OP - The Religious Hate

On August 29, 2009 President Barack Obama's visit to Phoenix, Arizona was hardly met with a smile and a wave of a mini-American flag by Pastor Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church. On the eve of the president's visit to the southwestern city, Anderson told his parishioners that he prayed for President Obama's death. More specifically, and graphically, he said that he hopes to see the president "melt like a snail," in the "salty solution" used in some abortions. 

In light of this news, all that comes to mind is John Lennon's immutable lyrics about a world without religion in "Imagine". Lennon's radical solution is a wonderful alternative to Pastor Anderson's (ab)use of scripture to bolster his hopes for Mr. Obama's untimely death.

"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too."

The odious sermons flowing from Anderson's church in Tempe, AZ since last month are fueling the flames of several political issues: pro-life vs. pro-choice, the limits of free speech and, to an extent, the separation of church and state.

Don't get me wrong, abortion and free speech are important issues whose discourse should be constant; but I find the fact that this man is a pastor, and a supposed man of God, incredibly disturbing. Has the role of religious leaders changed right under our increasingly secular noses?

Equally disturbing, some members of the congregation are apparently absorbing Anderson's message; one man who attends Faithful Word was spotted at a public reception for the president with a gun.

Others seem to be similarly shocked by the pastor's abhorrent preaching. According to the Associated Press, one protester remarked, "It's hard to believe that we could have someone of a religious nature sitting there saying that he wishes our president to be dead."

This is exactly what worries me. I was under the impression that religion exists to supply some serenity, and to combat the grim realities that the human race has faced since our Neolithic ancestors lived in little bands of hunter-gatherers hundreds of thousands of years ago-and no, I don't mean 6,000 a la creationism.

Anderson's sermons have been anything but sanguine spiritual ailments. I cannot speak for Anderson's entire congregation, but I would like to hear my pastor offer up a prayer for the millions of children who are starving to death, rather than setting this menacing example: "I'm gonna pray that [President Obama] dies and goes to hell," because of the president's pro-choice stance.

So what should we learn from this fiasco? Two things... One: There certainly is a time and place for everything. It's highly doubtful that, in a country that allows complete freedom of worship, praying for the President's "children [to] be fatherless, and his wife a widow" is respectful, appropriate or in any way Christian. Two: separation of church and state was a stroke of genius on Thomas Jefferson's part. We know from "V for Vendetta" and other dystopian tales that the infusion of religious ideology into state policy is potentially dangerous. From Steven Anderson's upsetting and caustic language, it's clear that blending political issues into church-chat produces equally disconcerting results.

Let's hope that all clergymen, who let their politics slip into their sermons, heed the advice on the sign of a woman protesting Anderson's hateful preaching, "You may hate Obama, but God still loves you and yo momma!"