Every time I hear a nonsensical rant from the Evangelical Right on the Texas Massacre that took the lives of at least 26 people, I think it can get no worse. This one beats them all.
To stop action on the virtual monthly carnage, these Right Wingers must indoctrinate their following to some meaning for the slaughter to forestall gun legislation.
Lutheran Pastor and contributor to the Right Wing rag The Federalist, Hans Fiene, wrote a piece titled “When The Saints Of First Baptist Church Were Murdered, God Was Answering Their Prayers” where he makes some of the most unbelievable statements.
Early in his piece, he gets political.
People of goodwill can certainly disagree over the merits of gun control legislation, just as we can disagree over how long we should wait after a tragedy to discuss its political ramifications.
It is then that he makes the most outlandish claim. He first assumes that those who do not follow his form of Christianity just don’t get it. Then he articulates a claim he could not possibly back up.
It’s also an act of profound ignorance. For those with little understanding of and less regard for the Christian faith, there may be no greater image of prayer’s futility than Christians being gunned down mid-supplication. But for those familiar with the Bible’s promises concerning prayer and violence, nothing could be further from the truth. When those saints of First Baptist Church were murdered yesterday, God wasn’t ignoring their prayers. He was answering them.
He then attempts to validate the veracity of his claim that God was doing the will of the Texans because at some time they may have asked to be delivered from evil.
“Deliver us from evil.” Millions of Christians throughout the world pray these words every Sunday morning. While it doesn’t appear that the Lord’s Prayer is formally a part of the worship services at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, I have no doubt that members of that congregation have prayed these words countless times in their lives.
When we pray these words, we are certainly praying that God would deliver us from evil temporally—that is, in this earthly life. Through these words, we are asking God to send his holy angels to guard us from those who would seek to destroy us with knives and bombs and bullets. It may seem, on the surface, that God was refusing to give such protection to his Texan children. But we are also praying that God would deliver us from evil eternally. Through these same words, we are asking God to deliver us out of this evil world and into his heavenly glory, where no violence, persecution, cruelty, or hatred will ever afflict us again.
Under this precept wouldn’t this means all Christians are asking to be annihilated? Later in the article, he said the following.
So when a madman with a rifle sought to persecute the faithful at First Baptist Church on Sunday morning, he failed. Just like those who put Christ to death, and just like those who have brought violence to believers in every generation, this man only succeeded in being the means through which God delivered his children from this evil world into an eternity of righteousness and peace. …
Despite the horror that madman made the saints of First Baptist endure, those who endured it with faith in Christ have received his victory. Although the murderer filled their eyes with terror, God has now filled them with his glory. Although he persecuted them with violence, God seized that violence and has now used it to deliver his faithful into a kingdom of peace. Although this madman brought death to so many, God has used that death to give them the eternal life won for them in the blood of Jesus.
How does one believe this play on words? He ends his article as follows.
Those who persecute the church and those who mock Christians for trusting in Almighty God rather than Almighty Government may believe that the bloodshed in Texas proves the futility of prayer. But we believers see the shooting in Texas as proof of something far different—proof that Christ has counted us worthy to suffer dishonor for his name and proof that no amount of dishonor, persecution, or violence can stop him from answering our prayer to deliver us from evil.
The people who allow themselves to be captured by this thought process are simply misled. They were eased into this form of illogical thinking over time. It is for this reasons that it is so difficult to reach them with logical reasoning. This pastor’s job is to make an entire group of Right Wing Evangelicals feel at peace with a nation where this carnage occurs frequently. They don’t need secular gun control legislation. After all, if you are killed, it is God’s will.
Hans Fiene bio claims he is the creator of Lutheran Satire, a series of comical videos intended to teach the Lutheran faith. While his most recent article might seem like satire, unfortunately, it is not.