I Tried Talking to Homophobic Evangelicals in Their Language (Part II)

{For the first part of this story, see my previous post.}

Well, it took the guy close to a full day, but he finally constructed a response:

I do take the teachings of Jesus Christ extremely serious James Ney McDonald, and He does teach us to Love God and love our neighbor. And I totally believe that. What gets me is how people say they love God BUT they don't love the things that God loves, like righteousness, the things that breaks the heart of GOD, say like the mass murder of unborn babies mostly black and the abomination of homosexuality for which HE will turn one over to a reprobate mind. (Losing the ability to know right from wrong). 

Then when the Righteous show the Love of Christ by obeying HIS command to warn the wicked of the wages of sin, then the Righteous are accused of being full of hate.  

A good test to know if you are truly a follower of Jesus Christ is simple. Do you love what GOD loves, holiness and righteousness, and do the things that breaks the HEART of GOD, like un-Righteousness and things HE calls an abomination, break your heart. Not making you HATE someone, BUT truly being heartbroken because you know where they're headed.  

Not hate, the Love of Christ.

Which is in large part upcycled from the passive-aggressive whining on his Facebook wall:

Ever notice how those who constantly want followers of Jesus Christ to be tolerant of sin such as the mass murder of unborn babies, mostly black babies, the abomination of homosexuality witch will cause God to turn one over to a reprobate mind (NOT being able to tell the difference between right and wrong) But they refuse to be tolerant someone who has Christian ethics and morality? 

They want us to Tolerate their sin, but they won't tolerate righteousness. Hum, go figure.

And just for context for all those who can't see the conversation, here are some other samples of his writing. In response to my father's objections that to ban gay marriage violates separation of church and state:

We'll ---- McDonald, God calls homosexuality a sin that is such an abomination that it's the only sin that will cause GOD to turn one over to a reprobate mind. If I didn't want to warn you of the consequences of this abomination and show you the way of salvation then I truly would be showing hate towards your soul. But because of love of God for your soul that dwells in me, I don't want to see you miss heaven. 

BUT keep in mind that I'm free to believe God's word and you are free to NOT read my posts.

When someone sided with my dad and said it was no one's place to judge others for who they loved:

I'm NOT judging ANYONE, I'm just doing what God has commanded that the children of GOD are to do. He said in HIS WORD if we don't warn sinners of the wages of sin, He will require their blood at our hands.

When a woman in a same-sex relationship objected to his very public post objecting to her marriage, and explicitly calling for people to challenge his beliefs:

However, telling me to leave you alone and keep my prejudice and self-righteousness in my own church is pretty much uncalled for. I do believe I still have the right to quote the Word of GOD on MY OWN page. I do realize that the hate-filled, intolerant left is under the impression that "free speech" ONLY refers to speech that the hate-filled, intolerant, left agrees with but as of today, I STILL have the right to quote the Word of GOD on MY OWN page.  

The Bible is VERY clear about marriage being between a man and woman. The Bible compares woman with women sexual relationship the same as bestiality. NOT my words, God's Words. I do believe that the Bible is true when God speaks of the punishment for homosexuality in 1 Cor. 6:9-10. I take to HEART the warning from GOD to the "Righteous", (there are more Righteous people among us than you d care to admit.) telling us that if we don't warn the un-Righteousness of the coming judgement for their abomination that HE will require YOUR blood at my hands! 

I don't want to be standing before the Judgement thrown of Jesus Christ some day, a day that I believe is rapidly approaching, and have you pointing a bloody, boney finger at me, screaming "why didn't you warn me!!!" 

Tell you what, I've not tried to preach the truth on your page, haven't even looked at it, how about you not try to vomit up the corruption of the harlot church on mine. 

I do realize that the hateful, intolerant left will try to make one believe that they were born a reprobate which is an abomination, maybe that's why Jesus said "ye must be born again."

He says "HE will require YOUR blood at my hands!" and "He will require their blood at our hands." 

To me that's the pinnacle of disturbing. It refers to a passage in which God says that if a watchmen doesn't warn the people he's responsible for that something bad is coming, he is responsible for everything that happens to them - their blood is on his hands - and how that extends to moral issues, if you know something is morally wrong, and you say nothing, you are (at least partly) responsible for the consequence. Essentially, "Evil triumphs when good men do nothing." Somehow this guy, and others like him, have turned that into 'God demands we shed the blood of those who disobey us.' That's bone-chilling. On the other hand, the guy's spelling, grammar, and syntax are so bad that it is possible that I'm misunderstanding what he's saying.

