Right. When you first enter the site, you are bombarded by huge blue letters exclaiming "Coretta Scott-King is in Hell!". No joke. This little story is just a preview to what you are about to see. Upon entering the site, several other articles claiming certain well known Americans are in Hell singe your already burning eyeballs. They claim, with multiple exclamation points, who and what God hates, and God's supposed plans for all of us (that don't agree with them).
They disgrace the troops, the Katrina victims and even go so far as to say the miners who died recently in Virginia were targets of God's wrath. Death, apparently, is a punishment. I suppose members from this particular Baptist church believe themselves immortal.
I have to admit that at first, I was a little put off by their violent vocalization. After further examination, I began to believe the whole thing was made by some bored teenagers. Now my curiosity was struck. I clicked on their "Contact Us" link and was greeted by this:
"Westboro Baptist Church members welcome thoughtful dialogue regarding our church, beliefs, and preaching ministry. We are prepared to answer any question, for we follow the commandment found at 1 Peter 3:15 " But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear". Our servers detect and deal appropriately with profanity, so if you want to waste your time, feel free, but don't expect a reply to your email. If your question is answered in our FAQ, or answered in the FAQ at godhatesfags.com, expect to be told so -- in other words, read them first."
Now I ask you, How could I resist?! When I told Josh I was going to email them some questions, he looked at me like I was crazy. But I just have to pick on people like this, I can't help it.
The email took me about an hour to write, though it was quite short, considering. The trick was writing an email asking questions that they could answer, without getting sarcastic. I also had to get around this amazing profanity detecting server they claim to have. That was about a week ago, and I still haven't got an answer from them. I think I did well, until the end where I may have tripped myself up by asking them if they were a real church group, or just a bunch of spoiled kids making a website to tick people off. *shrugs*
If you have the constitution for it, check out this site. If nothing else, do it for the laughs. I particularly recommend the September 11th article. The day-glow blue header proclaims "This is the only truth about September 11th you're likely to hear, so pay attention!" But...they don't really say too much about the event its self. (Is Michael Guest really gay? I hadn't heard that one.) Anyway, the header is a lie, because their ramblings can be found on any liberal anti-American website. Or, even more predominantly, on any Middle Eastern news paper. Who believes God hates America more than the Muslims? The Baptists, apparently.
One thing is obvious, the practice of misquoting scripture to get your own agenda across is still very much alive. Don't be deceived (though I do take you all as much too smart for that). God Hates America is for entertainment purposes, only. I'll let you know if they email me back, though I highly doubt they will.
Couldn't help myself, Tim. Thanks for the ammo.
10 comments:
Aww man, I wanted to make my comment in huge bold blue letters but blogger won't let me. :(
Anyway, I hope they email you back.
Maybe they can tell me if my old cat is in hell or not...
Hell yeah! That is an actual group. They recently protested down in Annapolis MD near the naval base. All kind of extra security where down there. Me and Jason wanted to go there and slap some bitches. But we didn't.
I hope they get back to you.
I love their header. I wish I could make a header that cool. And they went as far as to put an incomplete 'blockheader' tag on their site. Awesome.
And seriously, how did they get the American flag in the background to be upside-down AND repeat!? These guys are geniuses!!
OK, maybe not. They have typical Christian thought process though, in that they contradict themselves. Their homepage says "It's too late to pray for America!" even though Acts 2:38 says "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Silly Christians.
*Sigh* I couldn't resist. I didn't spend anymore than a couple minutes on my e-mail though, so I'm sure yours was much better...hehe, but I sent this:
Hello,
Your main page claims “It’s too late to pray for America!” – doesn’t that contradict Acts 2:38? If not, could you please explain how you think it doesn’t? Where in the Bible is there a “deadline” for repentance? Obviously, after the rapture…but that hasn’t happened, so I think the statement on your main page there is a little like trying to put words in God’s mouth. This, in turn, is blasphemous. Or perhaps the whole concept of Matthew 7:1-3 doesn’t mean anything to you? Another verse that comes to mind would be a little further down the page in Matthew 7:22. I look forward to your explanations as to how you can consider your judging and blasphemous claims as “Godly”. Regards,
Dan LeFebvre
You guys are awesome :-]
Tim, I wanna know the next time their in town. That sounds like a whole lotta fun to me.
Dan, wasn't that website cool?! Heh, yeah. The reason it took me so long to write them an email was because it was so hard not to just pick on how stupid they so obviously are. I really love/hate stupid people. As long as they don't get in my way, their quite entertaining.
But your email is much better written. You have to tell us if they write back.
...aaannndd I used the wrong "their" in my comment about stupid people.
*cries*
I blame it on the baby.
Hi Josh –
Please forward to Lindsey…since I don’t have her email address.
I have been reading your blog and I am sorry you feel wounded by the church. God knows, so do I. And people feel wounded by me. I even feel wounded by God sometimes. I also feel wounded by family, but that doesn’t make me any less a member of the family. I know my family feels wounded by me too – yet they are still family. Hopefully they still love me.
