Recently I learned from Philip DeFranco (a YouTube personality) that the Westboro Baptist Church will be picketing in Joplin Missouri, where a destructive tornado ripped the town of Joplin in half and killed a lot of people. The WBC claims that the tornado was God's Judgment on Joplin for accepting homosexuality within their community... Really? This is what people are reduced to now? Is this the new public face of Christianity? Because I can find several reasons why the Westboro Baptist Church is not a truly Christian organization.
First and foremost, the message of Christ is one of love. God loves us, (John 3:16) and we should love God and love other people like we love ourselves. The fact that the message of the WBC is one of hate for homosexuals and people that they disagree with clearly separates them from this message of love which is fundamental to Christian theology.
Second, the message of the Gospel is not "you are going to hell." This cannot be stressed enough. People have over-emphasized hellfire and brimstone in their theology for centuries. But when one takes a closer look at scripture, one sees very clearly that the message is not that we are going to hell, but rather that we do not have to. Yes, in the end there will be those who reject God, and ultimately God honors their decision and separates Himself from them. But scripture is clear: God wants all of us to be with Him in the end. It is simply up to us to choose Him.
Third, Jesus himself spent time with the outcasts of society: tax collectors, prostitutes and "sinners," lepers etc. I would not be surprised in the least to learn that there was a homosexual or two (or more) who spent time with Jesus (though admittedly that is speculative and not clearly recorded in scripture.) The message that the Westboro Baptist Church plasters all over their signs, the one about God and whom He allegedly "hates," could not be further from the truth. God does NOT hate homosexuals. To the contrary! God loves all of His children regardless of their sexual orientation.
The WBC is confusing "sin" with people who sin. God hates sin in all its forms. And we, all of us, are people who sin. None is above reproach. We have all done things that we wouldn't be proud of. And, news flash for the WBC, sexual sin does not rank higher than any other sin. But the good news is that we are not beyond hope! The Gospel message is clear: God came to Earth in the man Jesus and sacrificed himself to save us from the punishment that our sin requires: death. That is love beyond love. And it is free to all who believe; including Homosexuals. And that is missed entirely by the WBC.
So what is the WBC on about? Why are they so riled up? The simple answer is that they are taking passages from the old testament that speak about sexual sin, combining them with apocalyptic texts from the books of Daniel and Revelation, and twisting them around to create a cocktail of hate and judgment. It is true that in the Bible there are harsh words about sexual sin, and homosexual behavior (men sleeping with men and women with women) is mentioned therein. However, homosexual fornication clearly bears no greater weight than say, oh, false teaching or judging others does. These are also spoken about in harsh terms in both the Old and New Testaments.
People would do well to remember that anyone who warns others of God's Wrath is missing the point of the Gospel message. Jesus' message was one of love and hope. We have hope for the future because of God's love for us all. And while God is a God of justice, He is also a God of mercy and grace. And that is why the Westboro Baptist Church does not speak for God or for Christianity in spite of their claims to the contrary.
DH out.
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