As much as using the evangelical tone of absolute, unswerving, practically megalomaniacal self-righteousness does bother me, there's still that feeling that, however much I may doubt myself, I don't doubt that same-sex relationships are exactly what God intended for the people who desire them. I don't doubt that we're made the way God intended, or by the system God engineered, and that sexuality and sexual orientation are not mistakes, let alone "abominations".

I'm also very doubtful that this man is motivated by "love", but then I imagine plantation owners in the late 19th century probably regarded the paternal racism that validated slavery as a form of "love", so there's quite a range of interpretations there.

Getting into a prolonged argument over whether homosexuality is natural, or what the definition of love is, remains pointless, though. People like that are completely entrenched in their beliefs, and the only thing likely to save them is reaching the Pearly Gates and having God metaphorically smack them upside the back of the head really hard before letting them in.

But he knows he can't persuade me, either, right? I assume we're playing theater, for the benefit of the people watching. Maybe 99% of those seeing the conversation are completely consumed by his demagoguery, but if there's even one person who sees this conversation, and sees someone standing up for them, then I feel like I can't back down.

So, here's my own demagogic response:

I have no doubt you take the teachings of Jesus Christ extremely serious(ly) - I didn't mean to suggest that you were doing the devil's work as a joke, or a casual hobby. I meant to suggest that you and your kind are blasphemers and charlatans who lead others to wickedness under the banner of "righteousness". I meant to suggest that you abuse others faith in God and dement the divine spark within them because it feeds your self-aggrandizing need for adoration and false moral superiority. I meant to suggest that you are corroding Christianity - every faith that worships GOD - by your noxious, hateful dogma.  

Was that somehow lost on you? Did you not comprehend that when you copy-pasted the exhausted rhetoric you throw down when someone calls you out for your blasphemy? Did you really believe that if you used the word "righteous" enough times I would fall under your thrall and cast God aside for your obscene perversion of Christianity? Or are you just desperate to say something, anything, to save face in front of your acolytes? 

And yes, I am HEARTBROKEN. I'm not HEARTBROKEN because I know where you're headed. I'm HEARTBROKEN because I know where you, and others like you, are leading people. 

It BREAKS MY HEART to see what people like you have said and done in the NAME OF GOD.  

It BREAKS MY HEART that you've cherry picked an irrelevant, out-dated text like Leviticus because you gag on the actual MESSAGE OF GOD.  

It BREAKS MY HEART that you lift up the words of a man who persecuted Christians, and call it THE WORD OF GOD, while disregarding the words of CHRIST himself as inconvenient.  

All of that BREAKS MY HEART. 

But it ANGERS me to no end that you call your neighbors ABOMINATIONS, that you reject their treatment as ordinary human beings, and then have the audacity to call it "LOVE".  

It INFURIATES me that YOU DO THE DEVIL'S WORK, your heart and soul ROTTED BY HATRED, your mind concluded by egomania, and you call it GOD'S WORK.  

And it ENRAGES me that people like you spread PAIN and MISERY in this country, and yet always retain a devoted following of dull-eyed, empty-hearted husks of people who can no longer tell right from wrong, "REPROBATES" who have become so caught up in your worship of a FALSE GOD that they can no longer comprehend the harm they visit upon their own neighbors, CHILDREN OF GOD made exactly as GOD intended them.  

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED, time and again, and you have not heeded the warnings. Your words, your marginalization and persecution of those you call "abominations", have led people to SLAUGHTER their neighbors by the thousands in the name of YOUR FALSE GOD.  

That BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS. 

And no, I'm not one of the "tolerant liberals" you sarcastically mock when you talk to your friends. I'm EXACTLY what TERRIFIES you, I'm EXACTLY what sends you running back to your perverted echochamber for validation and comfort from your fellow FALSE PROPHETS. I revile and reject your actions - I don't preach or expect tolerance for everything, because I don't tolerate your evil.  

My grief and my solace in this matter are one and the same, because I know that for every heart you turn to the worship of your FALSE GOD, you turn two to the path of ATHEISM. For every soul you corrupt to false teachings, two abandon the lessons altogether, because you've made GOD'S NAME and GOD'S WORDS into disgusting perversions of what they should be.  

