According to a popular YouTube personality, whose videos about his religious beliefs frequently go viral, God and the Bible call for us to bomb ISIS. The video, which evangelist Joshua Feuerstein posted on his public Facebook page Wednesday afternoon, was quick to get a widely varied response.
With recent terror attacks and a lot of people questioning the safety of admitting Syrian refugees, you’ve likely seen conflicting opinions across social media. Memes calling for people not to judge all Muslims by the actions of ISIS are widespread, and they’re sparking quite a debate.
In his video, Feuerstein implies that those calling for tolerance and love toward Muslims are calling for people to love ISIS — and he expresses that not only is loving ISIS not what God would have His followers do, but that Christians are explicitly called to “fight evil” — and “[if] you believe that Isis is evil, bombs away.”
“Dear Christians, should we LOVE ISIS… or KILL ISIS??? ****WARNING: A biblical response******”
Feuerstein first came to widespread attention last year with a video he claimed “destroyed” evolution. The video went massively viral, and there were numerous response videos posted by Christians and non-Christians, as well as by both deniers and supporters of evolution.
Since then, he has added numerous videos , detailing his beliefs about Islam, Christianity, atheism, churches (he calls pastors in L.A. pimps and says the American church “sucks”), and numerous other issues touching religion.
His Facebook posts often get thousands of likes and shares and an even larger number of views.
In one of his latest, he addresses the public response to recent terror attacks by ISIS, appearing to conflate the call for the understanding of Muslim victims of ISIS with a love of ISIS itself.
In the video , he mocks Christians who say that God is love and that Christians are called to show love for others.
I’ve been seeing a lot of Christian sympathy toward ISIS lately. People are saying, “Oh my word, we’re not supposed to hate them or kill them!”
He opens the video with a question.
“Does Jesus want us to love ISIS, or kill ISIS?”
Then he leaps into mocking a variety of comments he’s heard or seen regarding the situation. Among other things, he picks out that many Christians have stated, in discussions of refugees, that God is love.
“You see, love is not the only attribute of God. Do you realize so is justice, wrath, vengeance, and even hatred! Look at what the Bible says!”
He goes on to debate the accuracy of statements that the Bible calls for God’s followers to “not kill.”
“The Bible doesn’t say that. It says we’re not supposed to murder people.”
The difference, Feuerstein says, is that murder is an act of malice, and killing is an act of self-defense.
The video hasn’t been well-received by all of the video evangelist’s followers, but he doesn’t seem to mind. When one commenter suggests, for example, that vengeance and punishment should be left to God, Feuerstein responds — assuring them that the U.S. armed forces are a tool of God to exact such vengeance.
Again, the chief difference between the sentiment to which Feuerstein is responding and the sentiment which is actually generating viral memes and endless shares is that he insinuates that people are calling for love and acceptance of terrorism, where the widespread sentiment is to recognize that ISIS doesn’t represent all Muslims.
In closing the video, Feuerstein issues one last call to bomb ISIS.
“Now, my question is this: do you believe ISIS is evil? If so, bombs away.”
You can see Joshua Feuerstein’s entire “Bible Calls Christians to Bomb Isis” video here .
[Image via Facebook ]
