are looked down upon could see them through the eyes of Jesus.
We are all loved and equal in His sight
Thanks for the writing and hope you are doing ok too
Thank you for taking the courage and boldness to externalize your thoughts and experiences out to us. You and the “Christians Tired of Being Misrepresented” Facebook Group have kept me alive in spirit on this path seeking God. You all have broken down stereotypes and the hate of people and allowed me to continue my journey of faith.