The Pastor from Hell
A clergyman (or clergy-woman) is expected to be a servant of the Most High God, delivering messages of love, tolerance and peace.
Yesterday’s dedication of the American embassy in Jerusalem, an historic event in our historic capital city, was tainted by the presence of a Baptist preacher, a man who hates all non-Christians, who delivered the opening prayer.
How President Trump could have selected Pastor Robert Jeffress was a matter of politics, not religion. President Trump distances himself from the man whose mouth only spews hate.
Pastor Jeffress was chosen by the American president as a “reward” for bringing so many evangelical Christians to vote for him. Members of the evangelical church in America are united with Trump.
Robert Jeffress is a 62-year-old Southern Baptist from Texas, pastor of a large and wealthy church and is known for his bigoted remarks about all non-Christians.
He has preached that “Islam and Mormonism are heresies from the pit of hell”.
“Not only do religions like Mormonism,. Islam, Judaism and Hinduism lead people away from God, they lead people to an eternity of separation from God in Hell”.
Of Catholics he says “the Catholic Church is an instrument of Satan, It is a cult-like, pagan religion that infected the early Church and corrupted it. It is a counterfeit religion”.
As for the Jews, his words are not kinder. “You can’t be saved by being a Jew. Jews who do not accept Jesus are going to Hell. Only Christians are going to heaven.”
“Historic Christianity has taught for 2,000 years that salvation is through faith in Christ alone.”
It was regrettably a major error in sending Pastor Jeffress to the capital of the Jews, only to berate us for our stubbornness in not accepting his God, a false messiah.
Our Chief Sephardic Rabbi Yosef sat in a front row and listened to the words by the Pastor from Hell. I don’t know how much English the Chief Rabbi knows or even if he could follow the pastor’s southern drawl, but it was simply a disgrace, an ignorant and callous “prayer” which could only hurt and offend Jews and Christians alike.
Now the pastor from Hell has a golden opportunity today, Nakba Day, to preach his faith to the “heathen” Muslims and attempt to convert them to his poisoned faith. The happy part of it is that he has no need to convince them that only his faith can allow them to enter paradise.
They are presently entering it all too well on our border with the Gaza strip . Paradise for them means an encounter with 72 virgins (if they are lucky enough to find a virgin) but it is not the paradise that pastor Jeffress dreams of.
I cannot be certain if President Trump regrets his choice of a clergyman for the opening prayer of the opening of America’s first embassy in holy mother Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish State.
But knowing about Jeffress’s background and his highly offensive comments about non-Christians, I’d prefer that he do his preaching at the Gaza border…. particularly on the Palestinian side.
There is no better Hell on earth than Gaza.