Words simply fail me

Via Andy at Towleroad, I learn that Fred Phelps and his merry band of haters are planning to preach picket at the funerals of some of the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting that occurred yesterday. I am trying very hard, though thus far not having a great deal of success, not to become what I hate, but suffice it to say that if I were face to face with Mr. Phelps and his supporters right now I think I would have great difficulty repressing the urge to rip their guts out through their mouths. With my bare hands.

Let me be very clear about one thing: these people do not speak for me or represent me in any way. I don't get to make the final call on the matter, but as far as I'm concerned, there can be absolutely no further doubt that they are not Christians in any meaningful sense of that word. No true Christian rejoices at the death of another human being--and doubly so one who was ripped untimely from this life and dispatched to the next. True Christians are the ones holding prayer vigils, donating food, or climbing into cars and airplanes to do what they can to help those affected by this hideous episode of senseless violence to regain something resembling a normal life.

The Phelps family has made something of a business (and quite a name--though that name is a hissing in the dark among decent folk) out of proclaiming God's hatred of some of God's creatures, most notably homosexuals. (They use a less acceptable word when proclaiming that God hates such people, but I won't use that term because I don't even want to contribute in a minor way to promoting their agenda of hatred.) I believe, on the contrary, that in the unlikely event that God hates anything that God has made, it is far more likely to be the Phelps clan than it is any of those whose funerals they picket.

Looking beyond the hubris of trying to tell God whom to love and whom to hate, the Phelps clan also seems utterly lacking in even the most basic elements of human compassion. If I were to accept, argumentis causa, that the Phelpsoi are correct in their theology (which I would vehemently deny at any other time except when trying to make a rhetorical point), how effective are they likely to be at getting it across and getting it accepted if they only proclaim it in the most callous and tasteless way possible, by shouting at the mourners gathered to bury a deceased loved one? No one with an ounce of compassion to wring from his or her soul would ever think of making a funeral into a political event, and any consultant worth his or her salt would absolutely tell anyone considering doing so that it was the worst possible way of attracting members and support for your pet cause.

Yet the famiglia Phelps does this kind of thing regularly, and have for years. How on earth, I wonder, do they get out of bed in the morning and look themselves in the mirror after spewing that much hatred toward so many people for so long? I cringe just at the thought of it, but these people seem to thrive on hating for a living. When we can answer the question of why that happens, we'll be a long way toward arriving at an answer for the related question of why things like the Virginia Tech shootings happen.

Comments

[Incertus]

I don't think you have to defend Christianity against the Phelps crew. Anyone with any sense knows that the Phelps's are monsters who wouldn't know the Gospel if Jesus appeared and bitch-slapped them with it himself. And I do believe he would do it, were he here.

[Michael]

Sadly, there are a fair number of folks on the left who would disagree with you on that point, Brian. I hear constantly that all Christians are no better than their worst representatives, like Phelps, or Robertson, or Dobson or any of that ilk, really. And we're constantly told that unless we're perennially shouting them down from the rooftops, we're as good as in bed with them.

[Bryan]

Where do they get the money to do these hateful things? Who pays for this?

The thought that there are people willing to donate to this "cause/cancer" is unreal. Do any of these people ever read the Gospels? Where is the hate in the Gospels?

I don't understand it and resent their tax free status.

[andante]

Oh. My. God.

I just have no words to describe these monsters.

Karma is generally a bitch. The Phelps family and their ilk have a rude shock coming one of these days.

[Becky]

I have no words to describe what I think of these people. I'm going to ask my husband if we can go to VA to see if we can find some of the funerals and support the families. This is beyond reprehensible.

[cindy]

To understand how Phelps got the way he is, and how he keeps is family under his cult-like power, read: http://www.addictedtohate.com/viewpage.php?page_id=3

It's sickening, but enlightening.

Phelps clearly does not speak for Christianity any more than David Koresh or Jim Jones did. They speak for hatred, which they condone by pulling out a Bible verse now and then.