I learned recently that Westboro Baptist Church has a new video that blames Christians for same-sex marriage. I don't want to post the video here. The link alone will do. I find it to be a rather pathetic thing. It contains the hate language that we've come to expect from WBC.
While the video is bound to cause some confusion about how a self-identified Christian group can blame Christians for the thing it claims to be against, it's all part of the cult-like tactic of WBC that sets them up as the only true bearers of truth and genuine faith. The message is that Christians who refuse to hate gay people aren't Christian at all.
It's easy enough to dismiss WBC. It's an easy temptation to ignore them and hope they will simply go away. However, there is something for all of us--especially those of us who refuse to hate; those who are the targets of this latest attempt--to be warned of and of which we must be on guard.
Take away the blatant hate language; take away the anti-gay slurs, and what might be left is language that many of us are accustomed to hearing as an acceptable way to believe. The video begins "The bible defines marriage as one man, one woman, one lifetime." The problem is that WBC is attempting to dupe us into accepting its doctrine of hate.
A comment made by one of the readers of a story about the video reads, "I grew up catholic and I never, ever remember the priests giving a liturgy on anti-gay, anti-Jew or anti-minority ideology. Yes, homosexuality is going against God's Laws..." There is a serious problem here that I believe we have to avoid. It has to do with the mistake that the commenter who I quoted made. Certainly the bible, God's laws if you prefer, makes plenty of condemnations. However, when did God tell us to pick one law and let it lead us into an all-out war of hate? Really, what goes against Jesus' teaching is human beings hating and judging other human beings.
The rhetoric of WBC is clear. It's easy to say, "I don't believe that. I'm not going to carry a sign with a hate message and I'm not going to use hate language." However, where we have to be cautious is when it comes to accepting and endorsing the same rhetoric when it is presented to us as a legitimate Christian concern. Sometimes the same ideas come to us in a way that the hate of it is hidden from us though still present.
In the bible God said "It is not good for the man to be alone..." This is what I'm going to endorse. Our faith ought to be such that we don't need to fear the possibility of the destruction of the family. Jesus taught love and forgiveness. When Christianity begins teaching otherwise then it may be time to ask whether it has veered off the path.
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