But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
-Matthew 5:44

Earlier today, I wrote an article describing the horrible things that a Phoenix pastor has been teaching his congregation. The article is here:
Phoenix pastor prays for President Obama's death?

This particular case has affected me greatly. I was upset all day. After hearing so many different opinions about this, I was awash in a sea of disbelief. I know that there are elements within the realm of Christendom that have extreme views, but I guess I didn't realize that there are actual Christian people who believe it is okay to pray that people die and go to hell. As if God, the author of the universe, who sent his Son so we could have eternal relationship with him, would be sitting on high, waiting to strike people dead at our whim. God does not do our will. He does his.

This breaks my heart. I can not easily explain how I feel about this. It has shaken me to the core. How many of you, out there, believe that God wants you to use the precious and powerful gift of prayer to beg of him your desire to see a man die at your behest and then be made to suffer the eternal penalty? Isn't it more in line with God's character to pray that a person repents and be saved? Does not God wish all of his children to be reconciled to him? President Obama included?

Does God exclude people on how we feel about the things they do, instead of the soteriological condition of their souls, which only he can discern? When we were lost in sin, does it comfort us to think that there were people ... Christian people ... who might have been praying for us to die and go to hell? When does that get fun?

All of this has caused me to really look closely at what it is we, as true Christians, are about. We can not be about both love and hate at the same time. We simply can not pray for the salvation of some and pray for the death and damnation of others. It does not stand. And I can not, nor will I ever, condone the type of doctrine or theology that allows a Christian to hate another human being to the point of begging our loving creator to murder them and destroy their soul forever. This is not the love of the Gospel of Jesus, and I can not allow it to aggregate, unchallenged.

If any of my readers think that this horrible behavior is okay, please ... email me and I will take all the time necessary to help you see why it is wrong.