We all know that Bryan Fischer is nothing if not an attention whore, but he’s really starting to go Full Metal Phelps, and he’s doing this while on the dime of the American Family Association, which seems to grow more extremist and dangerous by the day, all while their partners at Focus on the Family try to split the difference between hatred and a kinder, gentler sort of hatred. Here’s what he said on the radio on Friday, via Right Wing Watch:
I want to read a passage that my wife pointed out to me this morning from Numbers 25. This is a story about a man by the name of Phinehas, the nation had lapsed into rampant sexual immorality – I don’t know if that sounds familiar to you, it certainly does to me – and Phinehas was motivated to do something about this and he did something very decisive: he found an Israelite in flagrante with a Philistine woman and he ran them both through with a spear, pinned them both to the ground inside their tent, ran his spear through both of them, right into the ground. And that shook up the nation, it got their attention and they transformed, they made a decision, they turned from that kind of behavior and renewed their commitment to follow God.
[Fischer then reads Number 25: 10-13: 10 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 11″Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned away My wrath from the sons of Israel in that he was jealous with My jealousy among them, so that I did not destroy the sons of Israel in My jealousy. 12″Therefore say, Behold, I give him My covenant of peace; 13and it shall be for him and his descendants after him, a covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the sons of Israel.”]
So Phinehas is commended for his zeal, that he was willing to take action, that he was willing to act boldly, he was willing to act decisively out of his jealousy for his God and his jealous desire to see that his people, his nation, would be wholly devoted to God.
So what God is obviously looking for is more Phinehases in our day … you know, and it’s striking here, that here’s the actions of one man, here is one man by his action, by his commitment, by his energy, by his commitment, by his willingness to take decisive and assertive action when that’s what was called for, he alone was able to turn back the wrath of God from his people, from his nation.
So may his His tribe increase, may each one of us be a Phinehas our own world and in our own generation.
“May each one of us be a Phinehas.” Huh. Sounds like a thinly-veiled call to violence to me; how does it sound to you? Because, if I’m reading Numbers 25 correctly, it sounds like Fischer is praising this very ancient wingnut named Phinehas who decided to make it his business to drive a spear through two people who were having sex he didn’t approve of. You know what we call that in all modern societies today? A hate crime. Oh, and also murder. And if he’s calling all to be “a Phinehas,” it would seem to logically follow that he’s suggesting that common wingnuts take matters into their own hands in their own communities and kill or otherwise maim any they perceive to be “sexually immoral,” by the patriarchal, harmful standards of the fundamentalist Christian church.
At what point are people going to realize that we liberals occasionally call people like Fischer the “American Taliban” for a damned good reason?
Here’s the video if you’re into that sort of thing:
He sounds sexually aroused when he says “rammed through them with a spear!”, doesn’t he?
