It's more palatable than what Westboro Baptist does, but it is no less offensive or exploitive.
So let's see how Tony rationalizes what he does.
This is from a commenter calling Tony out on his behavior:
"Yes, because there's nothing the mourning family and friends of the victims of a tragic accident need more than to be reassured that if their loved ones didn't believe your specific interpretation of christianity then they are now rightfully burning in unimaginable torture for the rest of eternity. My condolences to the poor family. And my hope and prayer for you, Tony, is that you stop following the Law to the letter and start respecting the spirit in which it was given."
This is Tony's reply:
I wonder if these folks even bothered to listen to my conversation with Donald. Donald lost his mom just two weeks before I met him on that street corner. Like the woman who was killed on the 4th of July, Donald's mom was killed in a traffic accident.
If you listen closely to my conversation with Donald, you will hear us mention his mom several times. But at no point is there any argument, or discussion for that matter, about where his mom was now. If Donald had asked me where his mom went when she died, I would have gently and honestly said, "I don't know." I never met his mom. I know nothing of her spiritual condition.
That's the very definition of disingenuous. Tony clearly states while proselytizing that there are only two places to go after death, heaven and hell. Tony clearly states what he believes to be the only possible way to get into heaven. Therefore, if Donald's mom does not meet the criteria for heaven Tony has clearly stated, then, according to Tony, Donald's mom must be in hell. Tony may never say the words "[Donald's mom] is in hell", but he says as much in his preaching. He says the same thing about anyone's dead loved ones. And he says it at their funerals.
You can dance around it all you want, Tony, but you are a tragedy pimp, using the pain and loss of others to promote your own beliefs. And that's me being generous. Considering that you get paid to promote those beliefs (he does work with Ray Comfort), it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that you are pimping tragedy to ensure you continue to get a paycheck.
Okay, WTF is up with blogger? I tried responding to Tony (I'm the one who wrote the original post up there ;) ), blogger died on me and refused to post it (which I suppose saves Tony the trouble of censoring it), so I gave up, came over here and saw the following before I'd even written a post:
ReplyDelete"Your comment has been saved and will be visible after blog owner approval."
Anyway, for what it's worth, this is what I was trying to post to Tony's echo chamber in response (constructive criticism of evangelism tactics is my new schtick. I blame Fred Clark):
Link that was meant to be in previous comment, but wasn't because I'm an idiot and forgot to put any text in between the HTML tags.
ReplyDeleteI don't actually mind this sort of thing that much. Or at least, my views are pretty conflicted. If I thought that getting people to believe the right things was the only thing that could prevent them from eternal torment, I'd likely use whatever tactics I would think most effective. Given what they believe, it makes sense that evangelical Christians do this. They could let us all burn in hell but they are too good for that. They are more moral than their deity.
ReplyDeletehonestly... as shitty as this is, i've heard worst. hell, i *met* a guy who'd read the Obits, and go to funerals with young-ish widows, in the hopes of "consoling the grieving widow"...
ReplyDeletebut it's VERY shitty. the only fight i EVER had with anyone in Pete's family was over that damned pamphlet thingy that must be given at funerals. his cousin's wife was arranging the funeral, and wanted an "inscription". so i said "how about something like "[Pete's Dad] has gone on to join his Wife and Daughter?". and this woman was all "oh, we can't say that, we don't know if he was SAVED"
**rage** it gets my blood pressure uo just THINKING about it, and it was SIX YEARS AGO. bitch.