I can't believe I've written this many blog posts without giving a shoutout to Fred Phelps. According to the Minnesota Monitor:
The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., plans to stage protests at funerals of victims of the 35W bridge collapse to state that God made the bridge fall because he hates America, and especially Minnesota, because of its tolerance of homosexuality.Here's the thing: Fred Phelps isn't completely useless as a human being. In fact, I believe he contributes to public discourse on religion in America by challenging the very notion of Christianity to its very core. Here is a man who goes after people in their most vulnerable, their most hurt, their most grief-stricken states and pickets them with grotesquely offensive signs and messages, accusing them of things that they're not even necessarily responsible for (i.e. tolerating homosexuality). It's absolutely disgusting. And he does it all in the name of God.
One is left with many, many questions. My own personal questions? How can someone take God's message so wrong. And if there is a God, why does He allow this to happen?
The thing that I'm left grasping for is...if there is a God, He doesn't hate homosexuals. I don't think so anyway. All I can think of is Psalm 119. Reflect on these words from the Bible that Phelps so hatefully misuses:
For you created my inmost being;The truth of the matter is, God made each and every one of us. And although there are so many flaws and so much evil that we're capable of, every one of us is still, in some deep, imperceptible, yet profound way, beautiful.
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.
If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
3 comments:
My son, who's attended Catholic school from Jr Kindergarten onwards, has a wonderful theory about heaven and hell. The bible clearly says that God forgives all. If that's the case then there is no hell because there is no need for one.
Fred Phelps is an abomination, it's a real shame there is no law on the books to keep him away from families during their darkest hours.
I've been enjoying your blog for quite a while now and I haven't had a jump to comment on anything yet, but first off keep up the good work.
As for this subject, it's something that I have wrestled with for a long time. I read a few things in the Bible that directly say that homosexuality is wrong. But I just can't get over in my heart/head/soul/whatever. I just don't believe that it's this super bad thing and that Christians need to speak out against it. Then I had a person I worked with kinda explain to me that even if it is a sin, and it is, it doesn't mean that God doesn't still love those people. The best way I can think to explain it is that Christians don't picket seafood resturants, although the same section of Deut. that mentions homosexuality mentions shellfish. And even more so that Christians don't picket McDonalds very much for making people fat. We don't tell fat people that they can't get married, or that we don't want them to be bishops or be in church, but the Bible certainly says that gluttony is a sin. And let's not even begin on how debt is a sin, and that surely reeks in churches these days.
As for God letting these things happen... I think that the level of control that he has over us, if predestination exists or not, or free choice, is one of those things that is beyond human comprehension, like, if God put us here, who put him here, type of thing. But I think that we obviously have some degree of predestination, but we also have some degree of rope to hang ourselves with. That why Phelps is there and it's also why that bridge fell. If everything was perfect here there wouldn't be a heaven to go to.
Phelps is a sick person. This kind of stuff is deplorable on a really sad level. If God really does take out bridges to tell people they are wrong, Phelps had better pick his drive home carefully.
Thanks for your comments Jason, and for reading. Though the issue of homosexuality and sexual practice in general will be discussed (again) in depth in a future blog post, I think that your comment had some great insights. Thanks for posting it!
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