How (Some) Preachers Hurt the Cause of Christ

Posted by Lorren on August 30, 2009

Most people have heard of the Phelps family and their supposed “Baptist” church that pickets military funerals and tells everyone that God hates gay people.  Evidently, we have a new Baptist preacher, not too far away from where I live, in Tempe Arizona, that thinks that it’s okay to pray for Obama’s death.

In this YouTube video, he preaches on how he hates Barack Obama, and he also thinks that gays should get the death penalty (although he calls them another 3 letter word that starts with f and means cigarette in the U.K.). He brings up Psalm 58, written by David where he prays for his enemies to melt away like slugs and have their teeth broken in.

David was from the Old Testament. Although God does not change, there were some changes made between the Old and the New Testaments. For example, we are now allowed to eat pork, while they were not allowed to in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, Israel was its own nation and made its own laws. Our country is not a theocracy, and neither was ancient Rome. Jesus also taught that we need to love our enemies, and pray for them. Bless, and do not curse.

Are there problems in our government? Are there people that are less than honest in our government? More than likely. But they are our leadership, and as long as what we are told to do does not go against the Bible, we’re supposed to follow it (that’s from Romans somewhere). Instead of praying for curses to fall on someone, why don’t we pray for their salvation? As long as someone still lives, they still have the ability to turn their lives around and live for God.

By praying for evil to happen to any of our leaders, we make Christians look bad. I was just reading in the book of Acts, after Paul goes to prison. He was taken before Festus and Agrippa, and they said to themselves that he had done nothing worth putting him to death for, but he had appealed to Caesar, so he had to go to Rome rather than be acquitted. We need to live the lives where people can say nothing bad about us.

This doesn’t mean not to speak up for what is right. But we should pray for good to happen, and for God to work even in people that we don’t like as much.