When people come to the church office asking for money, I ask them where they went to church on Sunday. If they name another church, I tell them to go ask that church for money. If you have an account at Bank of America, you don’t walk into Wells Fargo asking to make a withdrawal. The truth is, most of these people don’t go to church anywhere, and there are certain criteria in the Bible about who we are supposed to help.
“For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.” 2 Thessalonians 3:10
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” James 1:27
“As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.” Galatians 6:10
Our first priority should be members of our church who have a genuine need, especially the widows and the fatherless. Even the widows have to meet certain criteria as outlined in 1 Timothy Chapter 5.
The Bible does not teach that we should give away free money to every drug addict and whore that shows up on a Tuesday asking for money. These people have despised God’s commandments, despised chastity, and despised the institution of marriage. They are wasting what little money they have on lottery tickets, cigarettes, and worse. They go from church to church asking for money yet lack the character it takes to show up and even sit through one church service.
….
These lazy bums don’t want to hear what the Bible says, but they want God’s money. They want to use our church as an ATM machine when they don’t even have an account here. If you can’t stand the Bible and can’t stand preaching, then you should go somewhere else looking for money instead of a church.
With all of the government programs and charities available, people in the United States are not financially destitute. If they were really that hungry, they would be willing to sit through the service. These people need spiritual help more than financial help, but unfortunately, most of them are not interested in hearing the Word of God.
— Steven Anderson, Lazy Bums Wanting Money From Our Church, January 13, 2017
asshole of the universe. just sayin……….
I am really curious about how many widows and children this fuckstick has offered assistance to. Isn’t that one of the ways churches justify keeping their tax exempt status? Their work with the poor?
What a filthy piece of shit this guy is.
As far as despising? I despise HIM.
Steven is a good example of human damage gone viral. He was harmed as a youngster and has not felt free to admit what happened to him yet. So, in order to cope, he preaches hatred and calls it love. He takes the harm done to him as a youngster, turns it on its head and attacks everybody who does not fit his narrow reading of Babble scripture. Steven is not an asshole, oldbroad1, but the gas that explodes from the anal regions after sustained abuse. The boom he is, emanates a toxic gas and does great harm in the region of his ‘message’. He is a hateful fart with access to children, I am afraid. To his progeny, practice holding your breath. Practice, practice. One day you will be free.
Yes I too am convinced he was abused. Given his hatred of homosexuals and his posturing as the Alpha Dog of Christendom I firmly believe he was sexualy abused by an older man. He now directs his anger at gay people associating them with his abuser and having been the victim now tries to play the bully. Very sad.
I’ll bet he and his church are making full use of the tax exemptions that are out there and he has the gall to not help.
Hypocrisy thy name is Pastor Steven Anderson.
If only Jeebus had said something like ‘give to all who ask of you’.
Oh wait, he did (Luke 6.30).
Thank God the super-righteous are free to ignore all the stuff their savior came out with.
Bruce, I would be curious to hear how your old church handled this issue. It really seems to be a bedrock stickey wicket that says more about the pastor of the church than anything else. I am going to a Methodist church now where they will pay your electric bill or give you a grocery store gift card but will not hand over cash. seems sort of mean even if it’s likely a better idea.
Not giving cash sounds mean but an ex drug user and a friend who now works with homeless told me it is the best approach. The steriotype that they spend it in drugs/ drink is aparently true.
I think it is different if you know the person and I give cash regularly to a guy I know in difficult circumstances cos I know he uses it for clothes, food, Internet bills etc. But when people aproach me in the street asking for money for a bed for the night I tell them I will drive them to the shelter but won’t give cash. As yet no one has taken me up on my offer.
Where I live, there are always people panhandling at freeway entrance ramps and major street intersections. It used to upset me and make me feel guilty, especially when I saw older men with signs that said “homeless vet, please help” or women with signs saying “trying to feed my kids, god bless” and the like. I gave money a few times, but a friend who’s a social worker told me that giving cash to panhandlers just fuels addictions–more often than not, the cash gets spent on liquor, drugs, lottery tickets, etc. So I decided to buy bottles of water and granola bars to hand out to them instead. Very quickly, I discovered that was a waste of money as well. Almost no panhandler took them, and one “homeless vet” told me straight out “Lady I don’t want no f***ing food, I want cash!” I quit giving anything to panhandlers after that.
