On August 10th, Pastor Paul Endrei of the nondemominational "Church on the Rise" in Sheffield, Ohio preached a sermon about the nomination of Episcopalian (Anglican) Rev. Gene Robinson for Bishop. The point of his sermon, which proclaimed "the Gospel according to Gene Robinson is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ", was to love the sinner, but hate the sin, he said.

The next Sunday morning, at 6:45am, 49-year-old church janitor Richard Bilski was taking out the trash. Four men got out of a car -- which the janitor had seen parked in the lot several times that week -- and demanded to know when when Pastor Paul would arrive. The janitor told the men he didn't know, adding he was "the janitor, not the timekeeper."

At this, the men began yelling obscentities at him, pulled out a tennis racket they'd brought along for the purpose, and started beating him on his face with it. Three of them, wearing lead gloves, also punched him with their fists and tore his shirt. He suffered cuts and bruises to his face, arms, hands, and ribs.

The men then fled, yelling back at him: "This is a message for Pastor Paul!"

"I did nothing against anybody and I'm the one in the middle of this," Bilski said.

[Previously: Anglican Bishop Assaulted. Sources: Cleveland Plain Dealer, WorldNetDaily, Christianity Today.]