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Monday, August 29, 2005Not in my nameI hadn't gotten around to mentioning Fred Phelps - busy week - but realize I'd expect any Muslim claiming to inhabit the 21st c. and not the 14th to draw a line. Here's AOL/AP on this guy: The Rev. Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist in Kansas, contends that American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God for protecting a country that harbors gays. The church, which is not affiliated with a larger denomination, is made up mostly of Phelps' children, grandchildren and in-laws.He actually showed up at soldiers' funerals to tell the friends and family of soldiers that they had died in vain for an evil country. And he claims to be a Christian. Plainly another guy who'd rather read between the lines on Paul's homophobia (though if this idiot has a wife and family, he must be too weak to follow that gentleman's finest counsel on women and marriage) than contemplate the things Christ actually said and did as best we know them. Mr. Phelps had intended to go to more funerals, but the dragging of his knuckles impedes his ability to travel large distances. Which is a shame, otherwise we'd give him directions to Saudi Arabia, a state whose homosexual policies he ought to love. Granted, they aren't Christian. But I'm going right up to the edge of the judge not lest ye be judged line to suggest that Mr. Phelps isn't going to make the top ten for following in the footsteps of the Savior category, either. I hope and pray I'm wrong, but something in my gut says that were Christ to return and heal an AIDS victim, Mr. Phelps would be lined up with the elders looking for a reason why it was a tainted miracle. His conduct is un-Christian and immoral, representing a paranoid vengeance fantasy that glorifies the death our Savior sought to conquer. It is abomination. The beauty of the Christ is that wherever He went, whatever He saw, He never let his eyes be taken from the mission of saving humanity and He never failed to perceive the humanity of even the lowest to come before him. The media will try to convince people that Phelps represents what heartfelt believers stand for in their ongoing war with the idea of faith. Let us hope people are wiser than to listen. And let us hope further that this bizarre strain of Christianity that makes anti-homosexuality its highest sacrament soon runs its course so that people of faith may again be associated with the loving, forgiveness and compassion that we, struggling sinners all, owe our fellow man, sharing as we all do in a gift of redemption to which we could barely aspire but which Christ freely gave in His finest of miracles. 
posted by gbarto at 3:35 AM |
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Day By Day© by Chris Muir.Old TurkeyBlog here.
