It’s not out of the question to hear a pastor talk about how you can’t just preach hate; you have to tell people about Jesus!

But it’s downright weird to hear that message come out of the mouth of one of the most anti-gay hate-preachers in the country.

Pastor Steven Anderson of Arizona’s (independent fundamentalist) Faithful Word Baptist Church and the ringleader of the hate-based New IFB movement made the comment near the end of a sermon yesterday:

… you know, there are ministries online, all they do is just destroy, root out, pull down, throw down. You’re like, Man, I’m loving this hard preaching! This guy knows how to throw down! This guy really is ripping some face!… Okay, but is there any fruit? Is there any building going on? Is there any planting going on? Or is it just all negative, all the time? … Look, we could go on and on about examples. You know, one famous example is the Westboro Baptists. False prophet! The guy had a wrong salvation, wrong gospel, wrong doctrine, not saved, total heresy. And he’s just getting up and just ripping on homos all the time. But when did he ever get up and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ? Never. When did he ever have a positive message about reaching people with the gospel, winning souls, all the good things? Never. Why? Because he had no fruit. He’s without fruit, twice dead, he’s a tree whose fruit has withered…

A guy who helped organize a “Make America Straight Again” conference is slamming the late Fred Phelps for being too anti-gay.

I’m going to need a new irony meter since the one I had just exploded.

Again, what he’s saying isn’t necessarily wrong… it just doesn’t make any sense coming from a man whose anti-LGBTQ hate is so virulent and destructive, he’s been banned from 33 countries.

No one legitimately considers him a positive person in any meaningful way. He’s someone who celebrated the deaths of dozens of LGBTQ people at Pulse nightclub in Orlando by saying, “The good news [about the massacre] is that there’s 50 less pedophiles in this world, because… these homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles.” He also said the U.S. government should execute homosexuals by way of a firing squad because that’s what the Bible commands. (All of that is separate from his numerous misogynistic comments and Holocaust denialism.)

Pastor Stopped Clock ought to listen to his own advice.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)

