I returned home myself yesterday, from church and an afternoon watching football with the family, to find an email in my inbox from a friend in the Capitol City. Isn't surprising to see her name in the inbox as she and I often compare notes on our Sunday services. Truth be told, I've done my best over the last year to start a friendly little rivalry with her. My church is better than hers, I insist, and I have been known to tell her why. Hers is superior to mine, she reminds me, and lists the reasons. (I admit I'm maybe a tad hyper-competitive, but my church really is the best in the world.) Yesterday's email began with an understated proclamation; "So church today was exciting..."
On Sunday, November 9, 2008 Michigan liberals sat peacefully through announcements, worship and prayer for the sick, our nation and our President-elect before staging a coordinated, disgusting and repulsive attack on worshipers and the broader concept of the church itself at Lansing's Mount Hope Church.
The lefties were a part of a liberal organization known as Bash Back Lansing and their collection of radical blogs, including one of the state's most widely read "mainstream" progressive blogs (and none which will receive a link on this website) called on "queers and trannies" from across the state and the region to converge on Lansing for what they refer to as an "action." While many of the members claim to be anarchists (they drove on roads, ate non-garden grown foods, printed materials on products created by government protected free markets, wore clothing, talk incessantly about "organization," etc etc etc) their broader goal is stated plainly on one of their lefty blogs.
"I can tell you that we are targeting a well-known anti-queer, anti-choice radical right wing establishment."
Mount Hope, for the record, is an evangelical, bible believing church whose members provide free 24 hour counseling, prayer lines, catastrophic care for families dealing with medical emergencies, support groups for men, women and children dealing with a wide variety of life's troubles, crisis intervention, marriage ministries, regular, organized volunteer work in and around the city, missions in dozens of countries across the globe, a construction ministry that has built over 100 churches, schools, orphanages and other projects all over the world and an in-depth prison ministry that reaches out, touches and helps the men and women the rest of society fears the most. They also teach respect for all human life and the Biblical sanctity of marriage as an institution between one man and one woman.
This is what Michigan liberals label a "radical right wing establishment," and over 30 of them showed up in force yesterday. Wearing secret-service style ear pieces and microphones they received the "go" from their ringleader and off they went.
Prayer had just finished when men and women stood up in pockets across the congregation, on the main floor and in the balcony. "Jesus was gay," they shouted among other profanities and blasphemies as they rushed the stage. Some forced their way through rows of women and kids to try to hang a profane banner from the balcony while others began tossing fliers into the air. Two women made their way to the pulpit and began to kiss.
Their other props? I'll let them tell you in their own words... from another of their liberal blogs:
"(A) video camera, a megaphone, noise makers, condoms, glitter by the bucket load, confetti, pink fabric...yeh."
The video camera they put to good use as they attempted to provoke a violent reaction. The image of the pink-clad folks above is one of theirs, stating in a picture worth more than a thousand words the goals of the Michigan left.
The "open minded" and "tolerant" liberals ran down the aisles and across the pews, hoping against hope to catch a "right winger" on tape daring to push back (none did). And just in case their camera missed the target, they had a reporter in tow. According to a source inside the church yesterday there was a "journalist" from the Lansing City Pulse along for the ride, tipped off about the action and more interested in getting a story than in preventing the vandalism, the violence and anti-Christian hatred being spewed by the lefties. We'll see what he files and what his editors see fit to print.
Props were readily on display too, though some of the condoms may have been put to even more nefarious use.
An hour after police and security had collected and removed who they thought were the last of the liberals, a volunteer security person discovered two more, hiding, together, in a public restroom. While their compatriots engaged in openly violent protest in front of everyone these two snuck away to potentially stage their own protest of sorts, and only by the grace of God did one of the hundreds of kids at the church not happen upon that particular restroom in those moments. Precisely how long they'd been there and precisely what they'd been up to we don't know.
The church's response? After things settled down, the blasphemy ended, the lude props removed and the families safe from fear of additional men and women running into and past them the pastor took the stage and led the congregation in one more prayer... not for retribution, or divine justice or a celestial comeuppance (that's what I'd have prayed for) but instead that the troubled individuals who'd just defiled the Lord's house, so full of anger and hate, would know Jesus' love in their lives and God's peace that exceeds human understanding.
Yesterday morning defined the difference between a church of believers and Michigan liberals. It also illustrated in shocking, painful detail precisely what we're up against.
A few days ago, I happened to be in the lobby of a medical office discussing politics with a woman who shared with me an interesting story. She had a friend recently tell her that even though Sen. Obama "advocated everything [she] didn't believe in" -- abortion, gay marriage, a bigger role of government in people's lives, higher taxes, etc. -- she was still "thrilled" to vote for Obama as president because he'd be the first black president in our country's history.
-- especially those in the black community. According to the Life Education and Resource Network (LEARN) -- the largest African-American evangelical pro-life ministry in the country -- three out of five pregnant African-American women will abort their child.