A Church Wants to Kill LGBTQIA2S+ People: A Baptist Church in Texas Really Doesn't Like Us

This title and article by Donald Padgett on advocate.com (Aug. 15, 2022), stood out to me as I was surfing the website: "Texas Residents Protest Church That Calls for Executing LGBTQ+ People." I can understand shunning us or excommunicating us, as do other evangelical non-denominational churches. But killing us? Executing us? Lining us up in a row and shooting a bullet into our heads because we are part of the LGBTQIA2S+ community?

Which Gospel does Jesus advocate such violence as killing people? Or Paul? Turning the other cheek if in a struggle, yes. Giving a person not only your shirt but coat if they are in need, yes. Loving one's neighbor and even our enemies, yes. There are all core Gospel practices. 

But shooting LGBTQIA2S+ people for simply being who we are, as God's good creation? Really?

The Stedfast Baptist Church in Wautaga, TX, has a history of threatening LGBTQIA2S+ people. That's why the church members have been evicted from other cities in TX. And concerned citizens have always protested this homophobic church every time they move into town. 

One of the pastors, Dillon Awes, has said that the Bible's solution for what he calls the "sodomite deception" is to have LGBTQIA2S+ people "lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head." 

In another sermon, Awes said that "gay men were predatory pedophiles who have either committed sex crimes against a child or just haven't had the opportunity to do so yet... We need to put these people to death through the proper channels of the government.

Another pastor of the church, Jonathan Shelley, has said in the past that "God's already ruled that murder, adultery, witchcraft, rape, bestiality, and homosexuality are crimes worthy of capital punishment."

Thankfully, people outside of the church protest the church during their services, twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday. "We're normal people," said Mandi Skinner with her partner Lynette Sharp. "We just live our lives every day. It just so happens that I love her and she loves me and neither of us owns a penis."

When the abusive language is brought to the attention of city officials in Wautaga, Police Chief Robert Parker said that "we've reviewed this--multiple cases, multiple sermons--and it fits within the Constitution and free speech." This is Chief Parker's rational for not arresting the church people, even though they are threatening LGBTQIA2S+ citizens of Wautaga. 

Here's a link to the article: https://www.advocate.com/news/2022/8/15/texas-residents-protest-church-calls-executing-lgbtq-people

Friends, we have to publicly call out such abusive language and threatening actions. As a matter of justice, we have to call out such evil in the world, name it, and call for it to cease. We need to go through every legal means possible to end this virulent form of hate. There is nothing within Holy Scripture that supports this kind of violence in the world against any group of people. And yes, it hearkens back to evil periods of world history.

May it be so.





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