I was reminded of Matthew 7:21-23 when I read this story of people who call themselves Christians but who demonstrate at funerals of dead soldiers in the most vile and despicable ways, exploiting the grief of bereaved families in order to make a hateful socio-theological statement:
Five women sang and danced as they held up signs saying "thank God for dead soldiers" at the funeral of an army sergeant who was killed by an Iraqi bomb. For them, it was the perfect way to spread God's word: America was being punished for tolerating homosexuality.
For the hundreds of flag waving bikers who came to this small town in Michigan Saturday to shield the soldier's family, it was disgusting. The fringe group of fire and brimstone Baptists from Kansas has been courting controversy for more than 15 years, traveling the country with their hateful signs and slogans.
Pastor Fred helps said he and his congregants are targeting the funerals because God's way of punishing an "evil nation" of "fags and fag enablers" is to "pick off its children."
"I don't have any sympathy for these parents. They're all going to hell," Phelps said. "The family's in pain because they haven't obeyed the Lord God."
The Westboro Baptist Church first gained national notoriety when they picked the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a Wyoming student who was murdered in 1998 for being gay. In Flushing, Michigan they turned their leather-clad backs to the five women and held flags and tarps up so that mourners walking past wouldn't see the signs saying "God hates fags," "fag vets" and "America is doomed."
Many found it hard to hide their anger when Margie Phelps, the daughter of Westboro's founder, called out "All this for little old us? Oh, you shouldn't have. I feel so special," before she started singing "the Pope, the Pope, the Pope is on fire. He don't get no water let the heretics burn" in front of a Catholic church.
Jesus says in the passage in the gospel of Matthew mentioned above that:
You will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, "Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles?" And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you. Depart from me you who practice lawlessness."
Perhaps the worst photo of the Westboro haters appeared in our local paper. It was of a child holding up a sign at the funeral of a young man who was killed in Iraq. The sign had the words THANK GOD FOR IEDs.
Christ also has a word for people who would put children up to that sort of evil. He said: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to stumble, it is better for him that a millstone be hung around his neck, and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea." (Matt. 18:6).
The people at Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas will some day have a lot to answer for, not the least of which is the unChrist-like image of Christianity that they have presented to a world eager to believe the worst of Christians. Pastor Phelps is an answer to their prayers.