This is part of why people hate Christians
It's what happens when Jenna Ellis et al. spout hate, not Jesus.
Here is Jenna Ellis, a member of the former president’s legal team and a self-professed evangelical Christian, spouting an evil kind of flawed theology about the five people who were shot and killed last weekend at Club Q in Colorado Springs. You can hear Jenna opining that the victims are probably burning in hell, given that we don’t know whether they were baptized. She is trying to make the point — I think — that there is only one path to God, and it is her path and no others.
It was a tragic and painful moment, watching a grown woman strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. (1)
What Jenna may not understand (or maybe she does) is that when you serve up that nonsense with a side order of homophobia — as she does with her partner in the rest of the podcast — in the wake of such a tragedy, you get a big steaming pile of hate, the stench of which settles onto the landscape and feeds more hate and more hateful actions.
Others have been far more eloquent than I could ever be on the so-called clobber verses that Jenna doesn’t address in this short clip. Her commentary would be utterly dismiss-able (it’s Jenna Ellis; who cares?) if this false interpretation of the scriptures wasn’t embraced by so many: My way (Christianity, but not “Christianity” so much as a unique corner of the faith), or the highway (see you in hell, Catholics, Baptists, Quakers, Muslims, and all the others I can’t spell).
Oh, for a nickel for every time we’ve heard “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?” As a matter of fact, I did. As a matter of fact, before you go listing my sins to show that I didn’t accept Jesus Christ, understand that doing so never meant I’m perfect, just forgiven.(2) I am also a card-carrying fundamentalist, and nowhere in my Bible do I find justification for piling onto pain by tut-tutting over someone’s baptismal record.(3)
Jenna. Do you really think in that nightclub’s pain, screams and horror, that God cared who sat in what pew?(4) (I cannot answer the question of “Why did God let this happen?” and I won’t try.) I only know that these things keep happening and we can stop them from happening, but prayer is not sufficient. We must act. Our prayer need works.(5) Until we take action, we will continue to be held hostage by our guns, and that is the most positive outcome we can hope for.
Meanwhile, the likes of Jenna think there’s a celestial figure up there keeping naughty and nice lists. They’re confusing God with Santa. Big difference. Huge.
Accepting the notion that God only accepts a particular brand of theology closes the door on the notion that God is love. Instead, that embraces the notion that God-is-love-but-only-if-you’re-blessed-to-be-in-the-proper-pew.(6)
No. Thank you, but no.
Finally (and in closing), Jenna is not speaking for me, a baptized believer. More to the point, she is not speaking for Jesus. She’s spreading hate, and that leaves it to the rest of us to clean up her mess, and spread that much more love to counter her hate. As people who read and believe already know: God is love.(7)
Addendum:
Many years ago I heard the great Maya Angelou speak at The Bushnell. She told a story about being approached by a woman who was arguing for or against something or other, and the woman's arguments were prefaced with the comment, "Well, I am a Christian, so ...." Ms. Angelou's response: "Really? I have been trying to be one of those my whole life." So have I.
The irony is she’s the one risking eternal damnation (if there is such a thing) by not having any empathy for people slain so brutally.