Is Westboro Church Southbound?

Just when you think the smoldering fires (fueled by Korans) of embarrassingly hateful churches have simmered down, Westboro Baptist Church based in Topeka Kansas has made headlines because of their hate mongering and their inappropriate and malicious protests.  They have decided that it would be a good idea to stand outside cemeteries whenever a dead soldier comes home to be buried and stage a protest against homosexuality.  While to the rational observer dead soldiers and judgment against homosexuality may not go together, but the members at Westboro are anything but rational.  They believe that God is punishing the country for our openness to homosexuality by killing soldiers (Which makes about as much sense as punishing your oldest child because the youngest one has bad grades).  They shout slogans, and hold signs that say “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “you are going to hell” and the even sing songs (and I shudder to think what songs they would see as appropriate for the occasion). 

Westboro Baptist seems to follow the wisdom “ they will know we are Christians by our hateful judgments that prevent you from grieving in the midst of tragedy.” However, I prefer the original adage by Jesus himself which says :

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35

Let us see if Westboro is following the main tenant of Jesus which is love. Does love mean praising God for dead young men and women…no. Does love mean preventing people to grieve at the loss of a child…no.

First of all Jesus gets more frustrated at people's self righteous judgment than he ever does at their sexual misconduct. While both are dangerous and problematic, Jesus saves his worse condemnation for the Pharisees whom have a knack for condemning...well everybody. Second it is extremely dangerous to say you are speaking for God “by saying God is killing soldiers because of homosexuality” when God has never given you those words to say. Third, we find out from 1 Corinthians 13 that we are nothing without love. Westboro church is nothing. I am not saying Westboro is going to Hell, it is not my decision, and that would make me guilty of their sin, I am just asking if we can act better than this? In Revelation 2:4 the church of Ephesus is chastised for being a loveless church. I think we need to ask Westboro “where is the love.”

You may think homosexuality is wrong, you may think the wars that are being fought are wrong (war is never good, and never won), you may think playing go fish with a deck of cards is straight from the pits of hell, however, if it is ethics and right behavior we are worried about it is time we stop worrying about the speck, and start concentrating of the logs in peoples eyes (funny expression but comes from the mouth of Jesus in Matthew 7:3-5).

We need to focus on the most important ethics which is love God and love our neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40) because everything in our life is based on how we do with these two.