Dangerous Power of Religious Speech

I engage in religious speech constantly. Through sermons and articles for a church newsletter, I communicate about things religious to the congregation I serve. Because of my position as minister, it could be argued that everything I say and do has religious overtones.

I preach and teach hoping to get people to think about their beliefs and what those beliefs mean, and how those beliefs affect their daily lives. Thus, I preach and teach with the intent of influencing people.

What happens, then, if my sermons promote hatred for others? What happens, then, if my writings, proclaim divine judgement, to the point of death, on others? What happens, then, if someone in the congregation acts as God's judge, jury, and executioner on those others as a result of my words? Do I have any responsibility for those actions?

I have been thinking about this for a number of weeks. At the end of August, the Kansas City Star reported on the Bible study that Scott Roeder, the accused murderer of George Tiller, attended. The link to the article is: http://www.kansascity.com/637/story/1414950.html. Here is a quote from the article from Roeder's roommate who was part of the Bible study group:

Clayman said Roeder took the abortion issue to the extreme.
"Scott believed that the Bible was literal, the word of God," he said. "Where he went astray was he had this crazy, fanatic doctrine that you could somehow justify killing somebody just because they were an abortion doctor."
Clayman said Roeder talked often about his belief that killing an abortion doctor was an act of justifiable homicide.
"When he brought up that in theory — but he never did threaten anybody when I was around — I said, ‘How can you repay evil with evil?’"
Clayman said investigators won’t find any conspiracy behind Tiller’s killing, especially among the members of the study group.

Obviously, the members of the group do not think that anything they said in the discussions had anything to do with Roeder's actions, but how can they be sure?

Then, there is an on-going controversy surrounding the Reverend Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church of Tempe, Arizona. Frederick Clarkson has the best article I have seen, which can be found at: http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/religiousright/1801/%E2%80%9C%5Bi%5D_pray_for_barack_obama_to_die_and_go_to_hell%E2%80%9D%3A_the_story_the_media_missed_.

Anderson is the minister who has prayed for President Obama's death and has proclaimed to the congregation he serves that both he and God want the President dead. In the congregation is Chris Broughton, who showed up at a speech by the President with an AR-15 automatic rifle and a handgun strapped on. He took this action the day he heard his pastor preach on why he was praying for President Obama to die and go to hell.

Somewhat disingenuously, Reverend Anderson distanced himself from any actions taken by people who hear or read his sermons. In an interview, as cited by Clarkson,

Interestingly, nationally syndicated liberal radio talk show host Alan Colmes conducted a particularly penetrating interview. When Colmes asked Anderson what his response would be if someone killed Barack Obama in response to his sermon, he replied: “I wouldn’t cry about it.”
Colmes said to Anderson: “You want the president dead…”
“Absolutely,” Anderson agreed. “Now that doesn’t mean I’m gonna kill him. But you know what? I believe he should reap what he’s sown.”
“[Obama] deserves to die, because he’s a murderer.”
“I’m not going to take responsibility for other people’s actions,” said Anderson. “You know, it’s ridiculous how I’m supposed to be held accountable for what anyone who listens to my sermons does.”

On this day, it is well for us to remember that religious speech, particularly that which calls down God's judgement of death on people, has a dangerous power to influence people to act.