A few weeks ago, Rev. Steven L. Anderson found himself in the midst of a firestorm of controversy. The night before a member of his congregation protested outside the hall where president Obama was giving a speech, carrying a semi-automatic rifle -- Anderson had repeatedly called on God to kill the president. Anderson was engaged in what is called, "imprecatory prayer" -- literally calling on God to smite his enemies.
As shocking as it is to pray for God to kill the president, even more worrisome is whether maybe someone will get it in their head to help God out in this regard. Anderson artfully plays with that notion, even while denying he is calling on anyone to vigilantism.
I wrote about it at the time, and waited for the other shoe to drop.
One never know what the other shoe might be like, but it just about always shows up.
Neal Horsley, building on Anderson's notoriety wants to make imprecatory prayer an even higher profile tactic against the president, abortion providers, and anyone else deemed to be violating God's Laws. And Horsely is just the guy to do it. He was a pioneer in web based militant antiabortion activism as a provocateur who has long been involved with the violent Army of God.
Here are a few excerpts from my article on Horsley's latest gambit, but you can read the whole thing at Women's eNews.
Nationally known anti-abortion militant Neal Horsley, of Carrollton, Georgia, thinks Anderson has the right idea -- except that he thinks Christians shouldn't wait for God to do the job.
On a new Web site called ImprecatoryPrayer.com, apparently launched last week, he links to the audio of the inflammatory sermon on Anderson's Web site, encourages readers to click on it. "Listen here, to Pastor Steven Anderson," Horsley writes, "as he tells people what God wants His people to do about Barack O'Bama (sic)."
"Don't Listen To This," Horsley warns, "Unless You Want To Do the Will of God."
Anderson doesn't actually exhort people to assassinate the president, although he may come close. But no matter.
Horsley is busy updating the tactics of threat and intimidation he has used for more than a decade against abortion providers, pro-choice activists, presidents and judges.
This time he's featuring Obama, and possibly, in his sense of timing, exploiting the political hailstorm over health care reform.
Horsley is nothing if not a showman and he knows an opportunity when he sees one. Thanks in part (but not only) to Anderson, imprecatory prayer, calling on God to smite his enemies, as King David did in the Bible, has become fashionable on the far religious right--and the national media is suddenly paying attention.
Horsley is requesting people to send him video or audio imprecations against the president, or other of God's enemies that he will place on his new Web site. "All you need to do," he writes, "is speak the prayers into a microphone, or better yet, into a videocam recorder, and then send them to me?
"Be as specific as possible" he urges, "in defining who you believe God must destroy and as specific as possible in the means God should use in implementing that destruction."
In the 1990s, Horsley launched his Web site "The Nuremberg Files," in which he listed the names of abortion providers and others he deemed culpable in what he called the abortion holocaust. The names of those killed were crossed out; those wounded were grayed out.
Doctors who had been the subject of "UnWanted" posters in their areas, and who had been targeted by Horsley, sued to stop the threats and won a judgment of $107 million.
Horsley was ultimately required to take down the threatening material
Horsley next launched what he called the Live Web Cam Project, which received considerable national news coverage. This site featured thousands of photographs and some videos of patients, clinic workers and clinic defenders.
If you check out The Nuremberg Files site, (warning, there is a lot of very graphic, gory material on this site), you can see that he is also a secessionist and is running for governor of Georgia as the perennial candidate of the Creator's Rights Party.
[Crossposted from Talk to Action]