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A controversial pastor is facing criticism for comments made after the June 12 Orlando nightclub shooting that left 49 people dead.Following the deadliest shooting in U.S. history, a preacher stood at his pulpit Sunday night in Northern California and delivered an impassioned sermon praising the brutal massacre at a gay nightclub in Florida.Pastor Roger Jimenez from Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento told his congregation that Christians &#8220;shouldn&#8217;t be mourning the death of 50 sodomites.&#8221;&#8220;People say, like: &#8216;Well, aren&#8217;t you sad that 50 sodomites died?&#8217; &#8221; Jimenez said, referencing the initial death toll in Orlando, which authorities later clarified included 49 victims plus the gunman. &#8220;Here&#8217;s the problem with that. It&#8217;s like the equivalent of asking me &#8212; what if you asked me: &#8203;&#8217;Hey, are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today?&#8217;&#8220;Um, no, I think that&#8217;s great. I think that helps society. You know, I think Orlando, Fla., is a little safer tonight.&#8221;He added: &#8220;The tragedy is that more of them didn&#8217;t die. The tragedy is &#8212; I&#8217;m kind of upset that he didn&#8217;t finish the job!&#8221;The sermon has drawn scorn from faith leaders, gay rights activists and others who have called it &#8220;hateful propaganda&#8221; and &#8220;bigotry.&#8221;&#8220;I condemn his entire presentation,&#8221; the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, a leading Christian conservative and president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, told Sacramento Bee columnist Marcos Breton.Jay Brown, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, told The Washington Post that there is &#8220;nothing whatsoever Christian&#8221; in the pastor&#8217;s sermon.&#8220;He&#8217;s preaching hate from the pulpit,&#8221; Brown said in a statement. &#8220;His words offer no comfort to the survivors of the attack, to the family and friends whose loved ones they&#8217;ll never see again.&#8220;And to think of the LGBTQ youth in his own church, it&#8217;s simply heartbreaking.&#8221;Members of the LGBT community are not allowed to join Verity Baptist or attend its services, according to the church&#8217;s &#8220;What We Believe&#8221; page. It states the church believes &#8220;sodomy&#8221; &#8212; referring to homosexuality &#8212; is &#8220;a sin and an abomination before God&#8203; which God punishes with the death penalty.&#8221;&#8220;I wish the government would round them all up, put them up against a firing wall, put a firing squad in front of them, and blow their brains out,&#8221; Jimenez said during his Sunday sermon, which Verity Baptist posted on its website under the title &#8220;the Christian response to the Orlando murders.&#8221;Video of the sermon, uploaded to the church&#8217;s YouTube channel, was removed late Monday or early Tuesday &#8220;for violating YouTube&#8217;s policy on hate speech.&#8221; A copy of the video was later uploaded by a different YouTube user.Jimenez told the Bee on Tuesday that &#8220;we&#8217;ve received a lot of threats&#8221; since his sermon went viral. But, he said, &#8220;there are many people out there who agree with what I&#8217;m saying.&#8221;&#8220;In America, you&#8217;re no longer allowed to have an opinion that goes against mainstream society,&#8221; Jimenez told the Bee, as controversy swirled around his sermon.&#8220;The whole point that I was making is that if people who God puts the death penalty on die anyway, that&#8217;s not something that we necessarily need to be mourning,&#8221; he said.&#8220;When people die who deserve to die, it&#8217;s not a tragedy,&#8221; Jimenez added. &#8220;In fact, the gunman that went in there, he deserved to die because he killed those people; we shouldn&#8217;t be mourning his death either.&#8221;Verity Baptist describes itself as an &#8220;independent, fundamental, soul winning, separated, King James Bible believing Baptist church.&#8221; It&#8217;s unclear exactly how many members it has, but in late March, the church wrote on Facebook: &#8220;Praise God for 206 attendance this morning (our new record!).&#8221;&#8220;It&#8217;s like opening up a store and calling it whatever,&#8221; Jerlen Young-Nelson, media director for the National Baptist Convention, told the Bee of Verity Baptist Church.Rodriguez, the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference president, told the Bee&#8217;s Breton that Jimenez &#8220;is a pastor because he calls himself a pastor. A pastor who is not accountable is a pastor who can actually facilitate an atmosphere of spiritual corruption. A lack of oversight serves as fodder for theologically erroneous teaching.