Pastor ‘scams’ Jewish clerics for film
An anti-gay sermon by a Tempe pastor that brought about a protest rally on Dec. 7 has helped cast a light on his anti-Semitic views, including subterfuge he used on Jewish clerics in the Valley to appear in a upcoming anti-Jewish documentary film.
About 100 people gathered Dec. 7 on the sidewalk outside Faithful Word Baptist Church, including Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz of Valley Beit Midrash and Rabbi Dean Shapiro of Temple Emanuel of Tempe, to protest a sermon called “AIDS: The Judgment of God” delivered at the church on Nov. 30 and posted on YouTube the next day. In the sermon, Steven Anderson, the pastor, cited Leviticus 20:13 as providing the means to end AIDS: putting homosexuals to death.
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Earlier this year, Rabbi Leo Abrami, a Holocaust survivor who has served at Reform and Conservative synagogues throughout his decades-long career, was contacted by a man who said that he was making a documentary explaining some aspects of the Jewish faith. He offered to come to Abrami’s home in Sun City West and arrived with a cameraman. His visitor turned out to be Anderson, although Anderson identified himself as “an interested layperson” who was curious about Judaism, Abrami said. “I made the mistake of not Googling him before he came.”
Anderson also contacted Rabbi Reuven Mann, an Orthodox rabbi; Rabbi Irwin Wiener, who serves congregations in Sun Lakes and Sun City West; and Jeffrey Schesnol, a Humanistic ceremonial leader training to become a madrikh (guide).
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In a promotional video, Anderson said that the film has two purposes: “to prove that the Jews are no longer God’s chosen people in the New Testament but that we as believers, we as Christians, are God’s chosen people. And secondly, to prove that the modern-day nation of Israel over in the Middle East is a complete fraud.”
In this video, he shows snapshots of Abrami, Mann, Schesnol and Wiener and says, “They’re making all the points for us. They’re all saying the same things and confirming what we show from the Bible to be true.”
Also in this video, Anderson commented, “It seems like all the churches today have bought into this pro-Israel stance and we need to wake people up.”
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http://www.jewishaz.com/community/pastor-scams-jewish-clerics-for-film/article_c6f8e942-8008-11e4-b57f-8b4c6d7cbff8.html
