So Westboro Baptist Church came back into the limelight last week after the US Supreme Court ruled in their favor, upholding the church's right to protest at funerals. Specifically, they ruled that the church was protected by the First Amendment protecting free speech when they protested at the funeral of 20 year old Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder in 2006. These protests typically include signs and chants such as (excuse the language), "Thank God for IEDs", "God hates fags", "God hates America", and "God hates fat enablers". Westboro's stated goal is to warn people about God's anger towards homosexuality, and any society, organization, country, or person that supports homosexuality. They argue that the deaths of soldiers, mine workers, and any other non-natural causes of death are God's punishment of America for tolerating homosexuality. They made a statement after the 2008 earthquakes in China killed thousands thanking God for the heavy loss of life and said that they were praying for many more such earthquakes, and for many more people to die.
I wanted to bring them up this week for two reasons. One, although I had seen and heard a lot about Westboro over the past few years (especially since they made their national media splash protesting at the 1998 funeral of 21 year old Matthew Sheppard, who was tortured and beaten to death near Laramie, WY because he was gay), after doing a small amount of research I discovered that I didn't know nearly as much as I thought I did. I had always assumed that it was a denomination or a large group of people that was behind this. I'm probably not the only one either. Because this group claims to come in the name of God, and because their signs all reference God, it's easy to make the jump to assume that they represent at least a branch of Christianity.
But did you know that Westboro is basically made up of one family, the Phelps? The head pastor of the church is Fred Phelps, a former lawyer and civil rights activist (no kidding: he was actually awarded two civil rights awards) known for taking on cases other lawyers wouldn't, and for taking on big business. Nine of his thirteen children have remained a part of Westboro, and his daughter (also a lawyer) is the main spokesperson for the church. Many of their grandchildren are also a part of the church, and are a part of the church's many protests.
In other words, I think you could make a fair case for calling Westboro not a Baptist church but a Phelpsist Group (I'd leave the church part out of it). Westboro Phelpsists.
Why is this an important thing to know? Well, for starters, let's stop associating what the Phelpsists say and write and do with other Christians. Your church down the street is not going to march to your funeral and protest. That's what the Phelpsists do, not followers of Jesus Christ. What's more, the Phelpsists refuse dialog, protesting and shouting hurtful and hateful things with closed minds. This doesn't mean that all followers of Christ do. In fact, as I'll discuss in my next post, it's practically the total opposite of what followers of Christ should do.
In short, Westboro isn't a church. The church, as Christ himself describes it, is a gathering called together by him. Westboro, on the other hand, is a group of people that has been called together by one man, Fred Phelps, who shaped and dominated it with his skillful speaking and strong, oppressive, manipulating leadership (his estranged son, Nate, has testified to the fact that his father beat each of his children, a claim that is supported even by Phelpses still a part of Westboro).
One more fruit of research to share with you: Did you know that the Phelpses claim to receive little outside funding, and their protests and activities are funded mostly by themselves, as well as cases their law firm wins in court? They especially benefit when people disrupt their protests, because then the Phelpses can sue those people for infringing on their First Amendment rights. Some people argue that their protests go so over the top exactly in order to bait others to attack them for this reason.
Say what you want, the Phelpses know how to play the court game pretty well.
The other reason I wanted to bring Westboro up is because I wanted to show once and for all exactly how what the Phelpses are doing is NOT what God desires of them, using nothing but their own epistemology. I'll tackle that in the next post.
1 comment:
agreed
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