You know “Westboro Baptist Church” is not in any meaningful way Baptist or even a church, right? The Wikipedia article on them gives a decent amount of insight — it’s largely an extended family of 100 or so people who virulently hate gays and anyone they can associate with homosexuality, no matter how tenuously.
All they do is go around garnering publicity and condemning people — notably anyone who opposes Westboro in any way (Falwell, Pope John Paul II, etc.). Perhaps the anti-gay thing wasn’t getting enough publicity or stirring up emotions enough, because they’ve lately taken to protesting at soldiers’ funerals and somehow blaming their deaths on homosexuality in America. Whatever their reason or “theology”, it certainly gets them a lot of attention.
But their theology does not have any room for grace, for forgiveness of sins. God is merely angry with you, hates you — they even tell people he is their “enemy”. They use Jesus’ name from time to time, but they seem unaware of what he actually did for them. Their “gospel” merely involves opposing homosexuality — and that is a “gospel” of works, wherein salvation comes from what we do or don’t do. In what way is that Christ-ian?
I join with Paul (in Galatians 1) in saying “If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!”
That said, it does hurt Christians through association. I have one non-believing friend who likes to cite Westboro and blames Christians for not speaking out against them. So I guess that’s why I’m so worked up here.
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January 24, 2008 at 12:44 pm
tODD
You know “Westboro Baptist Church” is not in any meaningful way Baptist or even a church, right? The Wikipedia article on them gives a decent amount of insight — it’s largely an extended family of 100 or so people who virulently hate gays and anyone they can associate with homosexuality, no matter how tenuously.
All they do is go around garnering publicity and condemning people — notably anyone who opposes Westboro in any way (Falwell, Pope John Paul II, etc.). Perhaps the anti-gay thing wasn’t getting enough publicity or stirring up emotions enough, because they’ve lately taken to protesting at soldiers’ funerals and somehow blaming their deaths on homosexuality in America. Whatever their reason or “theology”, it certainly gets them a lot of attention.
But their theology does not have any room for grace, for forgiveness of sins. God is merely angry with you, hates you — they even tell people he is their “enemy”. They use Jesus’ name from time to time, but they seem unaware of what he actually did for them. Their “gospel” merely involves opposing homosexuality — and that is a “gospel” of works, wherein salvation comes from what we do or don’t do. In what way is that Christ-ian?
I join with Paul (in Galatians 1) in saying “If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!”
That said, it does hurt Christians through association. I have one non-believing friend who likes to cite Westboro and blames Christians for not speaking out against them. So I guess that’s why I’m so worked up here.