Verity Baptist Church kicked out of property due to anti-LGBT comments made by pastor following Orlando shooting

….and hopefully this church takes the rebuke well. While I agree that all sexual sin—heterosexual or homosexual—is sin, I am in light of Matthew 5:28 very glad that we do not get what we deserve from our Lord immediately, nor do I commend those who would claim to work justice on His behalf.

I think this Jimenez is a protege or in some way connected to Steven Anderson, or maybe not.

p.s. how’s that for vagueness!

The Pastor said:

I think Orlando, Florida is a little safer tonight,” Jimenez said in the video. “The tragedy is more of them didn’t die … I’m kind of upset he didn’t finish the job.”

Jimenez obviously celebrated the deaths of the 49 individuals who were present at a gay nightclub. The pastor even continued with his anti-LGBTQ comments by saying that he would have wished to have the gays and lesbians be lined against a wall so that a firing squad would “blow their brains out.”

is Steven Anderson?

[Bert Perry]

Who is Steven Anderson?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithful_Word_Baptist_Church

http://sanderson1611.blogspot.com/

You don’t now who Steven Anderson is? Here is an anti-repentance, KJVO maniac. Here is a representative preaching sample from him; watch as he explains why the KJV rendering “pisseth against a wall” (1 Sam 25:22ff) upholds manliness.

What the pastor said is disgusting. But the trajectory now is if you say hateful things you can get kicked off the property you are leasing/renting. It’s already happened with churches meeting in schools in New York City and it will start happening more and more around the country as anything said opposing homosexuality will be considered “hate” speech.

The church has not been “thrown out” of their property. They have a lease through next April that they have NOT violated. The owner has stated that they will not renew the lease, and that they will not penalize them for leaving early.

IT WOULD BE A VIOLATION OF LAW for them to be thrown out for something the pastor said that was not illegal, whether you agree with that statement or not.

Leviticus 20:13

Psalm 58:10 …The righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they dip their feet in the blood of the wicked…

Jeremiah 16:4 …they will not be mourned….

Romans 1:32 …deserving of death,…

I think most contemporary Christians are uncomfortable with how vengeful God is. Sin is serious. Saying “Jesus loves you and died for you” does not cover the fact that God hates sin, and He hates sinners.

Thanks for the clarification on the lease situation, Mark, that is helpful. However the reality is that they are being denied a lease based on something that was said from the pulpit. As abhorrent as it was, many people cannot distinguish between calling for the death of gays like this pastor did (abhorrent) and simply calling sin sin. They view it as all the same, and sooner or later it will bring out about similar consequences.

…to Larry & Tyler. I’ll be sending y’all the bills for the therapy I’ll need after watching that video. :^)

Regarding Greg’s point, it’s a good one. I would have hoped that there would be a nice dividing line—something like “you call for peoples’ murder, you’re out”—but agreed that we don’t seem to have that much sense anymore. But that said, getting a church to rent a facility—you can’t easily make up for that lost revenue. I’m guessing that for private entities, it’s a self-punishing thing if you go too hard line on what you’ll allow to be said.

Lease reinstated?

What are you talking about? You obviously know NOTHING about this story and didn’t read the article. I should add the article is horrible and tells you next to nothing about the details of the story. The lease is still in effect. Verity Baptist has NOT VIOLATED the lease and the property owners have no not even tried to evict them, because they can’t. The story is mis-titled. All that has happened is the owners have asked Verity to leave early with no penalty, and they have said they will not renew the lease next year.

Writing as a former landlord, albeit residential and not in California, I think the legality of the refusal to re-lease hinges on what’s in their lease papers. Many of them do specify certain expectations for behavior that calling for peoples’ violent deaths might breach. My view, again, is that this should be legal, and the prospect of lost revenue will tend to moderate its implementation.

Except, of course, when government owns the property and knows they can just raise taxes to cover the loss. Then, as in New York City’s schools, it can get dicey.

(that one perplexes me, really, because I’d thought there was plenty of court precedent that severely limited the city’s latitude to act in this way…precedent that would apply to public entities but not generally private)