If you applied the same logic to me that you do to the church, then we would have no relationship. Josh and I wouldn’t work together, we wouldn’t go to dinner together or even talk.
I don’t know why people get the impression that Christians are perfect (or claim to be perfect). They (we) aren’t. We should try to be, but only One was perfect. Just because somebody in a church offended you or did whatever they did to hurt you doesn’t mean the entire Christian body is bad or wrong. Again, if that was the case…then you should be ashamed to have adopted the last name Sammons based on my actions/decisions etc. I try to be a good, moral person, but admittedly have shortcomings that affect the Sammons name. And since I call myself a Christian, then it also reflects on the Christian name. But it does not mean all Sammons’ are bad any more than it means all Christians are bad.
I had a German Shephard dog once and it bit an innocent person visiting our house. But I didn’t disavow the entire German Shephard breed because of the actions of that dog.
Hopefully you understand what I am trying to say.
I have been where you are before. Frankly, in some ways I am there now. I think I have been to church once in about 3 months. Going through the separation and divorce opened my eyes as to how some people treat their ‘friends’. Some have been judgemental. Some have been supportive. The best friends have been both. The most disappointing friends have been the ones who just faded away and disappeared. I wondered if I developed leprosy when my marriage hit the rocks. Many of my new friends aren’t Christians, and since they aren’t governed by any Higher Moral Code other than their own internal compass, they are more accepting of me. The Christian friends who I sat with at church read the Bible where it says God hates divorce, etc, and they don’t know what to do with me.
But that’s their problem. It’s not the whole Church. And it’s certainly not Jesus’ response to me.
So I try to be careful about throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I don’t want people to judge Christianity by me. So---I am not going to judge Christianity by other individuals who call themselves Christians. And I’m not going to say I don’t like Christians because of individuals who acted unchristian any more than I am going to say I hate Republicans because Richard Nixon was a crook. The Republican party is open to anybody who registers to vote and wants to call themselves a Republican, just like Christianity is open to anybody who chooses it. There will be some good ones and some bad ones, and ultimately you and I are responsible for our own actions.
Vowing to keep Riley out of sunday school may seem like the solution, but I suggest that a more valuable solution would be for you and Josh to teach sunday school if you think its that bad.
I’m not sure how to end this post except to suggest that Donald Miller in BLUE LIKE JAZZ is on the right track when he went to Reed College and set up a confessional booth – not to TAKE confessions, but to OFFER confessions about his own personal shortcomings and the shortcomings of those who share his faith.
If you want to set up a booth, I’m in.
ps- Regarding Westboro Baptist Church, the following is from Wikipedia:
Although its members identify themselves as Baptists, the church is not affiliated with any known Baptist conventions or associations.
Not only is Westboro opposed by supporters of gay rights, but the vast majority of Christian groups (even those who agree with Westboro that homosexuality is a sin) oppose Westboro's theology and practice, believing it to be incompatible with traditional Christian teachings.
ooops. Sorry for the goofy "Josh give this to Linz" thing. I originally was going to email rather than post - but changed my mind and didnt delete the first line. Or you can attribute it to an old fart trying to use modern technology.
They replied rather quickly.
And I understand what you're trying to say, Bill. Judgment of a group based on individual parts isn't the best solution. However, since Paul's inception of Christianity, it has taught that - to put it simply - you can only be a "true Christian" if you're part of the group. Namely, going to church, trying to convert others to the Christian belief, etc. None of Jesus' teachings say anything about this...in fact, his teachings are basically saying that your faith is between you and God. Paul was the one that came in and started organizing churches. Now I'm not saying that's where the downfall is, because as the saying goes "two minds are better than one". Sometimes it helps to bounce ideas off other people, and get other opinions, etc. However, in society today it's grown to where you're considered an outcast from the Christian religion if you don't go to church. Its gotten so bad that I've even heard many people, when asked if they're a Christian, say "I go to church", and implying 'therefore I am a Christian'-type statement. *sigh* Paul was a sneaky little guy, wasn't he?
I find it rather interesting how Christians band together whenever it's in regards to something good...like saying "There's 100 million Christians in Idaho alone."* And yet, when its in regards to something not-so-good, like when a Christian is blamed for something publically then all of a sudden "Well, he/she wasn't a true Christian because blah blah, etc. etc."
Sermon over.
-----------------------------
*Not true. We all know there's not even 100 million people that would ever WANT to live in Idaho, let alone that actually do currently.
Thanks for taking the time to read my long winded blog. My writing is rusty, along with my vocab. and most embarrassingly, my spelling, but it helps to let off some steam. There is plenty more where that came from. It's not my intention to offend people when I write, though I know my content so far has been pretty controversial.
I think you might have misunderstood what I was trying to say about the Church. Well, more than likely I just didn't vocalize my point very well. I had a feeling I should let Josh write about this one, because as I said in my post, my wounds tend to get in the way of my real point. I probably won't end up getting my point across with this either, but I really felt the need to respond to your comment. I'll do the best I can...
