My wife told me a number of months ago that she sometimes fears that I am going to be imprisoned due to my being a faithful minister of Christ. If the Federal Hate Crimes legislation (S.909) passes the Senate, she very well may be right.
The legislation is crafted to include various sexual perversions (no, it is not sexual orientations, as the bill claims. They are perversions!) and is intended to prevent anyone speaking against them. The language of the bill seeks to prohibit speech that may lead to violence or other crimes against gays and their ilk, but the essence of it is to silence any opposition to the sexually deviant.
According to the law simply reading the book of Leviticus or Romans 1 could easily qualify as "inciting violence." While those passages do not exhort anyone to personally attack those who have transgressed God's norm, they speak strongly against homosexuality and other such sexual deviations. As a result anyone could accuse me of preaching hate.
I certainly believe that I will be the first in Ashland to be charged with having broken the law if it passes. I never would promote any sort of violence against any sinner (except that which self defence and the justice of the the civil magistrate demand), be they a homosexual, an adulterer, a fornicator, a shoplifter, or a murderer. But I stand upon the Word of God, and I do so boldly.
Ultimately, I know that I will be the object of a hate crime. Those who hate God will hate me, and they will attack me for faithfully proclaiming the truth of God's word. I understand that the God haters will do whatever is within their power to silence me and extinguish all traces of my Lord. But no matter what devious means they use I will stand on the side of righteousness, purity and love to the end.
5 comments:
1 John 4:7-21
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
Matt, where do you see this in the text of the bill that you linked to?
See section 10.3 for example-
"CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTIONS- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to prohibit any constitutionally protected speech, expressive conduct or activities (regardless of whether compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief), including the exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment and peaceful picketing or demonstration. The Constitution does not protect speech, conduct or activities consisting of planning for, conspiring to commit, or committing an act of violence"
Since preaching Romans 1 would, I presume include Paul's admonition that the charges laid out in chapter 1 are meant to indict Paul's Christian listeners as well (2:1ff) and you would presumably not be endorsing civilians taking up Old Testament law into their own hands and stoning people like me, I would think you are safe.
The motivation of this law also includes actual or perceived religious affiliation so it would mean that someone who targeted you or your church because they hate Christians would be penalized for those actions just as well.
I've seen some hints of misuse of hate crime legislation in Canada and Europe, but so far not in the US.
I am not sure why the previous commentor chose to simly quote a passage from I John.That same book of the Bible says that if we love God, we will not sin. Perhaps the commentor meant to say that if we truly love God, we not engage in homosexuality, theft, lying, adultery, etc. I hope the commentor reads the entire book of I John, rather than selective searching that many do. I do not understand why most pastors seem to remain silent on current issues that affect all of us, and am glad some at least one, Mr. Timmons, chooses to stand uponthe word of God rather than upon feelings and emotions alone. We should all be praying and calling our Senators to let them know we oppose this hate crimes legislation. Are Christians protected by this legislation? No, although they are much more often the victims of hate crimes than those who commit sin. To thosse who say we ought to love others, of course we should. We should not hate or encourage violence against those committing sexual perversions and abominations, but we certainly should not love and protect their sin, any more than we should ignore the crimes of a rapist or burglar. God, Who designed our bodies, knows what is right for them and for all of us. Let us follow Him rather than nice, warm, mushy unbiblical feelings.
ck, Hey, good to hear from you. I've been wondering if you were still out there.
I understand that the new bill has that line in it about protecting the constitutional freedoms of speech and belief. But hate crimes laws, by their nature, impede upon them.
Just so you know, it is not just the gender and sexual preference additions that irk me. I am against hate crimes altogether (even religous oriented hate crimes) for the fact that they seek to punish not only actions, but also beliefs.
The government already has laws that protect all Americans (no matter their race, creed, sex or sexual preference) from violence/bodily harm. Hate crimes laws open the door to go beyond acts, to words and beliefs.
In essence, once the government begins to punish beliefs, the beleif itself becomes wrong. So it will not be long until my reading and preaching is determined to be unacceptable.
C'mon, Matt - you took critical thinking courses at GCC!
"In essence, once the government begins to punish beliefs, the beleif itself becomes wrong. So it will not be long until my reading and preaching is determined to be unacceptable."
You haven't demonstrated that the hate crime bill punishes beliefs or that your preaching is going to be considered unacceptable. If you can show me that from the text of the bill, great - or other examples. Until then, I'm afraid you're reading into the bill based on your fears about persecution.
The goal of hate crime bills (and I'm not yet sure where I stand on the issue, so I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate) is to tamp down on crimes motivated by singling out certain groups because such crimes interfere with the welfare of society in a different way than other crimes. Widespread violence against racial or religious groups, for example, causes whole groups to live in fear, try to avoid living in certain places, etc.
Thus the goal as stated is to punish *crimes* where the motivation can be clearly shown to be based on such group-oriented prejudice.
The bill does not start with motives and then single out individuals for punishment. So again, if you 1) incite someone to violence or 2) attack someone, you would be in danger.
Otherwise, reading Romans 1 would not make you culpable! That is, unless you're going to follow it up with a plea for your members to drag gays into the street and beat them, which I highly doubt. Or, again, if you urge your community to institute OT law on their own, and begin stoning people. Which I doubt.
(Feel free to correct me if I've misunderstood what you're preaching...!)
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