Pastor Charles Worley’s novel idea of rounding up all gay people and putting them in what would essentially be a concentration camp may look barbaric to any sane people, but there don’t appear to be many such people in his congregation. They love the idea.
Members of Providence Road Baptist Church are standing behind Pastor Charles Worley and the sermon he delivered earlier this month calling for the elimination of the gay population.
Geneva Sims said she’s been listening to Worley preach the Gospel since the 1970s. She wasn’t surprised by the 71-year-old pastor’s now infamous sermon. In fact, she supports him and his message.
“He had every right to say what he said about putting them in a pen and giving them food,” said Sims. “The Bible says they are worthy of death. He is preaching God’s word.”
Providence Road Baptist Church member Stacey Pritchard agreed.
“Sometimes you’ve got to be scared straight,” she explained. “He is trying to save those people from Hell.”
Pritchard said Worley’s message isn’t one of hate. Instead, she interpreted it as tough love guided by Good Book.
Well sure, it’s very loving. If any of these people have ever read 1984, they clearly took the newspeak as an instruction manual.
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wheatdogg
May 27, 2012 at 10:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dear Geneva,
I have just received the Word of the Lord.
There is nothing in the Bible about deviled eggs being godly. The very name contains the name of the Evil One. Therefore, makers and lovers of deviled eggs should be put in concentration camps. Tomorrow. And fed a constant diet of Jell-O fruit desserts and egg salad on white bread.
The Lord has spoken.
Any comments?
{sarcasm ends}
D. C. Sessions
May 27, 2012 at 10:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Concentration camps for those who merit any of the (multitudinous) Levitical death penalties? Makes sense. Let’s start with carrying things on Saturday.
reverendrodney
May 27, 2012 at 11:07 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
As a southpaw I live in constant trepidation of these people gaining traction, taking a few pages from church history, and forming a neo-Inquisition that would eliminate not only gays and heretics and herb-gathering women but left handed people!
Who Knows?
May 27, 2012 at 11:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This should not be surprising. After all, Christians beleive that a just God is one that sentences people to an eternity of unimaginable torture. Burning people alive and torturing them here on earth makes sense. After all, we were made in the image of God.
footface
May 27, 2012 at 11:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And here’s the charming Ms. Pritchard talking with Anderson Cooper: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUXDKnL4xGE
markmcglone
May 27, 2012 at 11:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The bible and this pastor says they should be killed. How would killing people save them from hell?
Michael Heath
May 27, 2012 at 12:17 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I expect a lot of, “Worley’s no true Christian” assertions, even from conservative Christians. However surveys already reveal that people define evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity by it’s anti-gay bigotry; even young evangelicals concede in these polls that this is an attribute of the evangelical and fundamentalist sects. While Worley’s rhetoric is extreme, it’s based on the same premises and approach to thinking used by those Christians who [falsely] argue they “love the sinner while hating the sin”.
Who Knows?
May 27, 2012 at 12:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wasn’t the theory back in the day that suffering the flames at the stake, saved them from the flames of hell? I think there are still some that believe being executed is enough to save someone from hell.
criticaldragon1177
May 27, 2012 at 12:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ed Brayton,
Worley and his flock are messed up.
criticaldragon1177
May 27, 2012 at 12:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
markmcglone and Who Knows?
I’m not sure he cares about saving them from hell. Anyone who could think up something like this doesn’t really care much if about those he deems as “sinners.”
TCC
May 27, 2012 at 2:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I don’t think this is necessarily a “no true Scotsman” argument. The full quote:
The only thing that seems objectionable is the final statement by Childers; the rest is basically factual observation about the effects of this kind of speech (it hurts the perception of the church and pushes away young people from Christianity).
sunsangnim
May 27, 2012 at 9:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think Anderson Cooper would rather be reporting from a war zone than trying to have a rational conversation with that woman. Her incoherent ramblings make Sarah Palin look like a great orator.
'Tis Himself
May 27, 2012 at 9:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I really wonder how wide a stance Worley takes in public rest rooms. Has he ever had his luggage lifted?
Chris from Europe
May 27, 2012 at 9:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@sunsangnim
It might also be safer for him in a warzone than at this church.
dan4
May 27, 2012 at 9:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Worley, Sims, and Pritchard fit the classic caricature of the brainless, bigoted Southerner.
Rike
May 27, 2012 at 11:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
By suggesting to put a fence around all the gay men, isn’t Worley pretty much supporting the gay lifestyle?
I’m wondering if in the back of his mind he is looking at that like an ideal play ground? Maybe he is thinking that ‘by mistake’ he might get caught inside the fence, and there, being with all these guys and no woman in sight – maybe god might forgive him if he ‘were forced to do the unspeakable’….
criticaldragon1177
May 28, 2012 at 12:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Rike
You wrote,
—————————————————————
By suggesting to put a fence around all the gay men, isn’t Worley pretty much supporting the gay lifestyle?
—————————————————————
No he’s not. By suggesting that we lock up all gay people and let them die in what would basically be a prison, Pastor Worley is suggesting that we put all gay people in camps for the crime of being gay, force them to stay there and let them die in there. He’s hardly supporting the gay lifestyle when he suggests something like this.
Marcus Ranum
May 28, 2012 at 1:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I feel the love from here!!!
Looks like she’s got about an 8th grade education.
zmidponk
May 28, 2012 at 8:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Something occurs to me – if we agreed to this, but persuaded them to expand the group of folk who should be fenced off to ‘all gay people and all those who don’t advocate torture and/or death to gay people’, and also pointed out that the camp should be sufficiently large to accommodate the folk concerned, this may very well mean that most of America is this camp, and those ‘outside’ the camp live in one relatively small area, surrounded by electrified fences and guard towers.
Anybody see a downside to that?
democommie
May 28, 2012 at 9:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
““When they see this type of rhetoric coming from a so-called Christian pastor,”
That certainly looks like an NTS argument to me.