DESPICABLE, PERVERSE, CALLOUS

I’m not sure how I am going to handle something today. Because in all the stories of horror and heroism, of grief and self-sacrifice, that have come out of the worst disaster in our history – in a war that is still being fought as I write – I have just read the most despicable, perverse, insensitive, cruel and callous media release I have ever seen.

I read it and actually felt physically sick. I have seen putrid and evil stuff from nutters and zealots in the past and would normally consign it to the wastepaper basket. Would not give the writer the warped pleasure of knowing I had even received it.

But today is different. Because this media release comes from a powerful church group called Catch the Fire Ministries. An evangelical group with such influence and support in Canberra that last month they had former Treasurer and would-be Prime Minister Peter Costello video an effusive endorsement for their conference. It is even proudly displayed on their website.

I have to warn you that what I am about to read will offend, even hurt and add to the intolerable grief of so many. But this man cannot go unscathed and his cruel zealotry unchallenged.

His name is Pastor Danny Nalliah, the Catch the Fire leader. His press release starts out talking about churches rallying to help the relief effort. Appealing to Christians and non-Christians for donations of goods and money and blood. And offering condolences to families and friends who have lost loved ones.  A worthy message.

But then this man of the cloth, this man of love and compassion and Christian spirit, reveals the real cause of the bush fires that  have already claimed nearly 200 lives.

It is God’s revenge. Nalliah says and I quote ‘these bushfires have come as a result of the incendiary abortion laws which decimate life in the womb’.
Nalliah said he was not surprised by the bush fires due to a dream he had last October relating to consequences of the abortion laws passed in Victoria.

In this dream, Nalliah says he saw fire everywhere and then he received words in a flash ‘from the spirit of God’.

The message from above: That because of the changes to the abortion laws God’s ‘conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb.’

There’s more of this heartless, bigoted bilge. He even has the audacity to steal from Barack Obama’s slogan by saying ‘Can we stop the fires? Yes we can!’

I am airing this to expose this insensitive, self-styled curator of your souls. And I hope from every pulpit, from every denomination, and from the House of Costello, he is denounced.

You know, I once received human excrement in the mail from a hate-filled zealot. Even that was less offensive than this offering from  Pastor Danny Nalliah.

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009