Indiana Church Doubles Down After Telling LGBTQ+ People To Kill Themselves Or Face Death Penalty

An Indiana Baptist church is under fire for telling LGBTQ+ people to kill themselves, just as Christ would have done.

Sure Foundation Baptist Church in Indianapolis caused an uproar after a sermon in which church member Stephen Falco recommended LGBTQ+ commit suicide—and if they don't, the Trump Administration should execute them.

But the backlash, which even got local media coverage, has done nothing to sway the church. Its pastor, Justin Zhong, took to Facebook to double down on its comments afterward, saying it was his Christian duty to tell queer people, or "domestic terrorists" in his parlance, to shoot themselves in the head.

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The sermon, titled "Pray the Gay Away," came during the church's Men's Preaching Night. Kind of weird for supposedly straight Christian men to be this obsessed with gay people, but whatever.

Anyway, in his sermon, Falco shared Christ's love by saying:

“[LGBTQ+ people] ought to blow yourself in the back of the head. You’re so disgusting.”

"...How shall we then properly pray for gay people?”

“We should pray for their deaths, plain and simple."

Which is an interesting take, given that the Bible states in Galatians 5:22-23 that the "fruits of the Spirit," or the attributes of God's character that Christians should strive to have in themselves, are "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."

Telling people to blow their own brains out doesn't exactly dovetail with those ideals, but Christians seemingly having no idea what their God is about is certainly nothing new.

Unsurprisingly, the sermon caused an uproar. Pastor Zhong, who forbids LGBTQ+ from joining the church—an explicit violation of Bible verses like Romans 15:7 and Galatians 3:28, which instruct Christians to welcome all into what they believe is God's house—was unfazed.

Zhong insists that LGBTQ+ people are all child molesters because, like so many Christians, he has misinterpreted Old Testament language about "sodomites" to mean gay people, an interpretation that is farcically false.

And thus, in a Facebook post Zhong doubled-down, saying he "will not apologize for preaching the Word of God," which he insists:

“says that the sodomites (homosexuals) are filled with all unrighteousness. That’s why I believe all sodomites are capable of molesting children and committing all kinds of wickedness."

As for the violence, Zhong says he and his congregation are against it. They just want the Trump Administration to kill all LGBTQ+ people for them.

He said:

"To be clear, we only called for the government to execute those people. We are against vigilantes.”

Oh, okay.

On social media, Zhong and his congregation's deeply weird obsession with gay people inspired plenty of mockery.

Anyway, here's your reminder that child sexual abuse in churches, including Baptist ones, is a worldwide problem of staggering proportions, and the CEO of Grindr confirmed just yesterday that usage of the gay hook-up app went through the roof at last year's Republican National Convention.

Is there something you'd like to tell us, Mr. Falco and pastor Zhong?