Arizona Pastor Says Paris Attack Victims Had It Coming: ‘They Were Wicked In The Sight Of God’
Terrorists and their cohorts have some unexpected company in their revelry over the wanton destruction wrought by last week’s Paris attacks. An Arizona-based pastor recently posted a jaw-dropping sermon online in which he implicitly blames the victims of the terror attacks for their own misfortune.
Stephen Anderson, head of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, harangued the victims of the Paris shootings and bombings – and indeed, the entire nation of France – in an almost hour-long rant from the pulpit entitled “The Sinful Nation of France.” The sermon is posted in its entirety on YouTube.
Although Anderson initially described the Paris attacks as a “terrible massacre,” he leveled heavy-handed denouncements at the band Eagles of Death Metal and their fans, who were attacked at the Bataclan Theater. The assault at Bataclan resulted in the most deaths of any single scene in the city-wide attacks in Paris. The shootings and bombings inside the Bataclan claimed at least 87 lives, including the aforementioned band’s manager. Many other concertgoers were seriously injured.
Anderson went on to say that he was not condoning the Paris attacks per se, but he proceeded to denounce Jesse Hughes as a “drug-pushing hillbilly f*****t.” He also said that he did a Google Image search of the Eagles of Death Metal, describing the band to his followers as “total Sodomite-looking freaks.”
After another outburst of loathing directed at Eagles of Death Metal, Anderson turned his attention to the French people, in general, explaining his opinion that France is a mired in a host of “sinful” practices. In comments transcribed by Raw Story and other outlets, Steven Anderson juxtaposed the death toll of the Paris attacks to abortion statistics from France and other nations.
“All of us over here in Tempe, Arizona… we’re supposed to be mourning today about these 120-some people who died in France, but we’re not supposed to give a rip about the 500 babies that France aborted today. That doesn’t matter.”
“…[T]he judgment of God today is upon the sinful nation of France. That’s why France is suffering tonight. Because they’re wicked in the sight of God. Because they’ve hated the Lord.”
Like the Westboro Baptist Church, which has attracted international attention by staging anti-gay protests at high-profile funerals and other public events, Steven Anderson’s Faithful Word Baptist Church is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Among the incidents cited by SPLC regarding Anderson’s engagement of hate speech include his claim that gays and lesbians should receive the death penalty. Earlier this year, he posted a sermon online praying that Caitlyn Jenner’s heart would be pulled from her chest and explode.
Stephen Anderson also threw a bit of shade at Muslims during his sermon, although proportionally speaking, there was a lot less time spent denouncing the attackers than their victims. Anderson described Islam as “a horrible culture… a horrible religion,” adding that “it’s of Satan.”
Anderson was not the only person to lash out with jaw-dropping indignation following the Paris attacks. WWE Hall of Famer Tamara Lynn “Sunny” Sytch took to Facebook to call for a “second Holocaust” that would extinguish all 1.6 Muslims (half a billion of them children) from the face of the earth. She later apologized, suggesting her advocacy of genocide was the product of her “off-color” sense of humor.
[Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images]
