Left-wing pastor equates Manchester terror attack with legislation 'targeting transgender teenagers

On the heels of the deadly Manchester terror attack for which the Islamic State has claimed responsibility, popular blogger and pastor John Pavlovitz wrote that he's "worried that the people of God are the evil we’ve been condemning all these years."

"Is our religion (for as much we who practice it like to imagine it as the source of love and mercy and compassion) doing more harm here than good?" he asked in his Tuesday entry. "The evidence is mounting."

Pavlovitz continued:

On days like today, the question comes easily: How does anyone walk into a crowded arena filled with vibrant young people, carrying a bomb filled with nails and detonate it — in the name of God? How does anything beautiful and life-affirming, become this poisoned, this malevolent, this sadistic? How in the hell can this sickness be called religion?

But before you answer; before you rush to craft a response that is faith-specific or nation-specific, or provides you and your tradition exemption — check your history books, read your own holy text, and look at the diverse legacy of those killing in the name of a good and loving God. It is a vast and bloody resume, one that crosses all borders and color lines and religious traditions.

He then noted that "few things generate terror as consistently or savagely as those convinced they are righteous holy warriors, living with God on their side."

Pavlovitz argued that "whether this conviction drives them to wear vest bombs or burn crosses or initiate drone strikes; to bomb clinics or destroy villages or legislate bigotry; to commit genocide or preach hatred from the pulpit or cut budget funding, the brutality is the same. It all violates the world equally, it all draws blood with similar ferocity — and it all rationalizes that God desires and celebrates it."

He then said that those who perpetrate "terrible, vile, violent things ... in the name of religion" all believe they're doing God's work.

"They all claim righteousness, all declare themselves the enemy of evil, all feel justified by their texts, all speak of glorifying God — whether they’re walking into crowded arenas filled with children, or launching missiles from thousands of feet, or targeting Transgender teenagers through a partisan House bill," Pavlovitz wrote. "They’re all equally wrong."

Driving home his point that all religions have blood on their hands, he said that while he believes in "a Jesus who is mercy and forgiveness and healing and love," other Christians "are capable of truly horrible things in his name."

Pavlovitz — who wrote earlier this month that he hopes "there's a hell" for Republican President Donald Trump over the Obamacare rejection — concluded his post by saying he "holds a deep reverence for all religious traditions — but I will never believe in a God who kills children."