Way wrong Christianity: Pastor prays for Obama's death

Maybe you've heard already about Pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. He's the nutcase (I'm choosing my words carefully dear readers) who has made headlines with his public sermon calling for God to smite President Barack Obama with brain cancer "so he can die like Ted Kennedy".

And then Anderson told his congregation this...

"I'm gonna pray that he (Obama) dies and goes to hell when I go to bed tonight. That's what I'm gonna pray."

(By the way, it's now being reported that Anderson has been visited by the Secret Service, parse that as you will.)

I know that Steven Anderson doesn't represent the vast majority of Christians in America. Just as I know that media sensationalism is likely to spin him as something more than what he really is... which in my opinion is just a petty thug who believes God has given him a mandate of hate.

But even so, I will be the first to admit that for too many Christians in this country, there is a very unhealthy and even un-biblical obsession with worldly politics.

Longtime readers of this blog know that I don't think much of what Barack Obama has done as President. And a lot of you know that I hold and still contend that George W. Bush was the worst President in American history (so far anyway).

Have either of these two meant anything to me - either negative or positive - as a follower of Christ? Not in the slightest.

Oh, I'll pray for Obama, just as I did for Bush, and just as I did for Clinton before them. But those prayers aren't significantly more or less than my prayers for anyone else in this country and in this world.

Because for good or ill, the office of President and every other institution of government is part of a world that we may have to live with, but as Christians we aren't meant to be living for. Those of us who follow Christ have been sent out into this realm as ambassadors for His kingdom, not to wage bitter battle for a carnal realm that is consigned to ultimate fire.

And then someone like Steven Anderson comes along, who demonstrates that obsession to the degree that he is willing to pray for Obama's death and damnation as opposed to Obama's salvation.

What does that speak of Christians and the faith we profess to have in God? Honestly, it's like Anderson doesn't have faith that God is capable of anything at all.

I know of too many Christians who rejoiced wrongly when Bush was President, and lament with equal or greater wrath about Obama being in the Oval Office. But in truth, it's not either of these men that have created or destroyed anything that might remain of virtue in America.

That is something that inevitably is the product of her people. And if the Christians of this land are incapable or unwilling to show forth the Christ that calls us to "love one another" and to pray for our enemies, then it is only ourselves as Christians whom God will hold accountable for the condition of this nation.