{"id":593,"date":"2009-09-29T16:02:55","date_gmt":"2009-09-29T16:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/09\/stop-religious-hate-speech-aga.html"},"modified":"2009-09-29T16:02:55","modified_gmt":"2009-09-29T16:02:55","slug":"stop-religious-hate-speech-aga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/09\/stop-religious-hate-speech-aga.html","title":{"rendered":"Stop Religious and Political Hate Speech Against the President"},"content":{"rendered":"
***update***<\/div>\n
Read Thomas Friedman’s piece in today’s New York Times about the\u00a0parallels\u00a0between this time in America with President Obama and the time before Rabin was\u00a0assassinated\u00a0in Israel <\/a>in 1995. \u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

As Progressive Revival readers know, I am worried about the level of violent language that is being leveled at our President. \u00a0This article from Religious Dispatches<\/a> has brought me close to the edge of panic as I really am beginning to fear for our President’s life. \u00a0I missed this story when it first came out but someone recently brought it to my attention. \u00a0Reading that a christian “pastor” is leading his congregation by praying for our President’s death i<\/a>s repulsive and terrifying. \u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
But it is not only religious leaders – recently a sitting member of congress – Rep Trent Franks recently called the President an “enemy of humanity<\/a>.” \u00a0He said this at a so-called Values Conference!!! Rep. Franks was specifically talking about President Obama’s pro-choice position, but this is hardly an excuse. \u00a0The consequences of the rhetoric of death towards anyone who disagrees with the pro-life movement has been clearly demonstrated in the murder of Dr. George Tille<\/a>r. \u00a0<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Pastors and politicians should realize that their words are being listened to carefully. \u00a0According to the Southern Poverty Law Center,<\/a>\u00a0domestic terrorist groups such as the Patriots who carried out the Oklahoma bombings are reforming<\/a>. \u00a0All decent religious people should call upon their leaders to stop religious hate speech against the President. \u00a0If you hear it, confront it.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
See the article about the pastor praying for Obama’s death<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Chris Broughton, 28, made national news when he showed up to protest a speech by President Barack Obama in Phoenix, Arizona with an AR-15 automatic rifle slung over his shoulder and a handgun. While Broughton claims that his (apparently legal) actions were not meant to threaten the president, there was more to the story than a single citizen’s dubious actions and pronouncements. Local print and television coverage in Phoenix, and bloggers all over the country, have led the way on an interesting and important story of religion and politics that has been almost entirely ignored by the traditional media.<\/span>
Here is what they missed.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span>The night before Broughton’s fifteen minutes of fame, he attended a fiery Sunday sermon by his pastor, Rev. Steven L. Anderson, at Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. Rev. Anderson, also 28, explained not only “Why I Hate Barack Obama,” but also why he and God both want the president dead. “When I go to bed tonight,” Broughton’s pastor\u00a0declared<\/a>, “Steven L. Anderson is going to pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell.” He even goes so far as to\u00a0claim<\/a>\u00a0that:<\/span>
God appointed [Obama] to destroy this country for the wickedness of the United States of America. God appointed him because that’s what our country has turned into. That’s who we deserve as a president.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span>And yet, even though we may deserve Obama, Anderson urges his congregation to pray for the president’s death, issuing imprecatory prayers and repeatedly asking God to kill the president. Most dramatically, and in an interesting shift to the passive voice, he said Obama “ought to be aborted” because the president is pro-choice, and therefore a “murderer.” Despite all this Anderson has insisted to reporters that he was not calling for vigilante violence. Ditto for Broughton, who\u00a0told a reporter<\/a>\u00a0for the\u00a0Phoenix New Times<\/i>: “I don’t care how God does it, I’m not going into further detail than that,” said Broughton. “It would be better now than later.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

“However it happens, I’m going be happy that it happens,” he continued. “I’m gonna be a happy man… I would rejoice.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the entire story about religious hatred of the president here<\/a>
<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

***update*** Read Thomas Friedman’s piece in today’s New York Times about the\u00a0parallels\u00a0between this time in America with President Obama and the time before Rabin was\u00a0assassinated\u00a0in Israel in 1995. \u00a0 As Progressive Revival readers know, I am worried about the level of violent language that is being leveled at our President. \u00a0This article from Religious Dispatches…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,32,307],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-christians","category-prayer-and-ritual"],"yoast_head":"\nStop Religious and Political Hate Speech Against the President - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/09\/stop-religious-hate-speech-aga.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stop Religious and Political Hate Speech Against the President - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"***update*** Read Thomas Friedman’s piece in today’s New York Times about the\u00a0parallels\u00a0between this time in America with President Obama and the time before Rabin was\u00a0assassinated\u00a0in Israel in 1995. \u00a0 As Progressive Revival readers know, I am worried about the level of violent language that is being leveled at our President. \u00a0This article from Religious Dispatches…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/09\/stop-religious-hate-speech-aga.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-29T16:02:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Paul Raushenbush\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Stop Religious and Political Hate Speech Against the President - Progressive Revival","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/09\/stop-religious-hate-speech-aga.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Stop Religious and Political Hate Speech Against the President - Progressive Revival","og_description":"***update*** Read Thomas Friedman’s piece in today’s New York Times about the\u00a0parallels\u00a0between this time in America with President Obama and the time before Rabin was\u00a0assassinated\u00a0in Israel in 1995. \u00a0 As Progressive Revival readers know, I am worried about the level of violent language that is being leveled at our President. \u00a0This article from Religious Dispatches…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/09\/stop-religious-hate-speech-aga.html","og_site_name":"Progressive Revival","article_published_time":"2009-09-29T16:02:55+00:00","author":"Paul Raushenbush","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/09\/stop-religious-hate-speech-aga.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/09\/stop-religious-hate-speech-aga.html","name":"Stop Religious and Political Hate Speech Against the President - Progressive Revival","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-09-29T16:02:55+00:00","dateModified":"2009-09-29T16:02:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/09\/stop-religious-hate-speech-aga.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/09\/stop-religious-hate-speech-aga.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/09\/stop-religious-hate-speech-aga.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Stop Religious and Political Hate Speech Against the President"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/","name":"Progressive Revival","description":"Politics from the New Religious Progressives","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805","name":"Paul Raushenbush","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","caption":"Paul Raushenbush"},"description":"Rev. Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}