My social worker friend attends a Methodist church in an area with a lot of needs. She says that people come into the church office on a daily basis and ask for help. Some say right out that they need groceries, or need help with rent or utilities, or a bus ticket. Others say they need cash for these things. Very often the people asking for cash are clearly intoxicated or strung out on something. The church staff are very willing to hand out gift cards from grocery stores, or will put people in touch with social service agencies who can assist them with rent and utilities. Church staff have even been known to drive people to the bus station and buy them a ticket. Many people are grateful for this help, But the people who come in begging for cash often just leave when they realize they won’t get it.
It may seem like a cruel thing to deny cash to people in need, but refusing–compassionately–to feed their addictions is a form of “tough love” that can be effective. My friend’s pastor once told her a story about a man who frequently came into the church office looking for help. He was usually drunk, and sometimes asked for food, other times for cash. When he wanted food, they would take him to a grocery store or a restaurant across the street for a meal, but they would never give him cash, because they knew he would just spend it on booze, and they told him so. Eventually he quit coming around, then six months later, he showed up at the office, cleaned up and sober, to thank the pastor for refusing to give him money but still being willing to help. Apparently he felt the church staff’s compassion eventually helped him get his life back on track.
But Anderson…yeah, he’s just a bully and an asshole. I agree with the poster above, though, that he probably endured years of physical and (likely) sexual abuse as a child that left him a badly damaged man. I don’t worship his god, but I hope he gets some help, someday, for the sake of his family.
Thanks for the reply. I was on the fence about it but if it puts food in someone’s belly instead of something else perhaps it’s the smartest way to go.
I think we need to be compassionate towards others, but we need to be smart about it. I remember the first time I naively gave a homeless man money. He proceeded to walk two blocks, turn right, and walked into a bar. I learned quickly that giving people cash is rarely a good idea.
I’m always uncomfortable walking past homeless people with arms outstretched. It’s not so bad in the UK, where I live anyhow, but it’s rife in Spain, where I spend some of the year. I’ve never taken them for a meal, which they’d maybe resent anyhow, but I frequently drop coins in their lap. I do it on the basis of spot judgements (I won’t if they are smoking) but suspect I’m doing nothing more than appeasing my own sense of guilt.
We’ve got to the stage where there’s little point in discussing Anderson; he’s a horrible human being, and he’s rapidly becoming famous on it.
I’m wondering just what is it that makes him tick? Does he sit every evening at a computer screen, read the types of comment we leave here, and much worse elsewhere, then get some sort of kick out of it? Is it actually sexual in nature? I’ve met people in my life who really enjoyed being disliked, and boy they were hard to deal with, because that’s not what normal people are like. I’m no saint (can anyone ever judge themselves) but I like to think that I usually try and do the decent thing by others, and at the very least I try not to be unkind to people. I know I could do a great deal more, and often feel guilty I don’t, but people like Anderson have me gasping for breath. The lack of humanity within them must somehow be linked to their religious fundamentalism, but I have to say that I’m not sure I could analyse it.
I don’t know whether he is filled with hate because he is a fundamentalist or whether he was attracted to this type of religion because he was already full of hate. There’s something (maybe lots of somethings) in this man’s past tho, that has led to this amount of rage and hate. Was he sexually abused? I wouldn’t be surprised. And/or abused in some other way, by family members or by others?
Tragic, any way you look at it, that he now makes it his business to preach hatred.
(Hey! My comment disappeared. I’ll repost it.)
Steve loves all the wrathful, hateful parts of scripture, but ignores the parts that command compassion. Didn’t his purported savior command his followers to feed the hungry, comfort the sick, and welcome the stranger (Matthew 25:31-46)?