Well, isn't this just lovely? It isn't just the Koran burning bigots, but a Baptist pastor who is encouraging anti-Muslim sentiment

I am seriously losing my ability to even look at some of these pastors and not vomit in my own mouth. As horrified as I am when Afghans protest and threaten to kill Americans because of the Florida idiot passing himself off as a Christian while planning to burn the Koran on 9-11, I am equally appalled to see the fucking pastor of First Baptist in Dallas first call Islam evil, and accuse them of promoting pedophilia and then defend that statement and claim he is "loving" Islam. Jesus Christ. Seriously. Where is Jesus Christ? Because I can't find him in the christian Right at all. I see people who, at best, look the other way on torture. At best! At worst, some 60% of white evangelicals defend torture.

Now they stand by while their leadership encourages Americans to distrust and dislike their Muslim neighbors. As Fred at slacktivist, notes:

If any of these people attend a Christian church, then that church has failed them. Utterly. That church has failed to teach them the one thing that matters more than anything else.

Yes, I know, I'm a lefty liberal hippie and so my views are viewed as beyond the bounds of acceptable thought in our evangelical community. But this isn't my opinion. The Bible is abundantly, explicitly clear on this point:

Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him. ...

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ... No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. ...

If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

What would Jesus do? I will be damned if I know. Not looking at these people-people who can talk endlessly about their personal relationship with Christ and how important he is in their lives.

Maybe their Bible has a lot of footnotes that mine didn't. Maybe when the Bible said to love their enemies, their version said in small print, "unless you really don't want to."

As a side note, btw, Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow (who I used to read religiously and may need to add back to my reader) actually spoke up against Jeffries.

Because that is what adult moral people do.