This Week in God.... (Maddow blog)
First up from the God Machine this week is the annual Southern Baptist Convention, held this week in Georgia, where attendees declared “spiritual warfare” on marriage equality in advance of the upcoming Supreme Court ruling. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported:
The Baptists acknowledged that the court seems likely to legalize same-sex marriage when it rules in the next two weeks, but leaders urged the faithful to stand fast and, indeed, lead the nation in opposition.
“We are in spiritual warfare,” said convention president Rev. Ronnie Floyd. “This is not a time for Southern Baptists to stand back.”
As a rule, “spiritual warfare” is one of those phrases that should make Americans uncomfortable.
Of course, Floyd was just getting started. If you saw Tuesday’s show, you saw this clip of the Southern Baptist leader telling convention attendees, “I want to say to every pastor today of the United States who believes the word of God, this is a Bonhoeffer moment for every pastor if the United States. While some evangelicals – while some evangelicals may be bowing down to the inception of the inclusiveness of same-sex marriage, or marriage in their churches, we will not back down, nor will we be silent.”
For the record, “a Bonhoeffer moment” refers to a German pastor who participated in a plot to kill Hitler during World War II. In other words, as Rachel put it, the head of the Southern Baptists this week said pastors “are going to have an assassinate-Hitler moment if the Supreme Court says that gay people can be married.”
As for Floyd’s specific plans, he went on to say, “I declare to everyone today as a minister of the gospel, I will not officiate over any same-sex unions or same-sex marriage ceremonies. I completely refuse.”
I suppose anything’s possible, but I’d remind Rev. Floyd that he’s unlikely to receive many invitations to officiate at same-sex weddings, so his refusal seems like a moot point. Call it a hunch.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/week-god-62015?cid=sm_fb_maddow