I grieve for those who abandon GOD, I grieve for those who abandon the idea that there is something greater and better than this world, but I take comfort in knowing that, little-by-little, you're sawing off YOUR OWN ROTTEN BRANCH on the tree of faith. Your obscene ideology is a PLAGUE running out of victims, destined for starvation and extinction by your own immoral, destructive action.  

I mourn the loss of Christ's teachings in this way, but I know it is better that people be forced to rely on the voice of GOD in their OWN HEARTS to know RIGHTEOUSNESS, than to become TRULY "godless".  

I know it is better that people learn to hear the righteous voice within, not knowing the name that speaks it, than to listen to the filth spewed by a FALSE PROPHET.  

I know it is better that we trust in God to lead us quietly from within the hearts that GOD MADE, than to be led by the evil words that you wring out of books sewn with falsehoods.  

I know it is better that we listen to the suffering of our loved ones - and those no one loves - than to listen to the words written in books PEOPLE LIKE YOU only claimed as part of God's word because they satisfied an agenda of HATRED and OPPRESSION. 

I'm not a "tolerant liberal"; I am the INTOLERANT LIBERAL that screams in the face of those that would hurt the INNOCENT in the name of a FALSE GOD. I'm the INTOLERANT LIBERAL that's prepared for a fight, because if I see someone like you, or one of your mindlessly obedient followers, raising a hand against the innocent I WILL PUT A STOP TO IT.  

And no, I won't say that I'm going to pray for you. Perhaps I should do so, but I know I won't, and unlike you, I won't feign RIGHTEOUSNESS where I don't yet have it. I won't LIE and DECEIVE in the NAME OF GOD the way you and your fellow FALSE PROPHETS do.  

I don't care what judgment God heaps on your soul. Perhaps I should, but I don't, and unlike you, I won't lie through my teeth and patronizingly say that I do. All I hope is that God protects those who have no protectors, that he defends the vulnerable - those you and your kind would corrupt, as well as those you spitefully rebuke. I hope he protects them, body and soul, from the consequences of your 'loving' hatred. 

GOD made you good, GOD made you with the potential to be righteous, not for yourself, but for your neighbors. YOU lost yourself to the path of EVIL and SELF-GLORIFICATION.  

I leave it to God to find you and fix you, if not in this life, then in the next.

Again, it's disturbingly easy to write like this. Certainly much easier than writing anything persuasive with an academic tone. Throwing in alt-right popular phrases like "echochamber" is pretty easy to do, too.

It only took him a few moments to read, because he ignored most of it:

Just read the 1st few lines of what you're vomiting up. It's extremely evident that you're one that can't tell the difference between right and wrong. Intolerant and eat up with hate James Ney McDonald, nothing you can vomit up from the teachings of the GREAT Harlot Church can make me say that the teachings of Jesus Christ are wrong.

I haven't seen any signs for The Great Harlot Church of God in Tennessee, but it sounds like the sort of place I should start looking for. Sadly, that was a surprisingly anticlimactic response. Such a let down that, for better or worse, I reverted to my default tone of belittling sarcasm.

Wow, someone calls you out for being a blaspheming servant of the devil and your best response sums to "I'm rubber and you're glue." I suddenly feel much less concerned by the threat evangelical demagogues pose to the well being of Christianity and humanity, if nothing else because their eloquence and wit falls far short of what I'd come to expect.

Okay, maybe that's not the classiest or most constructive come-back ever, but I didn't call him a "stupid potato" (which is my wife's new favorite insult). But there's not much competition here; his next comeback just continues to recycle the things I already said about him.

The word "reprobate" comes to mind James Ney McDonald  

Bible speaks of those who call good, evil and evil good. Bible also speaks of "marking" folks like that and staying away from them. Just God's word James Ney McDonald which you've shown a blatant disregard for.

The fact that he's started to drop the use of articles at this point entertains me more than it should, but I don't mention that he sounds like a Southern Baptist caveman. My response was admittedly not super-imaginative:

No, I've shown blatant disregard for the texts that don't actually speak God's word. Works that predate Christ, that describe the Hebrew god as part of a pantheon rather than a singular entity above all, and works written by a wicked man under the premise that Jesus came and spoke to him at some later date - a claim I could just as easily make, and I haven't spent my adult life persecuting Christ's disciples.