Yes, we've all made mistakes and God knows I have sizeable wounds from people in my family, too. The difference is family will always love you no matter what. So will Jesus. The church is supposed to, but they don't. It seems to me they don't even try. See, you might feel as if you caught leprosy after the divorce but by the way the church has treated me, I was born with it. My poor mother tried, but we were never (really) accepted anywhere. I could name 4 or 5 churches that held this prejudice against us. I had one teacher tell me that mom was going to hell because she rode a motorcycle. They didn't like the way she dressed, talked, the fact that she was a young, single mother, the ugly things in her past. Escaping them was the fact that she single handedly drug two screaming kids (and later, teenagers) to church every week despite all her short comings. Or the fact that she worked two jobs six days a week, and still decided to get up early on her day off and volunteer in the nursery center. Getting members with "ideal" situations to volunteer with the babies is like pulling teeth. They should have made her a saint. This is only the tip of the ice burg as far as the hurt the church has put on my family and myself. Maybe my real problem is not that I don't want to be a Christian, but the fact that they never will accept me as one. But I don't think so.
I will always identify with, and have more compassion for, the people of the world. Somebody has to.
And that is why I think Christians believe themselves to be perfect. If they didn't, they wouldn't be so judgmental of other people. Its like, do they think Jesus only saved them? Dare I say they are almost as bad as WBC because they think they know who deserves salvation, and who doesn't.
While I think I have plenty of reasons not to like Christians based on what they have done to me in the past, I know that I probably shouldn't judge them as a group. A little black boy tried to kill me on the bus when I was in elementary school. I don't hold any judgment against the entire black race because of it, but you won't catch Riley riding a school bus. I just refuse to knowingly put my child in a place where he will be hurt. I feel the same about Sunday school.
Riley definitely has less of a chance of being wounded in church because of the name he has. I honestly don't see that as a positive, I think it only further proves my point of everything that is wrong with the place. Josh and I do see this as a problem, and we will be teaching him from home. No worries there.
I tried to make it clear in my post that my love for God has only changed for the better. I spent some time being angry at him, as I think most of us have, but I realized that it wasn't his fault that people were bad. I do think that's the real problem, people are just bad. I don't see the point of church anyway, and if bad people are running it, going around doing hurtful things in the name of God, then I choose not to be a part of it.
The fact that some of your friends ditched you due to your personal problems troubles me on two levels. The fact that they claim to be friends, and yet are only there for the good times, and the fact that they claim to be Christians, but only love you when they agree with what you're doing. I can't imagine a good excuse for these people. Why is it that people with no "Higher Moral Code" are more accepting of human nature, than the people who claim to love the One who created it? Why is it that Christians feel they need to judge what Jesus himself won't? Isn't it fair to say that you repented for any actions you may have done, as well as my mother and anyone else who is saved? And yet you are both treated as if you still have blood on your hands! I'm sorry, but I don't get it. It might not be the whole church, but its enough of it.
You say you don't want people to judge Christianity by you, but the fact is that they do. Aren't we "Jesus to the world" or however its said? If we aren't supposed to judge Christianity by Christians, then what DO we measure it with? Christians ARE supposed to be representative of Christ, and if the majority of those who have had contact with them believe them to be judgmental and exclusive, than that is how they are going to view Christ. And you can't say that's not true, based on what people generally have to say about God, when asked. I honestly believe that's why a lot of people today will simply tell you that God doesn't exist. It's just less painful to believe He isn't there than that He is, but He just doesn't like you. The booth thing was a good start, Christians need to apologize to the world about A LOT. I can't apologize for the whole Christian community, and I refuse to have to continually apologize for them, especially if they don't believe they need apologizing for. I figure if I don't associate myself, I don't have to apologize for anything but myself, because God doesn't need apologizing for.
My point in the "Church or not to Church" post was what was in that article, if you read it. In all honesty, I never meant to write everything else that I wrote. The truth is I need to get the stuff that happened to me off of my chest sometimes, and I really hate talking about it because then physical emotions come up, and I can no longer express myself. I guess if you really want to know why Josh and I don't go, you should read the article, not my BS.
And as far as the WBC post goes, I was really just trying to poke fun at them. I had a pretty good feeling the Baptist associations either didn't know or didn't take part in what they were doing with their stupid website. In fact, in my email I asked for the name of their pastor and the Baptists groups they associate themselves with, but I never got a response.
In the end, I don't see it as a crime that I won't use a worldly title (created by man) to describe my love for God. If it's offensive to people that I don't use this title, or they start to worry about me, they should know its a wasted effort. God knows what's in my heart and my love and dedication to Him. It's like I never have to go around calling myself "Josh's wife" or insisting on "Mrs. Sammons" for people to know that I love my husband. It should be obvious in the way I act. I think its the same for God. In all honesty, would you rather have someone SAY they love you, or would you rather have them SHOW it?
The important thing I think people tend to miss when they get wrapped up in traditions and titles, is that Josh and I DO love God, we intend to raise Riley the same, and we are going to heaven. What else matters?
Post a Comment