My roots are Southern Baptist, where the going term is "hate the sin but love the sinner." To drive that point home, after Larry Ashbrook brutally murdered all those kids at church near Ft. Worth, this was the Southern Baptist reaction:
NewsMax 9/21/99 Bill Murchison “….On the assumption that Satan, enlisting the help of Larry Gene Ashbrook, set out last week to intimidate Christians ... well, did this unholy pair pick the wrong church! Liberal Protestants of hazy theological outlook -- that might have been one thing. But Southern Baptists! No one in his right mind would put forward the Baptists as subject matter for spiritual intimidation. Confronted, menaced, jeopardized, Baptists reach for a familiar object -- the Holy Bible. They open it, they brandish it, they thrust it right in the Devil's face. Just how heart-warming it was to see them do so on a sun-splashed Sunday afternoon, in Texas Christian University's football stadium, I beg here and now to report. The Baptists, to every appearance, have it right: Spiritual warfare rages in our midst.
NewsMax 9/21/99 Bill Murchison “….Affirm? A mild word for what goes on at the stadium. What about the father of one of the victims, leading the audience/congregation in the singing of a song his murdered daughter had loved? What about the pastor of the desecrated church, the Rev. Al Meredith, whomping up a classic Baptist revival on the spot -- a call to fasting and repentance and prayer? "Raise your hand if you want the killing to stop -- if you want to see the spirit of the living God sweeping over our land like wildfire.'' Up in the air -- a forest of affirming arms, one of them attached to an Episcopalian journalist. Bad news for Satan. He's stirred up the Baptists -- folk who take him with the deep seriousness his malice deserves. The culture wars may have taken a decisive turn….”