I am really really frustrated with a certain church in Kansas right now and I need to vent.
I know I have said it before, but to the members of the Westboro Baptist Church I again say...just stop!
None of you are prophets, and no one I know who believes in God wants anything to do with your vile, reprehensible concept of a hate-filled, vengeful God. If you want to believe this melarkey, keep it confined to your little building there in Kansas, but stop pushing it at military funerals and stop using ridiculous lawsuits like the one filed by Ernie Chambers. Mr. Chambers is slightly more intelligent than you folks from Westboro, but not much. His lawsuit is ridiculous, I grant you that, and has no merit. Your brief you filed to get the suit dismissed doesn't either, unfortunately. You may be prophets in your own mind, but you don't fit the biblical definition of a prophet.
What you truly are, oh Westboro Baptist, is angry, hateful, bigoted, self-appointed moral dictators. I don't know it for sure, but I suspect that people the likes of Hitler would be welcome at your so-called church. Just give Fred Phelps a hitleresque moustache and get it over with. If I seem to be speaking exceedingly tongue in cheek it is because that Mr. Phelps, his wife and family and their self-proclaimed church make me so angry that if I don't inject some kind of humor into what I write here I will positively explode from sinking to their level and claiming that God will smite them for their misrepresentation of who He is. I make no such claim, but by the same token, if God did decide to strike them all down, I can't say I blame Him. I know how I, a mere human being, feel when people speak poorly of me or make claims about me that are untrue, unfair and unjust. I imagine God must feel the same about the Phelps' and Westboro Baptist. It's ironic that Westboro would tell us we're too tolerant of homosexuals. If the God they claim to believe in is the God of the bible, He was (and is), in the form of Jesus Christ, vastly more tolerant than any member of Westboro baptist could presently hope to be. Jesus treated people that His contemporary society condemned with a respect and compassion that most people can only hope to aspire to. The adulterous woman and the woman at the well (the Samaritan woman) come most readily to mind. The Pharisees were within moments of stoning the adulterous woman and Christ (rightly so) pointed out that they had no right, no real room to stand in condemnation of her when they, themselves, were just as sinful.
Let me pause here and say this: I, personally, do not think homosexuality is right. It is not what God created us for. That said, I do not hate the homosexual person, but I do hate the sin they commit. Having said that, however, let me say that I don't tell anyone I know who is a homosexual how to live their lives. It isn't my place to do so. I have my own vast number of sins I have committed (and confessed to God every day) that don't allow me the right or privelege to dictate to others how to live their lives. I do not have an in-your-face style of expressing my beliefs. In fact I find myself balking when I hear people who do. A prime example are these people I have seen (during good weather) preaching at the top of their lungs outside the student union at UNL's city campus. I don't claim these people have no right to their beliefs, but it bothers me that they feel a need to shout it as loud as they do. It's as if they feel a need to be a voice crying in the wilderness. I feel no such need, and honestly wonder what such preaching actually accomplishes. I've heard people mock them in passing, and I get the general sense that no one is attracted to that preaching style. I sure haven't seen anyone saying "Hey, I think I need to talk to that shouting preacher about God. I really need to hear his views."
Now, I bring this up to make a point. It is my firm belief that as long as they protest at military funerals and respond to childish lawsuits like Mr. Chambers filed against the Almighty, people will want nothing to do with the message of Westboro. Even more importantly, though, as long as Westboro preaches hatred, intolerance, and a God who is vengeful and not loving, who bestows punishment and not grace and mercy, no one will want anything to do with their message either. The old saying goes you attract more bees with honey than you do with vinegar. Well, in much the same way, you attract more converts with love and compassion than you do with condemnation and being judgemental.
Okay, I got all that off my chest. I feel better now.
