Posted on 03/20/2014 8:07:33 PM PDT by Former Fetus
Death is always a tragedy. Hate makes it more so.
Today, a man known for hate died. CNN concluded that his infamy was worth a breaking news alert.
But how do we respond? How does this breaking news relate to the gospel's good news?
I've had some run-ins with Westboro, though I don't like to use the words "Baptist" and "Church" when referring to it. (My apologies to the city of Westboro, but your sacrifice is appreciated to rescue the words "Baptist" and "Church.")
I actually have a reminder of the Phelps family that I see every day. If you visit my office, you'd see a nameplate. They called me a "Lying Whore, False Prophet" for believing the crazy idea that God loves people—even sinners. As a result, one of my enterprising team members (Lizette Beard) made a nameplate. Every day I can ponder about Fred Phelps—and how he turned the love of God into hate.
The Phelps family (a better description than a "Baptist church," though even that is filled with tragic irony as they self destruct), protested at my former church.
You can read how we responded here and part of that answer may be helpful here.
We were determined to show and share the love of Jesus in the midst of their distortion of the gospel, explaining:
Our answer to offensive signs was to show and share the love of Christ with anyone in need. Whether speaking to the protestors, counter protestors, or the media, we were prepared to speak about what God is doing in our community... The last thing we have time to do is shut down because five people show up with offensive signs.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
Fred Phelps was a Leftist. He was an agent provocateur and a useful idiot.
Prov. 24:20... “For there shall be no reward to the evil man; the candle of the wicked shall be put out.”
Uh-oh, it’s Pollyanna at the helm tonight, I see.
I totally agree. It was intentional evil acts for front page news only, what he was doing. Nothing Christian about his actions.
It was all to discredit Christianity in America. (MSM is all about controlling proper perceptions of the masses). The “Kill God” Postmodernists/Leftists have been demonizing Christianity, since the Scopes Trial to undermine the Bible and silence Christians and relegate them into the closet, as they flip Good and Evil with conditioning our children with moral relativism and evolution, flipping Vice and Virtue.
True Christians are rational and too hard to enslave and would never ever dishonor the dead or pretend to be God and “judge” the souls.
Fred Phelps and the Phelps family were Democrat Lawyers, working as agent provacateurs for either the Homosexual lobby or the Democrat Party.
I'd go with inevitable.
No.
“What he did with his life was tragic.”
That is why his death was tragic. He could have been remembered for so much more.
Are you kidding? The Westboro whores are so desperate for attention that if nobody protests his funeral, they’ll do it themselves.
He was such an asset to the “gay rights” cause that I sometimes wonder if he was on their payroll.
who?
That is a tough question, but considering the agony, torture and misery they will endure, I do not know. As I said, it is a tough question, even if it is a rhetorical question.
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him, all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Haha that’s funny!
He was an attention ho, pure and simple. Why give him in death what he didn’t deserve in life? Let apathetic ignominy be his earthly fate.
From my reading of the Christian Bible, hell is at best a permanent separation from God in some profound and deeply tragic way--but necessary in regard to the eternal choice of the beings there to reject a relationship with God. At worse it is a place of intentional eternal vindictive torture. I tend to the first one in both my sensibilities and my reading of scripture. I will not deny that there is some frightful language in the Book of Revelation about an eternal lake of fire, but there seem to me more and plainer less vision-like occasions in scripture where the final state of the dammed is referred to simply as death, eternal destruction, and being the alternative to eternal life--which are not very consistent with a state of eternal temporal awareness in which one is tortured. Jesus seemed to describe it most often as being cast out into darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Regret. Missing out. Shut out. But the only time he seemed to describe it as a place where some physical torment occurred was in the parable of the rich man in a parable...with a tongue that burned who wanted to warn his friends. I am dubious that the point of this parable was to teach the doctrine of hell, its punch line was that if the rich man's brothers would not be convinced by Moses and the prophets, then neither would they be convinced by someone returning from the dead.
Thus with my reading of the doctrine of hell, I find it easier to accept that God would make creatures of free will including those He knew would go bad, and that although He regrets deeply their choices which will lead them into separation from Him, still for whatever reason He thought it good to at least give them a shot at life and existance.
Rejoicing at the death of evil men is very human.
*Tragic* death?
Isn’t every death *tragic*?
Or if not, then why is his?
What makes his more tragic than someone else’s?
How ‘bout we just ignore it?
I’m not God and therefor not wise enough to “love unconditionally”.
I hope he burns in hell...
I wonder if Al will attend the funeral.
Of course he was. The Left could point to Westboro and Phelps and loudly proclaim “See how evil those religious nuts are? Sexist-Racist-homophobe!”
It provided them with justification for their hate. As lawyers, the Phelps clan are civil-rights ambulance chasers. As a church, they’re false-front leftists, as stated in the Venona papers.
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