&#8221;Verity Baptist did not respond to The Post&#8217;s request for comment.The sermon runs for 45 minutes and focuses on the Bible, homosexuality and the deadly rampage at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando.Hours after a lone gunman went into the club on &#8220;Latin Night&#8221; and shot and killed 49 people &#8212; nearly all of them Latino &#8212; the Venezuelan-born Jimenez suggested that their deaths were well deserved.&#8220;As Christians, we should not be taking a sympathetic approach to these types of news and saying: This was a tragedy, this is something that we&#8217;re sad about, we should be mourning these people,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The Bible teaches that they&#8217;re all predators. That&#8217;s all the Bible says about them: They&#8217;re wicked, they&#8217;re vile, they&#8217;re predators. &#8203;And God says that they deserve the death penalty for what they do &#8230;&#8220;I&#8217;m not saying that we should be doing that. But in God&#8217;s government, where God set up the laws and God set up the rules and God set up the people in charge, God said: When you find a sodomite, put them to death.&#8221;Even as Jimenez was praising the deaths in Orlando, another Christian leader was calling on the faithful to stop &#8220;singling out people for victimization because of their religion, their sexual orientation, their nationality.&#8221;&#8220;Sadly it is religion, including our own, that targets, mostly verbally, and often breeds contempt for gays, lesbians and transgender people,&#8221; Robert Lynch, a Catholic bishop in central Florida, wrote on his blog. &#8220;Attacks today on LGBT men and women often plant the seed of contempt, then hatred, which can ultimately lead to violence.&#8220;Those women and men who were mowed down Sunday were all made in the image and likeness of God. We teach that. We should believe that. We must stand for that.&#8221;Rodriguez said, &#8220;what took place in Orlando is not the will of God. As Christians, we love everyone. We repudiate intolerance and hatred. I will not only respect my fellow man, I will love you. I will respect you. I will create space for you.&#8220;If you come to our churches, you are not going to hear any message full of homophobia or animosity.&#8221;Sandr&#233; Nelson of the Davis Phoenix coalition, a nonprofit group that works to prevent hate-motivated violence in the Sacramento Valley, told CBS Sacramento that he was stunned by the pastor&#8217;s sermon.&#8220;He&#8217;s not a man of God,&#8221; Nelson told the news station. &#8220;He&#8217;s not a man teaching a true religion.&#8221;Nelson said the sort of speech featured in Jimenez&#8217;s sermon can be devastating.&#8220;It can definitely cause more harm to our LGBT youth and those still living in the closet that are older,&#8221; he told CBS Sacramento. &#8220;It causes our suicide rates to go up, it causes kids to feel like they&#8217;re worthless.&#8221;The pastor&#8217;s sermon drew a strong rebuke from Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson.It was also condemned by Sacramento&#8217;s mayor-elect, Darrell Steinberg.Jimenez, was born in Venezuela, where he became a Christian &#8220;through the influence of American missionaries,&#8221; according to his church website.Throughout his sermon Sunday, he preached about what he said was God&#8217;s view on homosexuality.He referenced the Book of Romans and &#8220;natural&#8221; and &#8220;unnatural&#8221; sexual relations and the &#8220;recompense for their error.&#8221;&#8220;If you don&#8217;t mind writing in your Bible,&#8221; he said, &#8220;right there next to Romans 1:27, you ought to write this word: AIDS. The recompense for their error, you know what that was? AIDS.&#8221;<style>
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<div class="neCaption"> Pastor Roger Jimenez is facing criticism for comments made after the June 12 Orlando nightclub shooting that left 49 people dead. (Washington Post) </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/web1_ct-sacramento-pastor-roger-jimenez-orlando-shootings-20160614.jpg</photo0><caption0> Pastor Roger Jimenez is facing criticism for comments made after the June 12 Orlando nightclub shooting that left 49 people dead. (Washington Post) </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Lindsey BeverWashington Post</bylineMeta></div>

Controversial pastor on Orlando victims: ‘The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die’