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I am an ordained Southern Baptist minister and I can tell you that there are several Baptist organizations (Southern Baptist, American Baptist, National Baptist, Fellowship Baptist, just to name a few). A church affiliated with one of these Baptist groups must adhere to certain Christian doctrines and beliefs in order to belong to one of these groups. If a church gets too far from what the denomination believes is essential Christian doctrine - that church may be brought under church discipline and ultimately removed from fellowship with the denomination.

There are many, many "independent" churches that use the name "baptist" in their church name. These churches are under no outside governing Christian authority and are accountable to no one (except God, of course). Anyone can set up a church and call it "baptist" or "Christian" or whatever. Therefore, these independent churches can do or say anything they want. There are good things about that and there are bad things about that. Denominations are not perfect either and some churches choose to be independent so that they do not have to go along with stands that certain denominations take. They want to be free to follow the Bible as they believe without being interfered with by an outside denomination. Many times this is a good thing, but when a church like the Westborough Baptist Church does what it does - it smears the witness of all Christians.

But this is the price we must be willing to pay for freedom of religion. Jesus said that, "not everyone who calls me 'Lord', 'Lord', will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father" (Matthew 7:21). In other words, God will glean out the "tares" (weeds) from the wheat one day. Until that day, we must present the truths of the Gospel as best we can and defeat bigotry and hate with the love of God.

These people at West borough Baptist have no scriptural basis upon which to say the things they are saying. Jesus never shrank from confronting sin and hypocrisy, but he didn't deal with sinners by telling them that God hated them. He was criticized by many "religious" people of his day for spending time and fellowshiping with "sinners" (going in their homes, having dinner with them, etc.). These Westborough people would definitely oppose Jesus for showing love to these "sinners".

Even in the Old testament, when God judged certain peoples for their actions, it was only after years (sometimes hundreds of years) of warnings to repent. I agree with the Westborough people that homosexuality is a sin and that it is harmful to society, but the method of confronting it must be according to the teachings of Jesus. And they are not doing that.