Christian Hate-Preacher Steven Anderson Is Banned from Entering New Zealand

Christian hate-preacher Steven Anderson of Arizona’s (New Independent Fundamentalist) Faithful Word Baptist Church says he has been banned from entering New Zealand.

It’s the 34th country he’s no longer allowed to step foot in due to his insistence that gay people should be executed by the government because the Bible says so, and his joy in discussing LGBTQ people who have been killed during terrorist attacks.

… I just got the letter last night from New Zealand that I am banned from New Zealand. So this is the 34th country to ban me.

And here’s the letter that they sent me. It’s dated October 17, 2019, and it says, “Our decision on your application: We’ve declined your application for a visitor visa because you do not meet the requirements set out in our visitor visa immigration instructions. We have made this decision because: As part of our assessment we have considered whether you meet character requirements. However, our records show that you were excluded or deported from countries such as South Africa, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, etc…”

Of course they don’t want to list all of them because it would be too long of a list.

“This means that you’re subject to Section 15 of New Zealand’s immigration act… unless it is granted by special direction.”

…

So, basically, according to them, I guess, preaching what the Bible actually says about the sodomites is “a lack of character.” Alright, well, you know what? If that’s what it means to have character, then I don’t want to have character. All right?…

…

You know what? God’s not gonna bless a country that is turning away a missionary… you know, when somebody’s coming to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and win people to Christ, and they block that, you know what? They are going to be under the wrath of God. And the punishment of God for rejecting God or the Bible is clear…

…

If I were you, and I were living in New Zealand or Australia, I’d be on my knees praying to God that He would be merciful and that he would forgive your country for doing this, and then I would start a soul-winning movement in your country. I would start a red-hot soul-winning movement and get involved in the best church you can and turn these countries around and at least do something to withhold the wrath of God from your country, because these countries are just getting worse and worse…

Just in the past few months, Anderson has been banned from entering the Netherlands and the Schengen area, which covers a huge swath of Europe. He was also banned from Ireland, making him the first person blocked from entering the country under the exclusion powers granted by the nation’s Immigration Act 1999. (Section 4 of that Act says a person can be banned if it’s deemed “necessary in the interest of national security or public policy.”) In July, he was booted from Australia.

That’s all in addition to getting banned from Botswana, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Jamaica.

It’s probably for the best that someone whose only job qualification is the ability to spew hate speech isn’t going to visit a nation where a white supremacist murdered more than 50 Muslims in Christchurch earlier this year. They don’t need further radicalization.

Again, all of this is happening because Anderson celebrated the deaths of dozens of LGBTQ people at Pulse nightclub in Orlando by saying, “The good news [about the massacre] is that there’s 50 less pedophiles in this world, because… these homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles.” He also said the U.S. government should execute homosexuals by way of a firing squad because that’s what the Bible commands. There are also the numerous misogynistic comments and Holocaust denialism.

He wears each ban as a badge of honor, as if he’s a Christian martyr, but it’s important to remember none of this has to do with his Christianity. He’s being punished for his glorification of violence in the name of God.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)