I was in the midst of a series of posts here about problems with purity in the church when the massacre of LGBT people in Orlando made the seriousness of the issue still more apparent. That series was prompted by the way in which some conservative Christians have been ripping Christian churches apart in order to create zones of doctrinal and moral purity around themselves—and are now attempting to extend such zones into the larger community on the pretext of protecting their religious freedom. The crime in Orlando, I’m afraid, shows the graver dangers of the obsession with purity.

Puritanism (I refer to the obsession with purity as such, not simply its particular historical manifestation in the seventeenth century)—puritanism can go to much more destructive lengths. The perpetrator in Orlando was not Christian, but Muslim. His motive, however, seems to have been the same kind of reaction to what he described as the “filthy” Western culture. It differed mainly in that he was prepared not just to push aside people he identified as impure, but to kill them.

That Christians are not immune to the appeal of such a move is shown by the now infamous sermon of Pastor Roger Jimenez, of the Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, California. Pastor Jimenez claims that he did not advocate such killing (though he did in fact say that the government should be doing it). He only rejected mourning for the dead. That is too fine a distinction to offer much protection to the human beings who belong to the targeted group.

The preacher has taken God’s commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself and thrown it back in God’s teeth. He has entirely subverted the Gospel of Jesus and replaced it with a purity code that justifies rejoicing over the death of the “unclean.” No matter how many conservative Christians may think that this is the teaching of Jesus, it is not. I pray God will reveal to him his sin, that he will come to repentance, and that he will find that his true mission in bringing others to repentance as well.

Some churches have responded very well in the aftermath of the attack. But there has also been a widespread avoidance of language that might seem to acknowledge GLBT persons as people of worth, as Frank Bruni pointed out in his column “A Time to Stand with Gay Americans” (The New York Times, June 14, 2016). Voices from the Roman Catholic hierarchy (and also the Southern Baptist Convention) seem to have been more concerned to avoid any appearance of compromising their anti-gay stance than to stand with an endangered group of human beings. (Bruni noted the voice of the Roman Catholic Bishop of St. Petersburg as an outstanding exception. I suspect that places him closer to Pope Francis than his colleagues.)

The pussy-footing of those who want to appear sympathetic without actually being so is as sinful in its own way as the open brutality of a Roger Jimenez. The silence of churches during the long evil time of Jim Crow helped whites excuse their infamous treatment of African-Americans in this country. The silence of churches on the targeting of GLBT people has the same effect.

All the more reason to give thanks for the many faithful who are rediscovering the love of God and choosing to share in it. All the more, too, to take the whole issue of puritanism in the church as a matter of serious concern in all its manifestations.