And I've also shown blatant disregard for you. Actually, that's not quite right, it's not as if I've ignored you; I've shown blatant disrespect for you, called you and your followers out for being reprobates, and for claiming you're doing hateful things for the cause of love.

True, you're one among legion, though fewer than you think, I imagine, but I didn't call you out to persuade you, I called you out, with your own language, to mark you for any others to see this. So that at least some of the people who read your words will see you for the charlatan that you are, and reject you.

Fortunately I'm not racing a track star.

Give it up James Ney McDonald, there's nothing you can spew out that can EVER cause me to stop following Jesus Christ or loving and abiding by HIS WORD.  

Sorry, go try to corrupt someone else that doesn't really love or actually know HIS WORD.

Oh, wow, he actually thinks this is about him, that I've been trying to persuade him. I know I called him an egomaniac earlier, but, dang, I hit that nail on the head.

I tell you what - how about a truce? We can just both mark and renounce each other, and you can "stay away" from me by setting your Facebook wall to "friends only". Then you can exercise all the freedom of speech you want, other random people won't have to see you vomiting your hateful agenda into their Facebook feeds, and you will never have to deal with me again. 

He didn't seem to be inclined to take me up on that offer, and I felt compelled to dispel at least one of his illusions:

Oh, and in case it wasn't just super clear - I wasn't trying to cause you to stop following your demented religion or 'corrupt' your soul back to something that might be considered righteousness. You've been warned time and again by others like me, and have been unmoved. Due diligence has been done by your fellow man and woman, and you've adhered to your immoral path. The condition of your soul, when you meet your maker in the next few years is between you and God - the actual God.

This conversation was never actually about you, though I'm not surprised you made that mistake. This conversation was about all the people who see these public statements crawl through their feeds each day. The people who have to watch their cousins, their aunts, their uncles, even their parents, like and share the words of charlatans that tell them they are sinners, reprobates, deviants, and abominations because of the way God made them. This was for the people that get dragged to churches they grow to resent, and conversion therapy that damages them for life.

No person can save you, --- - ----, only God can do that.

But this conversation, this conversation CAN be saved. It's going to stay on the internet for a LONG time (because I've copied it elsewhere), and if even one person sees that someone stood up to your bullshit, and takes some hope that not all Christians have been perverted to evil by your rhetoric, then it will have been worth it.

Still, I was left feeling like there was something missing, a sign off that just perfectly and concisely embodied this man. Fortunately he came up with one for me:

Ever read the term "casting pearls before swine" James Ney McDonald. 

I've yet to read past the 1st sentence of any of your hateful, intolerant, un-godly rants. 

Praying for you buddy, problem is you don't have a grasp on the difference between right and wrong.

So I told him what a perfect ending that was, and thanked him for his cooperation. Of course, because it's Facebook we had to wind down with the usual witty repartee

[Him] You're so full of hate and intolerance that you just can't help yourself can you James Ney McDonald?

[Me] Oh dear, is this now a contest to see who can have the last word? You realize that's the Facebook equivalent of seeing who can urinate a longer distance, right?

One woman seemed to get excited by the possibility of a pissing contest (she responded with a drooling emojii), so the guy simply conceded defeat (because he had to go to work!), I acknowledged his defeat, and noted for the benefit of the disappointed reader that I probably would have won the pissing contest, but was admittedly not confident of that.

So that's it. I tried setting aside my "worst sort of liberal academic" voice and actually talking like the people that I'm arguing with. I'd rather not do it again - I much prefer the comforts of logic and reason - but it was still educational, as I'd hoped it might be.

Interestingly, talking to them that way makes them angry too, and I don't even think it's because they feel mocked, I think it's because people intrinsically don't like being told that they are hellbound, godless abominations by a self-righteous dictionary. So, there you go, it's not a liberal "snowflake" thing, it's just a general human thing; if you're an asshole to people, for whatever cause, they'll get pissed.

Of course, American evangelicals have much nicer 'safe spaces' to retreat to.




James N. McDonald is a "liberal academic" born and raised in Missouri and residing in Tennessee. He holds one degree in history, two degrees in psychology, but loves writing fiction. His first, completed novel, The Rise of Azraea, Book I, is a high fantasy story with elements of comic fantasy and satire targeting present day, real world issues such as economic inequity, and sexual and racial discrimination. It is currently available on Amazon.